Bipolar at night?

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I have a friend (literally, a friend, not me) who is a teenage with all the symptoms of manic depression. Here's the weird thing. He's fairly normal during the day, but becomes hypomanic (or full-blown manic) and depressed at night, switching between moods within minutes.

Has anyone heard of someone with bipolar behaving this way? Is this characteristic of a teenager with the condition, but not an adult?

Sounds like a teenager to me.
As a crazy person, night time is the crazy time though as well as Spring.
Might just be too much sugar of coffee.

I've read that people have two low points of their circadian clock each day and two high points. So, this switching between moods could take place at a low point.

And also, even in my 40s I sometimes get angry at night if it's been a busted day or something social I looked forward to didn't work out.

Weird things can happen at night when your brain needs rest. I know some people who act hypomanic when they're tired. But I think it's odd for a bipolar person to be fine during the day. Episodes typically last weeks or months, during both daytime and nighttime. There's ultraradian cycling where moods can change within a 24 hour period. But I've never heard of what your friend experiences.

Going without sleep at night can mimic bipolar, I regularly become dyshorically hypomanic when I stay awake for long periods.

I was like that years ago at night when I was going through a bad psychotic depression. I was originally diagnosed as being bipolar by my GP but none of the psychs I saw thought I was bipolar because bipolars do not cycle that fast. They said it was Borderline Personality Disorder & sever depression. Depressed teens can be like that & have a lot of other BPD symptoms

It is called sundowner's syndrome. People who are mentally and/or physically ill have their worst symptoms after the sun goes down, in fact they actually lose ground if they stay up too late. This has to do with the circadian rhythm, people who are ill do best when they revert to pre-modern age sleep/awake schedule which is up at dawn, bed at dusk. With bipolar, it is important to stop the manic or hypomanic episodes because the resulting depression is just an emotional crash from the emotional high. What goes up, has to come down applies to moods as well. When a person has a true manic episode, it causes brain injury which makes Bipolar even harder to control.
There is also such a thing as rapidly cycling BP, but he would do alot better to go to bed at sunset to prevent manic episodes.

Jojo

Mood episodes do not last for mere minutes in bipolar disorder. Mood episodes must last for at least several days in a row in the current diagnostic systems.

Now that you say it, true.

However those with violent mood swings that can change course in less than a day are usually diagnosed with borderline personality disorder which the symptoms are similar to bipolar in terms of mood swings but more rapid.

Also I just thought of something else...you said he acts normal in the day and is totally off the chain at night...is there a medication that he only takes at night?? Some psychotropic medication side effects can cause the symptom they are supposed to treat if the person who is taking them is not bipolar or whatever. I know a guy here with AS that was given anti-psychotics and it actually caused him to act totally insane...which then was put on more meds which made him act worse and then more and more only to the point he was actually halucinating and then one day after he left his parrents house, he quit taking the meds cold turkey only to find he was a rational human being.

Right now just about anyone who walks in some psychiatrists' offices are diagnosed with bipolar disorder because insurance companies pay more for bipolar diagnoses than others because the drug companies are in bed with insurance companies.

So someone comes in the office with situational depression from life just sucking at the moment, but are otherwise normal people and then the doc tells them they are bipolar and puts them on a host of mood stabilzers....then said person does act crazy cuz the drugs meant to balance abnormal neurotransmitters is totally wakking out the person with otherwise normal neurotransmitters.

Jojo

After recently being given a diagnosis of bi-polar (which I think is wrong and the symptoms are from ptsd on top of my AS personality) I read up on it and found that there are four kinds: The regular kind, where moods cycle slowly over a year or more, rapid cycle where they cycle several times a year, ultra rapid - where they cycle up and down in days to weeks and ultridian where they cycle up and down on a daily basis. All this was news to me. But other conditions can cause mood swings, including ptsd, AS, eating the wrong stuff, drug use, etc..

Is there things going on in the day that could be stressing him out or perhaps something going on in his life that he's having problems with? When I was going through my depression; I forced myself to be held together during the day to deal with things but I broke down at night because I couldn't hold myself together anymore. Breaking down at night by crying, getting angry, & sometimes doing things that appeared to be crazy. allowed me to get things out of my system before going to bed(or crying myself to sleep) so I could maintain enough mental control to hold myself together the next day. I was depressed because of things going on in my life(my life circumstances) & having bad OCD & sever panic-attacks with that kind of triggered it for me
jojobean is rite about psych meds sometimes causing the very problems they are supposed to treat. I felt depressed the entire 5 years I was on meds & I did not really truly start feeling better till I had weaned myself off of them. I was over the life circumstances that caused my depression but the meds kept me depressed. So any medication he's taking(if he's taking any) should defiantly be considered.

In the DSM-IV-TR, rapid cycling is four or more distinct mood episodes in a year. Very likely, "ultraradian cycling" is not the same disorder as standard-issue bipolar disorder. Drastic changes in mood/affect over the course of minutes is a very different clinical picture from bipolar disorder and is probably some kind of emotional dysregulation/labile affect brought on for different reasons such as borderline personality disorder, drug intoxication, brain damage or a neurodegenerative disease, etc.

The DSM-IV-TR mandates a minimum two-week period for a major-depressive episode, one week for a manic episode, one week for a mixed episode, and four days for a hypomanic episode.

"Ultradian" bipolar is defined as experiencing more than one mood episode a day. It is a type of bipolar, but the reason it is not listed in the DSM-IV is it's still a very new recognized form of bipolar and scientists haven't yet agreed on full classification for it. I think it is supposed to be listed in the DSM-V when it comes out. I have been diagnosed with ultradian bipolar by the leading bipolar specialist in my city, and my episodes can last anything from an hour or so to 1 to 2 days. These are clear and distinct episodes, fully meeting the criteria for major depression and hypomania (with the exception of length, although in the past I have experienced much longer episodes before the rate of my cycling increased).

Also, if further clarification is required my psychiatrist says I definitely do not have borderline personality disorder, plus I have been independently and officially diagnosed with bipolar by 2 different psychiatrists (and unofficially diagnosed by another) in one year.

Thank you all for your replies!

How fast would the cycling be in a condition like schizoaffective disorder?