What's the difference between bipolar psychosis and schizoaffective bipolar type?

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1

I was reading into bipolar psychosis and fits me like a glove, but I don’t see the difference between sza and bp with psychosis.

I will ask my doc for his opinion about this.

2

With bp psychosis you only have psychosis when your having a mood episode however with schizoaffective you can have psychosis outside a mood episode. That’s my understanding.

3

The article I was reading says in bp psychosis, psychosis is a continuum, even without the mood issue.

4

Really? That’s just confused me even more lol

5

Yeah, me too. The article I’m reading now says the same thing you said.

I honestly think they don’t know. Lol

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6

Can u pm me a link to the article where Is it written?

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9

Those articles make sense to me?

10

Yeah, they both make sense

11

my diagnosis is between sza and sz with bipolar depressive type…
So confused…:smoking:

12

http://www.mentalhealth.com/home/dx/schizoaffective.html

Schizoaffective Disorder often develops into pure Mood Disorder (e.g., Major Depressive or Bipolar Disorder) or Schizophrenia

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13

I sometimes think our diagnoses are just a matter of semantics. They don’t seem to have that much effect on the med’s we’re prescribed.

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14

You’re right, but at the same time, I have periods of mania often and mixed episodes or brief episodes of depression. The med I take definitely helps, but in terms of prognosis bp is better than sza.

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15

in my honest opinion I’m not sure if This sounds bad but I’d rather have sz than to deal with these moods

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16

I’m the opposite, I can deal with the moods. I’m tired of the delusions and scared of the hallucinations.

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17

I say for me because the meds prevented my psychosis completrly

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18

With bipolar psychosis, the psychotic episodes (Hallucnations, Delusions) happen during eith a Manic, Depressed or Mixed Episode.

With Schizoaffective disorder, the Positive symptoms (Hallucinations, Delusions) occur outside of a Mood episode.

In other words with Schizoaffective, the positive symptoms can happen any time - there does not have to be a mood disturbance there.

If you ask me and some experts agree, Schizophrenia/SZA and Bipolar Psychosis are basically the same thing.

Depression as an example can be found in both Schizophrenia and Bipolar.

How they diagnose these conditions are messy - way too many grey areas involved.

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19

Yeah it was the conclusion I came to, too. Basically the same thing.

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20

my guess is the delusional side of things… if they internally see the hallucinations as a product of their emotional states vs believing they are real with the emotional states as a byproduct…