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Moose72
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Default Apr 15, 2019 at 11:16 AM
  #21
I agree with the responses here. I was diagnosed with "mood disorder NOS" when I first saw a pdoc back in 2005ish. Then it was changed to "bipolarNOS". It took a few months to finally settle on "bipolar I". I went with that until a couple years ago when I read the symptoms of schizoaffective. A light clicked on and I thought "That's exactly me!" My pdoc wasn't sure and said I was still BP I with psychotic features. Except I knew the psychosis was often outside of a mood episode. Then pdoc turned around and diagnosed me with sza. So that's where I sit today. The meds are tweaked based on symptoms but I FEEL more settled with the sza diagnosis. It just feels "right". Right now, I see pdoc next month. Seen her once in the last 3 months as I'm in remission- on fewer meds too. (My liver thanks me!)

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Default Apr 15, 2019 at 09:16 PM
  #22
While I think there are a number of limitations to diagnoses I still think it's important to a degree. I mean, hypothetically if treatment and symptoms were mostly the same for something maybe there is no real reason to get caught up in what it's called, but getting it wrong could lead to the wrong treatment. For myself, different opinions on my diagnosis and lack of understanding on what is going on is confusing me. I am not sure what treatment I need, nor do I really have insight into what is happening (for example why I randomly feel a bit of paranoia).
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Default Apr 15, 2019 at 10:28 PM
  #23
It’s nice to have a proper name for what ails you. I agree, though, that it doesn’t matter as long as you are receiving appropriate treatment that is beneficial to you.
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Default Apr 16, 2019 at 05:27 AM
  #24
I think diagnosis is important in order to receive the right treatment. You don't want to give certain antidepressants to those with BP and in the case of BPD (one of many reasons pdocs need to distinguish between the two) DBT should be emphasized over medication, though my understanding is that medication in conjunction with DBT can be helpful.

I'm reading all of these 'aha!' moments, and that tells me that it's often important to know. I know it was vital for me: I had a name for what I was experiencing, and I could look back and explain -to a point, anyway- what I had experienced in the past before I was treated (like many here, I was originally, and disastrously, treated for depression and anxiety before being diagnosed, first BPNOS, and then BP I).

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Default Apr 20, 2019 at 01:16 PM
  #25
To me, it matters. I spent so may years not understanding what was wrong with me. I didn't understand why I was feeling depressed, and thought I was just weak. A therapist I saw didn't want to give me a diagnosis, for some reason, and I thought it was because she didn't consider my situation as "bad enough". Which had me questioning myself, if it's not "that bad", howcome I feel so bad, and it contributed massively to seeing myself as weak and pathetic and hating myself. With a diagnonsis, I felt like it wasn't "my fault", so to speak.

One therapist told me, kind of mockingly (so I felt) that it was so popular with certain diagoses these days, implying (so I felt) that I just wanted one for people to feel sorry for me or something. That didn't exactly help. I wanted a diagnosis to understand what was wrong with me, and figure things out. To know if different symptoms were normal or not, or if it was't symptoms, just ME. I started being depressed around 14, and it made it so difficult for me to know what was me and what was the depression.

When I first read about complex ptsd (and the newest criterias of ptsd), everything just clicked, and I was thinging, "that's EXACTLY what it's like!" I felt so relieved! It showed me that a whole lot of things, like nightmares, not trusting anyone, some types of dissociation, self loathing +++ was actually symptoms, and not just me being weird. So I could finally work on stopping to blame myself. Giving myself some slack. Thinking this is normal, it's not just me, lots of people out there experience the same things.

I haven't been diagnosed with ptsd yet, just returning depression and anxiety disorder NOS. But I'm starting up in therapy again in may, after a one year pause, and then, instead of going in there saying "I have no idea whatsoever what's wrong with me", I can say "I think I have ptsd, can you help me figure this out".

But that about finding out I have a valid reason to feel the way I do, that it's not just me being weak, and that it isn't my fault, thats definitely the most important thing for me about having a diagnosis. So I could forgive myself.
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Default Apr 20, 2019 at 05:25 PM
  #26
If you don't want any medication to help then no it doesn't matters.

If you want meds to help then yes it matters.
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Default Apr 20, 2019 at 05:53 PM
  #27
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Originally Posted by FriendlyJoe View Post
If you don't want any medication to help then no it doesn't matters.

If you want meds to help then yes it matters.
Does this work the other way around, as in can you diagnose someone based on their reaction to medications? Mood stabilizers have never really done anything for me and antipsychotics have, does that mean my new diagnosis is right and I have schizophrenia and not bipolar like I've been diagnosed with for the past 6 years?
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Default Apr 20, 2019 at 06:47 PM
  #28
Getting diagnosed with schizoaffective instead of bipolar led me to clozapine, which has been a miracle drug for me. My psychotic symptoms have completely cleared up, leaving me with subclinical hypomania and depression for short periods of time only.

