Aa
Misdiagnosis?
I apologize in advance for this being so long. However, I am desperate for answers. My 12 year old son was diagnosed with Bipolar NOS yesterday by a developmental neuropsychologist. I don't believe that it is the right diagnosis. With Autism in our family, I really believe that he is on the Autism Spectrum. Should I get a 2nd opinion?
Here is what I see in my son:
Austin does display some of the symptoms of Bipolar disorder such as the angry outbursts. But, and I specifically told the doctor, he doesn't have any depression. There aren't many time when my son is sad. He's usually pretty content. And, he doesn't have any sleep issues. His sleep schedule is the same every night without waking up during the night. His hyperactivity has always been the same since birth. Yes, there are times when he is hyper and talks incessantly. But, he hardly ever cries or mopes around like he's depressed. I know that depression in children can be shown outwardly as anger. But, there are certain situations that trigger his angry episodes.
Ever since birth, he's had sensory issues that have not gone away. Clothing bothers him. He doesn't like tags, seams, scratchy clothing or sheets. He prefers to wear sandals so he doesn't have to wear socks. He has a stiff and clumsy gait. He has to slap his feet on the floor or ground to make sure he has his footing. I used to tell him to stop stomping his feet.
"I'm not stomping," he would say. Then, lifting his feet up, one at a time, he would slam them down on the floor and say, "this is stomping." He quickly taught me the difference between his normal gait and stomping.
Most of the time he takes things literally. And, he's very blunt when it comes to telling people how he feels about them or a certain subject. He seems to be less empathetic to other peoples feelings than most children his age. It doesn't seem like it's done in a mean way. He just doesn't seem to understand the feelings of others; nor does he care to.
He's constantly scripting. It doesn't matter what we are talking about, he always has some quote from a movie or TV show that works for the topic of discussion. His interests are limited to Pokemon and Yu-Gi oh cards, video games, and science related items. He doesn't socialize very well with others. He has one friend that he will play with. He likes to spend time with me because I'm the only one that understands him. He loves to talk to adults and adults are amazed at how articulate he is. He can look people in the eyes for a short period of time; especially people that he already knows. Usually, however, he looks away quite often.
He is hypersensitive to some sounds. Loud noises or unexpected noises give him such a start that he screams. High pitched noises and multiple noises bother him a lot. However, if he is intrigued by a show on the TV or video game he can usually tune out background noise. When it comes to people talking though he has a more difficult time hearing just one voice.
As for his tactile senses, he prefers a deep touch. He doesn't like being tickled. He says it hurts. He loves to be surrounded by pillows and have a heavy blanket over him. He asked me this morning if I could buy three heavy blankets for him so he could be comfortable.
And, what about his hand flapping? He does this when he is excited, nervous or having trouble speaking. He tends to stammer and can't get the words out fast enough. His hand will be flapping or he'll be jumping up and down or spinning. Then there are times when he'll just stare off into space for a while with a blank look on his face. He does that a lot when it's raining.
Is it possible that he has Asperger's syndrome or PDD instead of Bipolar NOS? Do you think that he was misdiagnosed? I really don't want to medicate him if it's not going to be beneficial for him. I am at a loss as what to do now. I hope that you can help.
Here is what I see in my son:
Austin does display some of the symptoms of Bipolar disorder such as the angry outbursts. But, and I specifically told the doctor, he doesn't have any depression. There aren't many time when my son is sad. He's usually pretty content. And, he doesn't have any sleep issues. His sleep schedule is the same every night without waking up during the night. His hyperactivity has always been the same since birth. Yes, there are times when he is hyper and talks incessantly. But, he hardly ever cries or mopes around like he's depressed. I know that depression in children can be shown outwardly as anger. But, there are certain situations that trigger his angry episodes.
Ever since birth, he's had sensory issues that have not gone away. Clothing bothers him. He doesn't like tags, seams, scratchy clothing or sheets. He prefers to wear sandals so he doesn't have to wear socks. He has a stiff and clumsy gait. He has to slap his feet on the floor or ground to make sure he has his footing. I used to tell him to stop stomping his feet.
"I'm not stomping," he would say. Then, lifting his feet up, one at a time, he would slam them down on the floor and say, "this is stomping." He quickly taught me the difference between his normal gait and stomping.
Most of the time he takes things literally. And, he's very blunt when it comes to telling people how he feels about them or a certain subject. He seems to be less empathetic to other peoples feelings than most children his age. It doesn't seem like it's done in a mean way. He just doesn't seem to understand the feelings of others; nor does he care to.
