Stimulants (regardless of mechanism) in bipolar people can definitely act as "triggers" for mood swings, or can even initiate the disorder to begin with, or make it more severe. This is a well-known thing. It's why people with atypical depression tend to be medicated VERY cautiously indeed-- because some of them may worsen abruptly and then go into mania when withdrawn from the med.
This mania is what happens to DD if we take her off. But not right away. It takes a couple days. Do you have any links or anything that would help explain this? She has never had any signs of depression, but she has always been "spirited", like a lot of gifted children.
I'll see what I can dig up for you today.
One of the drug classes which is a known epigenetic trigger for affective dysfunction is
steroids. Regardless of the reason for them, I mean. That one in particular I'm familiar with because I have a child that has both the right genetics for susceptibility, and also has occasionally fairly urgent need for steroids.
Here's one that is relatively recent, though I don't KNOW that I love the methodology here since I think it fails to account for genetic differences in the compared populations and also for differential diagnostic methods.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032702001805There is quite a lot of research in this particular area-- but I'll warn parents that this is some VERY frightening reading.
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/104454603322163925This is a very good review article (I highly recommend this one as a balanced and thorough examination of risk):
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028390804001820http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2898838/If nothing else, I think that those amply demonstrate that these drugs that tweak the catecholamine neurotransmitter systems are
complex things in terms of risk-benefit, and that it is FAR from clear what those risks and benefits are to any one individual.
