How did you get diagnosed ?

[adel_ezz]

Hi All

I thought of making a poll to investigate this matter..

The reason is that since I fell ill, I visited some fifteen if not more stupid pdocs (I can't remember the whole bloody bunch). Some said I have BP1 a few said 2 a crazy one said 1.5 the last one said cyclothemic . Now my diagnosis of BP was based upon being driven manic under an antidepressant, as i lived on one AD (a tricyclic) only without neither an AP nor an MS. The book says if manic once then I am BP.

My mother who has an instinctive insight into many things, and is also well read, bet I am not one, because she said in dogs' fighting they feed them with antidepressants before the fight to become ferocious, so any person who is fed on AD only presumably he will get manic. However I know that many BP pts are also diagnosed as such because they started as being hypomanic and doing weird things, so i presume those are BP genetically and must be put on mood stabilizers to stop this phenomenon. In my case I was depressed and had to take an AD. So my question is

How many started as being depressed first and the AD's drove them manic
How many were dx BP because they were manic / hypomanic

thanks
adel ezz

[cowgirlnerd]

Mis-diagnosed as clinical depression - AD's and Adderall elevated my mania.  Suicide attempt clinched it.  

[Malaksharif]

Hi Ezz

i am not sure which group do i fit in?!!! i think both

i was going to pdoc and was on and off AD (that i even do not remember the names) for about 7 years since high school and college ,,,but i always felt ok and sometimes felt that the meds are doing nothing and maybe i am just a spoiled girl escaping her duties like my family thought

i turned manic after my first year of marriage ,4 month after my miscarriage and of course was on denial as i had no idea what bp was so although i am diagnosed as bp2,,i went manic with delusions or hallucinations (not sure which word is right here but i was CRAZY)) not hypodermic as i stayed manic for 5 month refusing to go to any pdoc

it has been 3 years now but it took me more than i year to stable and another year to be ok

[hell1971]

I have always been an up and down type of girl or so I thought. last year I was severly depressed and for the first time thought I needed medical intervention. I was given an AD, within 4 days I was high as a kite, manically cleaning, gardening ( late at night in the dark ) happy as larry in my own little world, not sleeping but not tired anymore, speaking loudly, laughing in an over the top exagerated way, saying inapropriate stuff with no care as to what I was saying, flurting terribly, after two weeks my doc took me off the AD and I still kept on climbing until I became all mixed up, having panicky periods, couldnt concentrate, had mind games, seeing things in the corner of my eyes. Then I get diagnosed and it has taken me a year to become stable again. My pdoc thinks the AD was just a quick start to an episode he thinks I would have had anyway. I have been diagnosed BPII and have taken a long time to believe what he is telling me, I have had two other doctors confirm his diagnosis although my therapist disagrees, sometimes I just dont know what to think..thats my story anyway

[Xila31]

As I may have said, I was diagnosed under odd circumstances. I was the at the doctor because I was having pain that made me believe I was pregnant. The pregnancy test was negative. So, my doctor said he would run some blood tests but depending how those came out maybe he could convince the insurance company to give me an early mamogram. He said he doubted it was breast cancer so that would be the last step. Well, within 2 seconds I went from completely normal to collapsing in a heap of weeping and sobbing and panic. My behavior became erratic and he decided to test me for depression and bipolar with two tests but also prescribed me Lamictal. This was back in May. I wasn't able to fill the prescirption until July.. Both of those tests came back as positive for bipolar. My psychiatrist also says I have boarderline personality disorder, schizotyple disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder.

Ironically, this diagnosis comes more than 10 years after I was suffering from sever paranoid delusions and a lot more manic or hypomanic behaviors than I have now. And it comes 18 years after my first suicide attempt, (for which I received no treatments or diagnosis.) If I had known that exhibiting my extreem terror of breast cancer could have gotten me some help, maybe I would have tried that sooner. >.<

[ILADVOCATE]

As I said in other posts back in 1991 I had a year before self diagnosed (never a good idea) with ocd (in actuality as another psychiatrist explained the obsessive thoughts were masking psychotic thoughts) so I was given Anafranil (what was the only SSRI available then) and it because I have the bipolar aspect of schizoaffective made me so psychotic that I ended up in the psych. hospital. In the hospital I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia but afterwards when I came out the psychiatrist I was seeing then realized that because I had a mood disorder (which made sense to me as well, I was on Trilafon, an old line antipsychotic but lithium as well and I asked what the mood stabilizer was for) that the diagnosis was updated to schizoaffective which remains a diagnosis though now that I have a physical disability and I am mentally recovered is now my secondary diagnosis officially.

[Narnia41]

Hi Adel

I think that's a really good question, and one I've often wondered about myself.

Personally I was treated first for depression and given Prozac.  I took it for 6 months then stopped it myself because I felt so euphoric and full of energy I thought there was no need to continue taking the AD. 6 months later I was back at the docs depressed again, and was given Cipralex.  I used that for 6 months but instead of euphoria I became badly aggitated physically and mentally.  So then the doc changed my AD to Cymbalta...again same result.  Only then after 2 months of Cymbalta did the Psychiatrist decide I was rapid cycling Bipolar and introduced a MS.  So obviously my AD therapy induced Bipolar rapid cycling.

From what I've read this scenario is very common, when a patient first presents with only depression.  From what I believe I was always genetically pre-disposed with Bipolar, if not then the AD's would've aided my recovery instead of making things worse.

Good question though!

[adel_ezz]

Of course 2 options remain:

Either my 1st diagnosis of OCD was wrong
OR a percentage of OCD pts turn BP (a canadian booklet asserts this).

all i am sure of, is that the story is a BLOODY MESS

[adel_ezz]

of course there are some who take AD's only and life is fine, but this depends on the age, dose, the individual, the symptoms etc... you can't tell for sure In my case i was dx OCD for 4 years and the AD initiated the mania 3 years ago. It's illogic to say I had affective disorder hidden into my body  along with my OCD then I became clinically bipolar. Also to suggest that I can be both is uncommon (comorbidity is something else) Thus at the onset of a disease, to tell the patient you have symptoms of 2 diseases is also untenable, one does fall ill in series and not in parallel (sorry for the engineering comparison)