He's constantly scripting. It doesn't matter what we are talking about, he always has some quote from a movie or TV show that works for the topic of discussion. His interests are limited to Pokemon and Yu-Gi oh cards, video games, and science related items. He doesn't socialize very well with others. He has one friend that he will play with. He likes to spend time with me because I'm the only one that understands him. He loves to talk to adults and adults are amazed at how articulate he is. He can look people in the eyes for a short period of time; especially people that he already knows. Usually, however, he looks away quite often.
He is hypersensitive to some sounds. Loud noises or unexpected noises give him such a start that he screams. High pitched noises and multiple noises bother him a lot. However, if he is intrigued by a show on the TV or video game he can usually tune out background noise. When it comes to people talking though he has a more difficult time hearing just one voice.
As for his tactile senses, he prefers a deep touch. He doesn't like being tickled. He says it hurts. He loves to be surrounded by pillows and have a heavy blanket over him. He asked me this morning if I could buy three heavy blankets for him so he could be comfortable.
And, what about his hand flapping? He does this when he is excited, nervous or having trouble speaking. He tends to stammer and can't get the words out fast enough. His hand will be flapping or he'll be jumping up and down or spinning. Then there are times when he'll just stare off into space for a while with a blank look on his face. He does that a lot when it's raining.
Is it possible that he has Asperger's syndrome or PDD instead of Bipolar NOS? Do you think that he was misdiagnosed? I really don't want to medicate him if it's not going to be beneficial for him. I am at a loss as what to do now. I hope that you can help.
Hi mom~
What a blessed little boy you have to have you for a mom. Your attention to his symptoms/triggers is invaluable. Are you documenting them? Maybe you could use this tracker.
The only reason I say that, is dr.s LOVE being handed something concrete. You may also discover more practical things you can do to help him live in this wonderfly diverse world.
I've only had experience with myself, having bp as a child, and it sounds nothing like your son. (of course that doesn't mean anything really - symptoms can be so different).
My only experience w/ aspergers is my best friend's beautiful daughter. An 8th grader now. She is your son down to the hand flapping and social challenges.
The biggest thing we all obviously want you to do is get at LEAST 2 more opinions and above all - trust your "mommy gut". It's supernatural.
I'll say a prayer for you and your precious son, who has a wonderful life ahead of him, thanks to his incredible mother.
What a blessed little boy you have to have you for a mom. Your attention to his symptoms/triggers is invaluable. Are you documenting them? Maybe you could use this tracker.
The only reason I say that, is dr.s LOVE being handed something concrete. You may also discover more practical things you can do to help him live in this wonderfly diverse world.
I've only had experience with myself, having bp as a child, and it sounds nothing like your son. (of course that doesn't mean anything really - symptoms can be so different).
My only experience w/ aspergers is my best friend's beautiful daughter. An 8th grader now. She is your son down to the hand flapping and social challenges.
The biggest thing we all obviously want you to do is get at LEAST 2 more opinions and above all - trust your "mommy gut". It's supernatural.
I'll say a prayer for you and your precious son, who has a wonderful life ahead of him, thanks to his incredible mother.
I'm so glad you went into detail with all of the symptoms you see in your son.
I have 5 children. 1 BiPolar (diag @ 40) 2 Aspbergers 1 Adhd & depression- so I can tell you that you definetely need to get at least 3opinions.
I can also tell you that at gut level without misguiding you...it sounds like your son has Aspbergers. To be bi-polar you only need to have 1 manic episode a year but major depression. or vice versa. It doesn't sound like your son is suffering from major depression and a few mood swings. The lack of eye contact, empathy, & hurting when touched...these are red flags for Aspbergers as well as many more. I feel for you however you must advocate for yourself and I'm suspecting you already have since I just looked at the date on your post. My best to you and your family in finding out the truth.
I have 5 children. 1 BiPolar (diag @ 40) 2 Aspbergers 1 Adhd & depression- so I can tell you that you definetely need to get at least 3opinions.
I can also tell you that at gut level without misguiding you...it sounds like your son has Aspbergers. To be bi-polar you only need to have 1 manic episode a year but major depression. or vice versa. It doesn't sound like your son is suffering from major depression and a few mood swings. The lack of eye contact, empathy, & hurting when touched...these are red flags for Aspbergers as well as many more. I feel for you however you must advocate for yourself and I'm suspecting you already have since I just looked at the date on your post. My best to you and your family in finding out the truth.