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Default Apr 20, 2019 at 07:42 PM
  #29
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Does this work the other way around, as in can you diagnose someone based on their reaction to medications? Mood stabilizers have never really done anything for me and antipsychotics have, does that mean my new diagnosis is right and I have schizophrenia and not bipolar like I've been diagnosed with for the past 6 years?
That's honestly hard to diagnosed because of meds. I'm BP1 and the meds basically just keeps me from having anxiety LOL, buspar. I'm also on mood stabilizers and they might as well be a placebo. Bipolar are also treated with antipsychotics medications. For some it helps with the symptoms of a manic episode, where you start hallucinating, severe paranoia, delusions when in a full blown episode. My mood stabilizer I guess helps but i think it more me forcing myself to keep it together. In my mind it's a constant battle when I'm annoyed or irritated.

It's close to bipolar but have differences such as schizophrenia has disorganized thinking where as being bipolar I want to do everything and want and demand order. I don't hallucinate only after I've gone without sleep but that's normal because after not sleeping you go into psychosis and see ****. Also another difference is bipolar can show in children like myself. I don't know what it is to feel any different. I'm just the same person I've been all my life. Schizophrenia usually shows up from late teens to 30 years old.

This might sound odd to you but I feel like a God sometimes because I feel like I own it. Like I'm the boss of everything. BP2 I think has a lesser feeling of this plus more depression and has been misdiagnosed a lot when it's just a depression disorder.

Back to the disorganized thinking of schizophrenic behavior, if this occurs they need to be taken care of since they're not able to. Even in my full blow episodes I'm still very intelligent which is dangerous because I can go buy a car or drive 185mph and feel in total control.

Hope I was able to give you insight. If I was you I'd switch pdocs because that's 2 different diagnosis, we arent talking BP1 and change it to BP2 or BP2 to depression disorder.
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Default Apr 20, 2019 at 07:55 PM
  #30
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Originally Posted by franz kafka View Post
Getting diagnosed with schizoaffective instead of bipolar led me to clozapine, which has been a miracle drug for me. My psychotic symptoms have completely cleared up, leaving me with subclinical hypomania and depression for short periods of time only.
What type of testing did they do on to come up with schizophrenia? Did they do lab testing or imaging? That's usually required but the mental health field isnt really regulated and they can diagnose you just from telling them a bunch of ********
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Default Apr 20, 2019 at 08:07 PM
  #31
yeah...mental health is subjective...on a good day. that's when they're not straight up lying and defrauding people.
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Default May 01, 2019 at 03:55 PM
  #32
'From my perspective, does the diagnosis matter'?

It does. Now forget about ever being told you were Schizoaffective bipolar type.
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Default May 09, 2019 at 02:30 AM
  #33
Quote:
Originally Posted by spikes View Post
Does this work the other way around, as in can you diagnose someone based on their reaction to medications? Mood stabilizers have never really done anything for me and antipsychotics have, does that mean my new diagnosis is right and I have schizophrenia and not bipolar like I've been diagnosed with for the past 6 years?
Antipsychotics seems to be adminisered for many different things. They gave it to me in hospital once, and I wasn't psychotic, but apparently in smaller dosages it could be used to calm me down or smth.. I'm still not sure exactly why they gave it to me. I don't know if it helped either.. lol
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Default May 09, 2019 at 04:53 AM
  #34
The diagnosis gives you closure, confirmation of an illness, not a personality defect.
But that's about as far as it matters.

I don't want to be put in a pigeon hole, frozen in time in the minds of others, forever labelled. Two people, same diagnosis, will present in very different ways. I don't want to be treated as anyone else, I am an individual.
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Default May 09, 2019 at 06:48 AM
  #35
I am feeling lately like diagnosis matters more to me than I originally thought. On the one hand, it is just a label and I know labels aren't as important as the details of our individual experiences. However, a diagnosis provides me with an answer as to why my brain malfunctioned the way it did. A diagnosis gives me an idea of what to expect going forward and helps me to know what signs and symptoms to look for. My doctors recently took away my diagnosis and I'm feeling a little lost. I'm not sure what to expect and I don't know why or how my episode with psychosis got so out of control. Bipolar disorder gave me answers and a path to follow to reduce the likelihood of relapsing. Now I feel like I am flying blind. I'd be grateful if what I have is just a one and done episode or something that recurs infrequently, but without a diagnosis I just have to wait and see what happens. I know this is technically true for anyone as we are all different, but I feel like I'm missing something. My diagnosis sort of helped me to make peace with how out of control I was. Justified isn't really the right word, but it helped me realize it wasn't all my fault and I could blame the disease for putting me in a position to behave the way I did. Now I don't know what to think.

Underdevelopment nailed it. I need the closure and confirmation that something caused the horror and trauma I experienced. Treating myself as if I do have bipolar disorder is working, so I can at least say CBT and antipsychotics help whatever I do have going on. That is a relief.
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