I think my p-doc is trying to drive me crazy

I was just thinking about Lithium levels and remembering that my p-doc didn't tell me my levels but told me that they were low. She didn't even show me the blood work. She sort of half pulled a paper out of a drawer and assured me that it was fine.

Do you think she is just having me take a placebo and doesn't believe that I have bipolar, that I am a faker?

She keeps commenting on how I am on baby doses, and that she is surprised, or pretends to be surprised when I have a side effect because the doses are so small. She asks me if I have been online looking up meds and driving myself into a "frenzy" (her word)

I don't trust her.

Do you think she might be getting ready to expose me as a faker, and when I go to a new p-doc, he/she won't believe me either?

Do you think she is trying to prove that I have another disorder altogether? Something that would make me fake diseases for sympathy? What is that called, Munchausens, or something?

She keeps talking about how I don't present with a classic "bipolar presentation" but has written a code that translates to "bipolar 1, last episode depressed, severe with psychotic features" on my lab slip.

Could her erratic behavior and talking through shark toys and quoting conversations we never had be her way of trying to make me crazy, to question what is real? Doesn't this kind of thing only happen in horror movies?

I think sometimes the give us insufficient information not realizing we would appreciate knowing more.

My doc has done that. I have been having episodic aphasia and difficulty walking so he sent me for a MRI which was normal. Finally put me in the hospital for closer observation and while I was there one of the things he checked was my EEG. I had an appointment with him a week after I was discharged and he told me that my EEG was "mostly normal". So now I wonder if it was mostly normal what was the part that was a "little bit" abnormal. I would kind of like to know that sort of stuff.

I think that he thinks, well I know what is going on and know how to treat her so it isn't necessary that she understands all this, she just needs to follow my directions. I trust that he is a good doctor and knows how to diagnose and treat me but it would help if he would share his thoughts more often.

I get to see my lab results and the lithium scale they are compared to. No secrets. If one of us does keep a secret, my mental health suffers. Time to confront or move on. Good luck to you.

I am seeing someone new in mid May. I think my curent p-doc is trying to get me to lose it and have to go to the hospital. There are times I think I belong there anyway, but I would want that to be on my own terms.

She is trying to get me to question reality and to spark an episode. Why, I don't know. I think maybe it gives her a feeling of power.

Omg. She should be fired.

what a difficult *****!! she wouldnt appreciate the treatment she is giving you!! take care

Don't take this wrong, but you are sounding a bit paranoid right now. True, your pdoc needs to be replaced, but I doubt she is trying to pull one over on you.

Chris, I deal with paranoia a lot. I just have this strong feeling that she is trying to screw with me.

Isn't that the definition of paranioa?

Maybe you might want to get some sort of animal to talk to her about all this. She has you talk to the shark.

I don't think she is out to get you...but I would fire her if she were my pdoc.

If my PNP ever thought she could keep my lab results from me she would be fired. I am an equal if not majority partner in my care and expect to be treated that way.

I never trust anyone that doesnt tell me the whole truth so just ask, tell her you dont understand and /or feel that you arent getting the full story. Its your health you have the right to answers

I think most people with mental illness question the 'reality' of their illness at one time or another. Its so hard when you cannot look down and see your arm rotting off or look at xrays and see the broken bone...mental issues are entirely up to your ability to report them and I think its in our nature to question ourselves; part of the illness. I cannot imagine why someone without problems would pretend to have them. I know your pdoc seems to be a jerk, but I cannot imagine she is really trying to out you or anything like that. And I don't think she can just give you a placebo without your permission. I'm fairly certain you have to sign all kinds of paperwork and be told that you will be experimented on to have someone replace your meds with a placebo.

I've personally had this problem before (well not with lithium, but with my meds in general). I have felt certain that I'm a big *** faker, making it all up, making my life harder for no reason and my pdoc, husband, everyone was just humoring me and my pdoc was just giving me sugar pills to keep me quite and happy.

In retrospect I can see that I was being ultra paranoid during these times, but I tend to have problems with paranoia in general. To ease your worries, why don't you either call the doc and tell her you are coming to pick up a copy of your lab report, or call the lab and tell them. Give them a few hours and then go get the report. Perhaps with your hand on it, you will feel better?

I guess it is...

How are you doing today? You know I'm just trying to be straight with you, right? If you want to see your bloodwork results, just ask for a copy. The office staff can pull it and make a copy for you. You don't even have to ask pdoc for it. My pdoc doesn't physically show me or hand me a copy of my bloodwork either. He just tells me whether it's in range or not. He's not hiding anything.

Is this coming from your own concerns that you might be "faking" it? I think we all go through phases when we question whether this is really happening to us or not. "Could this possibly be real?" goes through my mind from time to time. That's normal.

I am OK, Chris. I know you are just trying to be honest with me. I value that in your answers to posts on the board.

It's still hard to shake the feeling.

I don't know If I feel like I am faking, but I do sometimes feel like it isn't possible for me to have bipolar. When this p-doc is being confusing, I can't help but think that she is getting some kind of power trip out of messing with me.

Last appointment, when we were wrapping up and writing up prescriptions, I asked about going off lithium for a month to see what happens with my weight. I tried to stand up to myself when she was quoting a conversation we never had about my having to go to the hospital and wondering at what point I need to be put there for my safety. She told me that my memory or lack of memory for the conversation is irrelevant and at this point she needs to evaluate whether or not I need to be in the hospital if I want to go off Lithium because she is convinced that I will plummet. Not ten minutes before when I was telling her about my massive weight gain on Lithium, she said that the options were to deal with it and go on a diet, or go off Lithium and try something else.

