Posted by xjs7 on November 10, 2005, at 15:56:18
In reply to Re: i could be bipolar please read » chand2407, posted by Racer on November 10, 2005, at 12:35:33
Hi Racer,
You may be right about diagnosis not being that important in the mental health field 95% of the time, but sometimes it is extremely important--literally a life or death situation. For example, take my case. I presented to a psychiatrist in 2001 with auditory and visual hallucinations. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia and put on an antipsychotic. Well, there were these periods where parts of my body would jerk around. So, in trying to diagnose myself, I decided that I might have partial seizures. So I went to a neurologist, and had an MRI. Well it turns out I had a rare brain tumor that causes psychosis, a rare kind of seizures, and a lot of other symptoms. Now, this tumor was benign and would never have killed me. But what I am saying is that if I had had a malignant tumor, being diagnosed with anxiety and not searching out for the correct diagnosis could have lead to death. I too play doctor but in my case this really helped me. I encourage all patients to seek the right diagnosis. This will take years (unless you get better), but it is necessary. If I had just kept going to that psychiatrist who diagnosed me with schizophrenia I would still be having partial seizures all day and be even more disabled than I am now.
And, another data point--the antipsychotics work great on me. But, I do not have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression. I am all in favor of this poster taking her antipsychotic, but she needs to determine the true cause of her symptoms. In my case no doctor could do that.
xjs7
> Take a deep breath now, and repeat after me:
>
> "I am the Patient. I am not the Doctor. It is not my job to tell the Doctor my diagnosis, nor to prescribe my own Treatment. That is the Doctor's job, and it is OK for me to let him do it."
>
> I've read a lot of your posts, and it looks as though you're trying to figure all this out, and that's great. While it's a subject of debate, I think it's better to be involved and informed as a patient, rather than simply relying on a doctor to make every decision. On the other hand, it can be taken too far, and that can have negative consequences for us.
>
> By the way, I do the same thing, although I'm trying very hard not to.
>
> As for your question, the answer isn't as straightforward as it might be, because diagnostics is an inexact science. Right now, there's a growing sense amongst psychiatrists that ALL patients with both depressive and anxious symptoms are actually bipolar. Thankfully, there are still some hold outs who say that those are two separate conditions. Whether your doctor decides that you are bipolar, or both anxious and depressed, will likely be affected by where he stands on this debate. The bottom line, though, isn't so much what your diagnosis is, but whether the treatment you receive for it is effective. And the treatments for both have a lot of overlap.
>
> I'm pretty definitively diagnosed with both anxiety disorder and depression, and my doctor has talked about trying things like Lithium, rather than anti-depressants. He says that it can be quite effective for unipolar depression. It could be that you respond well to a treatment generally used for one, despite a diagnosis of the other. What's more, the anti-psychotics are very useful for anxiety symptoms, so whether you're truly psychotic, or suffering very severe anxiety symptoms may not matter much, either.
>
> Remember: Give the doctor a chance to do his job, and let the effectiveness of the treatment trump the diagnosis. Good luck.
poster:xjs7
thread:577319
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051106/msgs/577510.html