Hello
I’m considering going for a second opinion on my diagnosis not that I don’t trust my pdoc. I would just like that second reasurrence. Did you go for second opinions after your first diagnosis.
They say I’m schizo affective. Did you doubt it at first.
Fox out
After seeing about 10 doctors over the years, they all have a different opinion of what it is, all one can do is listen to the doctors, read on line and kinda figure it out over time, the label is not so important if the meds are working and keeping you stable.
Yes I think it’s a good idea, but as Mountain man said, it’s not the label that’s important it’s the treatment. You might find a doctor you click better with who is more willing to work with you on treatments that get you to where you want to be.
I’m still a bit skeptical of my diagnosis, major depression w psychotic features, because I match very few of the symptoms for it but match all the symptoms for schizoaffective, but according to my therapist I am too put together to be sza (as in I don’t get disordered speech, I have good social skills, etc) Meanwhile the psychiatrist I saw at PHP said he thought I had sza but I wasn’t there long enough for him to officially diagnose me with it.
I am moving soon and have to find new professionals to work with. I wonder what they’ll think.
No because i was so psychotic, and after i heard my diagnosis(paranoid schizophrenia) i almost fainted, it was that bad for me at that moment.
Good luck Anna at finding new professionals to work with 
It takes years to obtain a proper diagnosis.
Seeing another doctor for 45 minutes and getting a second opinion on your diagnosis won’t usually cut it.
Besides it’s usually about what symptoms you have and it’s about getting the right treatment, it’s not all about the diagnosis.
Good luck!
True. I remember being so angry at the first psychiatrist I ever met. She talked to me for barely 15 minutes, just read a bunch of multiple choice questions at me basically and didn’t let me get a word in edgewise to explain or describe anything further. She booted me out the door with a really vague diagnosis. She even mocked me for one of my symptoms. What an awful doctor.
You can’t know everything about someone in 15 minutes. Someone may not feel comfortable enough to tell you all you need to know in 15 minutes. It’s a bad system. My current therapist when I met her after our first session (1 hr) she told me what she suspected I had but over many sessions she has made adjustments as she learns more about me and that’s how it should be done.
No I don’t believe my diagnosis
I didn’t get a second opinion, I trusted my pdoc to know what he was doing.
It took me a while to accept my diagnosis, but that was due to my own insecurites, not his skills in the field.
Self-diagnosing is never, in my opinion, a good idea, because it keeps us so fixated on the one diagnosis we’re sure we have, that we refuse to take any other solution someone more capable might come up with.
Sadly the diagnoses are useless because we don’t know the mechanism of these disorders and therefore we have only 3-4 classes of symptomatic medications.