BP w/ Psychotic features or Schizoaffective?

My second question is how do I (and of course, my psychiatrist) differentiate between whether I am bipolar with psychotic features or schizo-affective? I definitely have the cycles of mania and depression, starting about three years ago, would have auditory and visual hallucinations when severely depressed. Recently with this batch of mania, I have begun to have the auditory hallucinations too, as well as visual. I also am having some problems with disorganized thoughts and speech and delusions.

Thank you...

[ILADVOCATE]

I have schizoaffective disorder (with the bipolar aspect) and before my current recovery I had psychotic thoughts and delusions at all times (depending on my response to treatment as well of course). I do know that for schizoaffective disorder delusions and psychosis occur at all times whereas in bipolar with psychotic features they occur only during moodswings. You can  speak to your psychiatrist about this but also keep a mood tracker and print out the results for  your psychiatrist as that can be markedly helpful as well.

[starbunny]

ILADVOCATE is right, about the mood episodes correlating with psychotic features for BP, and so this is where the mood chart can help. I would not worry too much about getting the right 'label' as the treatment is basically the same for both conditions; an antipsychotic and mood stabiliser. I have suspected that I had schizoaffective in the past, but either way, it would not make a difference to my medications as far as I'm aware.