Funny you ask this. Before being diagnosed recently I had a flare-up (didn't know it was lupus yet) and my boyfriend has noticed that I have drastic changes in mood. He very nicely asked: "maybe we could see if you are bipolar ?". That scares me in retrospect because I know Lupus can affect the brain and I also had many incidents of "Lupus Fog" (short confusion episodes). I am a graduate student in math, and the possibility of my brain (moods) being affected scares the living daylights out of me. It pretty much could put an end to my career goals. I read somewhere that Lupus can even cause psychosis (hope it's not true).

my doctor told me that some of the long term affects of being on prednisone can cause dramatic mood swings some so dramatic to the point where it seems as if the patient may be bipolar. My parents and boyfriend say I act bipolar some times when I get mad but Ive been to a therapist twice and they said I was fine. I think a lot of it has to do with the long term side effects because sometimes I can be so happy and having a good time but when somebody makes me mad they immediately regret that.

My sister was diagnosed with discoid and systemic lupus 8 years ago. She has had many discoid flare ups and in the last two years she has had 2 discoid and systemic flare ups. She was very down in the dumps and couldn't hold a conversation during the first flare up. The second flare up she was ver manic and had many halucinations. It was so bad that she had to be put into a phsych hospital for many weeks. Finally, doctors came to a conclusion that she was bipolar and prednisone was not the cause of this behavior. We were all very shocked and researched bipolar and lupus extensively. Finally, we decided they might be right. We offer our full support to my sister but since we had to put her in a psych hospital we lost some of her trust. But we know it was for her own good. My suggestion to anyone going through this with a loved one is to be there for them and always make sure they know you are behind them.