This national health system is a joke. When I repeatedly told them I didn’t think I had schiz , she claimed I was in denial and it was part of my condition that I couldn’t accept it. I was low functioning cos of my circular thinking obsessive thinking. I kept pushing for diagnosis cos I know something else was up. And I knew there were alternative meds. I got it finally but it was a fight. Sometimes we know more than the pdocs.
3 Likes
Yep I agree. My pdoc told me that abilfy doesn’t cause agitation when I reported that was a major side effect for me.
I don’t think I’m getting much out of my appointments anymore.
2 Likes
We live with ourselves forever , 15 mins with a pdoc is not sometimes enough.
2 Likes
It’s on the leaflet of side effects. It certainly is one of them.
1 Like
I think in the end, it’s up to us to gather as much information as we can, find a med that works and be happy with that, Label is not so important as we are all so different and every Doctor will have a different opinion
4 Likes
I don’t see it as right or wrong, but rather consensus. pdocs work with patients, and vice versa, to deliver best treatment possible.
else we’d all be in an asylum, drugged to sleep forever… lol lol just kidding
3 Likes
I once had a pdoc try and tell me I was wrong about experiencing a side effect that I knew I was experiencing. He was very smug about the whole thing. I stopped seeing him and found another doctor after he insisted I pay an extra $100 in cash for simply filling out some disability paperwork.
1 Like
Label is important. With a sz diagnosis I wouldn’t get on Tegretol a mood stabiliser.
2 Likes
You might have Schizoaffective Bipolar type @anon80629714.
But you see it doesn’t matter.
The Meds are usually the same for bipolar and Schizoaffective.
1 Like
I had a pdoc that argued with me that risperidone at a low dose didn’t help me. He refused to raise the dose.
I once had a pdoc who told me he thought he was the reincarnation of Carl Jung. I think he was trying to appeal to me in my psychotic state, by sharing his own delusional beliefs. Instead, I thought, “Gee, even I’m not as crazy as this guy. what a weirdo!”
2 Likes
My pdoc told me he wanted me to do ECT, but I didn’t want to do it, so I didn’t do it.
1 Like
I think so. But I’ve learned that I’ve been wrong many times. Not a good system really but I’d be spread over a lake right now if I didn’t defer my psychotic judgement to a pro
Psychiatrists are doctors. Doctors make mistakes all the time, both physical and psychological doctors. because they are not perfect or they are not always right. They don’t have all the answers and sometimes when you talk to them they are just winging it and coming up with stuff as they go.
Doctors go to med school for years but with physical doctors, their mistakes result in over 100,000 deaths per year in the U.S. alone. So it’s not surprising that psychiatrists make mistakes too.
1 Like
They certainly don’t die like the rest of us do, they don’t fight 'till the death trying everything available at any cost to squeeze in a few extra terrible years to appease the living around us…
So I’m not surprised when they do less than what we think they should.
Why keep going to a dr if you don’t believe in them?
Sometimes ‘palliative’ care is more humane than finding a cure.
Possibly but I have not had an actual psychosis since april 2010. Need to come of antiosychptic
1 Like
There’s plenty of times that I think that maybe my doctor messed up, maybe it was just a one time psychotic episode and I’m not schizophrenic, and I don’t need to still be on meds. But I keep taking them anyway, and she said if I stay stable on the same thing for a year we can try going off my AP and see how it goes.
Edit: have most people that are diagnosed experienced more than one psychotic episode? Or is it relatively common to be diagnosed after just one?
2 Likes
Personally I’ve only had one. It’s not very common to have just one Ep in a span of seven years.
The trouble with pdoc/other mental health professionals is is that once they make a mistake they don’t like to admit they are wrong. They are also suspicious of patients who spot things that they have missed.
Ideally treatment should trump labelling but in reality the label often dictates the treatment you get.
I should have been picked up as having additional difficulties to my psychiatric difficulties over 40 years ago. There was an opportunity years ago to do so but the pdoc preferred to dismiss me as an “awkward and troublesome teenager” . Quite frankly that abusive pdoc deserved a good kicking in the head.
Result- I have never had help for my probable Aspergic "traits/NVLD/dysgraphia/dyspraxia.
Attempts to bring up these things has been futile. It has ranged from a pdoc asking a few totally irrelevant questions and then huffily dismissing the issue to my nurse practitioner recently listening but saying services don’t really deal with that kind of thing.
In either case there was no plan to take things further.
It’s no even considered that the paranoia and social anxiety I experience is a direct response to the negative peer reactions I received on account of the Aspergic “traits”/NVLD etc.
Instead a paranoid PD label, one of the most negative you can attach to someone, was slapped on.
1 Like
If your psychotic episode lasted for an extended period of time, you could be diagnosed after only one. I think you have to have symptoms for at least six months, but don’t quote me on that.
2 Likes