Bipolar Disorder Q&A: Is it too dangerous to travel with bipolar disorder?

By Joe Kraynak
May 8, 2009

Stanley Asks…

I was wondering if you could give me some advice. I am 27 and I have bipolar disorder, I was diagnosed four years ago, and within that period I have had three episodes. I am on medication. The last episode I was hospitalized for three months. I haven’t had an episode for a year. I am at present in college and hope to travel during the summer.

My question is should I travel? I plan to fly from Ireland to Australia, stay for a month, and then on to New Zealand and stay there for a month. The last time I traveled to Spain, it took me 3 days to recover. The stress of travel caused me to become paranoid and irritable.

I remember asking the same question to an experienced nurse, and he advised me against it. What do you think?

Joe Answers…

I know of several people with bipolar who have traveled to foreign countries without incident. As long as your moods are in check before you leave and medication is in place to keep your moods stable, I don’t see why you couldn’t travel.

My wife has bipolar and is able to travel, although she did have to cancel a trip a couple summers ago because she started cycling into mania just prior to her scheduled date of departure. Traveling when your moods are erratic is definitely a bad idea.

If you decide to move forward with your plans, I would recommend the following:

Make sure you have flight insurance so you can cancel the flights if need be without suffering any financial hardship.
Keep in close contact with your doctor and/or therapist leading up to your date of departure to make sure you’re healthy before leaving.
Make sure you have a sufficient supply of medications and follow all the rules for carrying them with you on your flights and in the countries you plan to visit. (You may need to keep the meds in their prescription bottles and carry a signed letter from your doctor indicating the meds you need.)
Having a trustworthy travel companion who’s capable of identifying any early warning signs of mania or depression and who knows what to do in case of a mood episode would be great. If that’s not an option, maybe you can enlist the assistance of someone at each of your destination points.
Look for ways to make your trip less stressful. You may want to schedule fewer activities, for example, and make sure your schedule includes sufficient down time.

The two biggies are these: 1) Take your meds as prescribed. 2) Get enough sleep.

Hope this helps and that you have a wonderful trip. Having bipolar doesn’t mean you have to stop living… or traveling.

In 1999, my wife, Cecie, experienced her first major manic episode. She ended up in St. Vincent’s Stress Center, where she was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder. She has been hospitalized a total of three times – all for mania. She rarely experiences the debilitating depression that many people with bipolar disorder struggle with. We have two children together, both of whom are pretty much adults at this point. Over the past decade or so, we’ve struggled to coexist with this disease. At times, it seems to be a cruel puppet master pulling our strings to act out some demented drama on the stage we call our home. Most times, we manage to keep this beast chained up, through a combination of medicine and therapy, but occasionally it escapes and turns our home inside out. In 2005, I had the good fortune to co-author Bipolar Disorder For Dummies with Dr. Candida Fink. In the process, I learned a great deal about bipolar disorder and strategies for treating it, preventing major mood episodes, and dealing with the fallout when preventive measures are ineffective. Through this blog, I hope to share what I’ve learned about bipolar while I continue to discover even more.

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2 Comments to
“Bipolar Disorder Q&A: Is it too dangerous to travel with bipolar disorder?”

Carole at 1:05 am on May 11th, 2009

I think a problem with the trip you are proposing is the change of multiple time zones. If you try to keep your sleep cycle as consistent as possible you are less likely to cycle into mania. When I only changed one time zone my pdoc recommended that I keep on the original time zone for one day, then change my sleep time one hour the next day, doing the same on my return home. Perhaps you would need to apply the same concept to your multi-time zone trip.

starlite*111 at 7:49 pm on May 27th, 2009

I heard since an episode on an airplane -
that it is NOT recommended for Bipolar to fly