I really recommend seeing a doctor at teaching hospital if you are hard to diagnose or treat. This has saved my life a few times over. I don't know what part of MI you live in but there is a Mood Disorder Clinic called the Depression something but with bipolar included in the things they treat (weird I know) at U of M

Depression Center Specialty Programs


and University Hospitals in Cleveland has one as well if you are somehow (I can't picture this geographically) closer to Ohio (that's where I was diagnosed and first treated and the pdoc in charge there is one of the best drs. for bipolar in the world).


One of the benefits is that (at least at University) I enrolled in a clinical trial and got an extremely thorough assessment by someone who knows all about people with atypical bipolar like mine and then 6 or 7 months of free treatment as I did a study with them. When I finished I was given the choice of continuing with a dr there, given some referrals or I could find my own pdoc. I wound up going with the one at my therapy center and she is amazingly good and now works for a huge teaching hospital and I've found a lot of benefit there. She's more accustomed to trying unusual approaches, she's more comfortable with meds that aren't used often, she remains involved in my care when I'm IP, she can consult with the top pdocs in the world (including the one from diagnosis) if needed and generally there is just more help there than just seeing a pdoc in their office. Another nice thing is that the big places can offer more financial assistance (even when not in a study) than other places. I've gotten free care for 2 years when I was not insured through one of them.


I think there are just situations where the average pdoc is stumped because the presentation is too unusual and med response atypical. I suffered so much because I didn't have doctors who would admit this to me and then my whole world changed when I found the pdocs in the mood disorder center and then my own pdoc.