Hi my son is 8 1/2 and has bi polar, adhd, sensory processing disorder and adhd. My son had problems early on also started when he was 3 1/2. He has alot of the same "symptoms" as your son. As a parent that has had problems with this and still continues too. You have to remember to be open because we never want anything to be wrong with our babies, even though we want to get them the help they need. It's hard I know! Then you follow your gut, you do research read books websites etc. If you have facebook they have this fantastic site it is called children and adolescent bipolar foundation and you can talk to other parents there. It has helped me soooooo much. I wish you the best of luck! Keep pushing you will get it!
Our now-adult son was not diagnosed with bipolar disorder until he was in his mid-twenties, but some kind of internal switch was flipped much, much earlier when he was just three years old or so. It was quite sudden, and he developed odd behavior that was generally NOT like your son's and much more like that of my nephew, who was later diagnosed with Asperger's.
Our son was hyperactive and from age three showed 'pressured speech' when he was upset (and he was upset a lot). He could continue an angry diatribe for hours--that's HOURS, in a 3-year-old--in spite of being given repeated time-outs and having privileges or toys taken away for not respecting the short time-out periods. The whole thing appeared completely involuntary or automatic: It was as if he simply could not shut off the words, and it was astonishing to see this going on in such a little guy.
He was in fact extremely bright, but as a toddler, he showed grandiose thinking, impossibly lofty ideas of what he was capable of or entitled to. When in the mood, he took a kind of god-like stance, nothing like a spoiled kid's attitude at all. It was the attitude of a grown man attempting to rule the world because he was wiser than anyone else, and he would become enraged when no one else saw his superior logic. Remember, I'm talking about a very young kid here.
He did have sleep problems including chronic night terrors from about age two, and of course, he cannot sleep as an adult, either. I doubt he has had a good night's sleep in years, poor guy.
Unlike your son (or my nephew), our son never had any problems with touch or with things touching him. In fact, he enjoyed contact, and in the first ten years or so of life, he would often, while talking a mile a minute, unconsciously sit down in his father's lap or mine. He was generally extremely affectionate.
One of the interesting things was that he was never depressed until his teen years. On the contrary, he was hypomanic pretty much any time he wasn't angry: He was giddy and giggly to extremes, even when there was nothing at all to be happy about. I have since read that really young bipolar patients may not show the cycling of moods typical of adult bipolar disorder.
When our son was little, childhood bipolar disorder was considered nonexistent, and he did not fit into any other category known to our local shrinks (to say nothing of his teachers!), so we really never got any help from anyone. We just learned 'on the hoof' techniques (now called behavior modification) that were more or less effective in living with him. While it was what you'd call, um, a colorful or even exhausting existence, it worked OK until he left for college, which is one of the the classic, big, lifestyle changes important in bipolar disorder.
While at the university, he began to feel weird in a way that troubled even him, so he went to the health center. The doc gave him Prozac for depression and agitation. When we visited our son two weeks later, he had lost 10 pounds on an already thin frame, and he was basically neither eating nor sleeping anymore. He was irritable beyond belief and prone to bursts of intense rage that we had never seen before. In his teenage years, he had jobs and had been quite financially responsible, but now he burned through his entire ten thousand dollar savings account in eight months--even though almost all his expenses (tuition, housing, food, etc) had been paid for--and was flat broke, with no interest at all in what had gone wrong.
In other words, Prozac very likely tipped him over into mania. There is even a sour joke among doctors that you can use a couple of these SSRIs to diagnose bipolar disorder: "Give him Prozac. If he goes manic, he's bipolar."
This has been long, I know, but I wanted you to be able to compare your child's behavior to that of a kid who lived before childhood bipolar disorder was 'invented,' but who certainly has the disorder as an adult. Memories of his youthful behavior lead us to think that what we saw back in the old days were in fact manifestations of the childhood form of the disease in a very, very young kid.
When it comes to behavior problems in children, it's never an easy call, but this is serious business, and I would certainly encourage you to get a second and maybe even a third opinion. There are a lot of different attitudes in the medical community about pediatric psych disorders, and as you know, the choice of therapy will be very important to your son (and you). You want the most information possible. To that end, you might also want to look at these book titles about childhood bipolar disorder:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_26?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=childhood+bipolar+disorder&sprefix=childhood+bipolar+disorder
Our son was hyperactive and from age three showed 'pressured speech' when he was upset (and he was upset a lot). He could continue an angry diatribe for hours--that's HOURS, in a 3-year-old--in spite of being given repeated time-outs and having privileges or toys taken away for not respecting the short time-out periods. The whole thing appeared completely involuntary or automatic: It was as if he simply could not shut off the words, and it was astonishing to see this going on in such a little guy.