What is she trying to do?

That is why I think she is treating me with either palcebos or with such tiny doses that they wouldn't even treat a mouse with bipolar, to see if I lose it and make her fake conversation come true.

I am going to look up all my meds online and make sure I am on the real thing and that they are good doses for effective treatment. (The first thing she said to me when I walked in was, "So have you been looking up all your meds and working yourself into a frenzy?" I am the sort of person who wants to be a "good patient" so by saying this to me, I feel like I did the wrong thing when I was looking up my meds for side effects. She doesn't want me to look up my meds because she thinks I am too suggestible and will take on side effects that are listed. Also she doesn't want me to be suggestible to the fact that I am on doses that won't treat me. She knows I will look stuff up.

I really don't want to go back to her.

She can't treat you with placebos without your consent. That's on the lines of a conspiracy theory. Just stop that thinking. It's not based in reality.

As far as good doses for effective treatment, she told you that your lithium level is too low. She's told you that you are on very low doses. They probably aren't at therapeudic levels because you have had side effect problems. She told you that. Doesn't sound like she's hiding anything from you there at all. It isn't wrong for her to talk to you about suggestability. Some people really do have problems with suggestibility when it comes to looking at side effect lists for meds. That sounds like she's being pretty straight with you.

Have you made any headway in getting an appointment with another pdoc? I hope you do soon for a little peace of mind.

Sorry to keep posting.

This isn't a scientific search, but these are little bits of info I found from different sites. I didn't look up Seroquel because I only take 25mg occassionally to sleep.

Lithium: The correct dosage of lithium is partly determined by the weight of the patient. An average beginning dose is about 300 milligrams 2 to 4 times a day. (http://www.medhelp.org/lib/lithium.htm) I take 300 once each day.

Trileptal: You should find your proper dosage somewhere between 1200 and 2400mg a day. (http://www.crazymeds.us/trileptal.html) I take 1200 each day

Recommended dosage
Fluoxetine therapy in adults is started as a single 20-mg dose, initially taken in the morning. Depending on the patient's response after four to six weeks of therapy, this dose can be increased up to a total of 80 mg per day. Doses over 20 mg per day can be given as equally divided morning and afternoon doses. (http://www.minddisorders.com/Flu-Inv/Fluoxetine.html) I take 10mg each day.


All the photos of the pills I found matched.

I am so confused now. I have put in a call to my T to discuss all of this. I am hoping to get an appointment tomorrow.


I will have an appointment with a new p-nurse in mid-May.

So your lithium is low (probably way low - I took 900). She told you it was. Your fluoxetine is low, but she probably started you low because you do have problems with side effects. Trileptal is on the low end, but not out of the range of normalcy. It doesn't sound like she's trying to pull one over on you.

If the lithium is so low, why not go off it?

She lowered my Prozac from 40 to 10, but I wan't having any problems with it. My old p-doc prescribed it.

She hasn't touched the Trileptal. My old p-doc prescribed this too.

The real test would be to dump the stuff down the sink and see how I do. I don't dare.

I have to agree with Chris. She does sound like she is being straight with you. I have problems with suggestibility as far as side effects go, not so much actually having the side effects because I read about them, but becoming terrified that I will have the side effect so I don't even take the med in the first place. Because of this, me and my pdoc have agreed for me to trust him and try a med he gives me for a little while before I go reading about it, that way any thing I "feel" can be truly attributed to the med and not me getting scared. But we've specifically talked about it and made an agreement. Perhaps if you talked to her about this you guys could make a similar agreement?

What about the conversation we never had? What is going on there?

She would probably prefer to raise your lithium but you have been having side effect problems that she is waiting to see if they subside. They often do. She's probably eventually going to take you off the prozac.

As far as the conversation goes, she's probably got you confused with another patient. It happens. We wish it wouldn't, but it does. One day my pdoc started talking to me and seemed to have no idea of what meds I was on. Come to find out, he has another patient with a very similar name and the office staff had pulled the wrong file. He flagged my file so that won't happen again. Mistakes happen. Memories blur.

That's what I said while we were talking. I said, "Could you be thinking of another patient? I am sure we never had this conversation. In fact, we talked about how I am doing well, but just wanted to take it to the next level, because I could still do better." She started talking about how I was on the verge of you-know-what, and was about to be hospitalized, etc...
I said, that I didn't remember having that conversation and she wouldn't even consider that she might be thinking of someone else.

She has no office staff, so I have to deal with her directly.

I'll be seeing my T tomorrow. He called me back.

hey :-) wow I cant believe I am reading this, I too suffer from BP and I went through exactly what wor are right now. I felt like nobody believed me and at times questioned myself telling myself to get real and that i was just a drama queen. I was then told that I was suffering from paranoia and I think you may be too. have you tried talking to her about it? Hey, to me, I feel and hear what you are saying. Life is no joy ride with bp but it certainly keeps you no your toes! You apologised for posting again' you dont need to feel or be sorry for that thats something else I do is apologise for everything! i always feel like a burden and that i go on too much. When in fact i am not and i dont insecurity and low self esteem is to blame for this. Hope your ok just wanted you to know you are not alone and i recognise what you are saying. Dont be so hard on yourself