Posted by TemporarilyBob on October 26, 2012, at 1:30:52
So I go into my county's support services center for a first meet with a pdoc on my team. Tells me he's read the ER report and the intake report from my first visit there along with the on-call pdoc's report from that time so don't worry about having to retell the whole heart-wrenching story. Asks a few questions for clarification, asks how the clonazepam and nortrip have been working, then goes into the meat of what he has to say. About how manic episodes triggered by medications get people classified as unipolar depressive with substance-induced mania, or something like that.
But that's not him.
That the research says yes, bipolar depression really IS far more complex than what we understand about bipolar I or II and may affect 2-4 times as many people as gets diagnosed, forget what the typical diagnostic categories are since they're way behind the latest research. Nice living in a university town with one of the top med schools, it is.
Oh, and yes, I'm most likely one of those long misdiagnosed people. And that for a long time the medication I was receiving was probably making the situation worse and not better. That it wasn't all in my mind. So to speak.
You know, I read "An Unquiet Mind" and was always jealous of Kay Jamison because I have to be pumped with SSRIs to be toxic enough to be "happy" ... I have a type of bipolar disorder that does not typically involve mania: it involves depression and anxiety. (LOL ... I'm not only bipolar, but I have the "wrong" kind of bipolar....) So it was suggested to me seven years ago. And so I now have a much more firmly stated, research-backed diagnosis that doesn't make me feel like some web-hopping self-diagnoser that drives doctors with years of education and experience nuts. I'm finally seeing someone who says, "Yeah, minds or brains or nervous systems like yours actually do exist, and we've missed it for a long, long time. And we still don't quite understand it or agree about it, so bear with us if you can.
"And by the way, here's some Seroquel and it should work really well with your Nortriptyline. And since you're unemployed, you should be able to get it free. Just reach for carrots and not chocolates when the cravings get to you."
There's just something so nice about having someone who is supposed to know so much better than you actually BELIEVE you ... even if the thing they believe about you is terrifying in and of itself. Or maybe because it is.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
poster:TemporarilyBob
thread:1029836
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20120922/msgs/1029836.html