He was in fact extremely bright, but as a toddler, he showed grandiose thinking, impossibly lofty ideas of what he was capable of or entitled to. When in the mood, he took a kind of god-like stance, nothing like a spoiled kid's attitude at all. It was the attitude of a grown man attempting to rule the world because he was wiser than anyone else, and he would become enraged when no one else saw his superior logic. Remember, I'm talking about a very young kid here.
He did have sleep problems including chronic night terrors from about age two, and of course, he cannot sleep as an adult, either. I doubt he has had a good night's sleep in years, poor guy.
Unlike your son (or my nephew), our son never had any problems with touch or with things touching him. In fact, he enjoyed contact, and in the first ten years or so of life, he would often, while talking a mile a minute, unconsciously sit down in his father's lap or mine. He was generally extremely affectionate.
One of the interesting things was that he was never depressed until his teen years. On the contrary, he was hypomanic pretty much any time he wasn't angry: He was giddy and giggly to extremes, even when there was nothing at all to be happy about. I have since read that really young bipolar patients may not show the cycling of moods typical of adult bipolar disorder.
When our son was little, childhood bipolar disorder was considered nonexistent, and he did not fit into any other category known to our local shrinks (to say nothing of his teachers!), so we really never got any help from anyone. We just learned 'on the hoof' techniques (now called behavior modification) that were more or less effective in living with him. While it was what you'd call, um, a colorful or even exhausting existence, it worked OK until he left for college, which is one of the the classic, big, lifestyle changes important in bipolar disorder.
While at the university, he began to feel weird in a way that troubled even him, so he went to the health center. The doc gave him Prozac for depression and agitation. When we visited our son two weeks later, he had lost 10 pounds on an already thin frame, and he was basically neither eating nor sleeping anymore. He was irritable beyond belief and prone to bursts of intense rage that we had never seen before. In his teenage years, he had jobs and had been quite financially responsible, but now he burned through his entire ten thousand dollar savings account in eight months--even though almost all his expenses (tuition, housing, food, etc) had been paid for--and was flat broke, with no interest at all in what had gone wrong.
In other words, Prozac very likely tipped him over into mania. There is even a sour joke among doctors that you can use a couple of these SSRIs to diagnose bipolar disorder: "Give him Prozac. If he goes manic, he's bipolar."
This has been long, I know, but I wanted you to be able to compare your child's behavior to that of a kid who lived before childhood bipolar disorder was 'invented,' but who certainly has the disorder as an adult. Memories of his youthful behavior lead us to think that what we saw back in the old days were in fact manifestations of the childhood form of the disease in a very, very young kid.
When it comes to behavior problems in children, it's never an easy call, but this is serious business, and I would certainly encourage you to get a second and maybe even a third opinion. There are a lot of different attitudes in the medical community about pediatric psych disorders, and as you know, the choice of therapy will be very important to your son (and you). You want the most information possible. To that end, you might also want to look at these book titles about childhood bipolar disorder:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_26?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=childhood+bipolar+disorder&sprefix=childhood+bipolar+disorder
I know a friend to my family who was dx with Asperger's syndrome a branch of autism. In fact i was thinking about it before i reached the end of your letter. Now he is 22 years old and doing quite well except he can't mix well with people. In childhood he was hyperactive and always nagging and angry.
Upon asking his father he said he is given max dose of zyprexa (AP) and celexa/cipram (AD) and straterra (AD) for concentration and he is stable for years now. He succeeds in exams and life is going on.
Still this doesn't say your son is one. In my view as well as others, the 1st step is to reach the correct diagnosis then later how to move from there. So i would say you get another and a 3rd opinion until you settle down with a convincing one. As to bipolarity, it's very easy for pdocs nowadays to label people as having BP
good luck
Upon asking his father he said he is given max dose of zyprexa (AP) and celexa/cipram (AD) and straterra (AD) for concentration and he is stable for years now. He succeeds in exams and life is going on.
Still this doesn't say your son is one. In my view as well as others, the 1st step is to reach the correct diagnosis then later how to move from there. So i would say you get another and a 3rd opinion until you settle down with a convincing one. As to bipolarity, it's very easy for pdocs nowadays to label people as having BP
good luck
Have an Answer?
You are reading content posted in the Bipolar Disorder Community
15 signs that it’s more than just the blues
Discover the common symptoms of and treatment options for depression.
We've got five strategies to foster happiness in your everyday life.
Don’t let the winter chill send your smile into deep hibernation. Try these 10 mood-boosting tips to get your happy back
A list of national and international resources and hotlines to help connect you to needed health and medical services.
Herpes sores blister, then burst, scab and heal.
