Trying to find a definite diagnosis

Long time no see, PsychCentral.

Anyway.

I have a new Pdoc in a new country. I've had what I'm sure are at least two hypomanic episodes in the last few months but the last few weeks have been a complete muddle of moods and suchlike. One of them was scarily definite and my Pdoc confirmed that it probably was that.

The appointment before last, my Pdoc told me it could be bipolar or cyclothymia.
But last time, she said it could be a byproduct of my anxiety disorders.

I really don't know. Between every patch of up comes the textbook depressive episodes, but over the past two weeks I've been constantly up and down and I'm almost tempted to suggest that it could be BPD rather than bipolar... if I wasn't so confused by the idea of it being part of my anxiety.

Another thought I had was that the last two weeks or so could have been a mixed episode, but if I was only hypomanic before that, it rules out both bipolar I and II.

Has anyone else had trouble with their diagnosis's like this? It can't be only me, I'm sure. :/

Thanks guys c:

Kind of, they always say it is bipolar but, make a point of ruling out other stuff and of course, I question it all the time. At the same time though, I don't care what my diagnosis is as long as the medication helps me.

Sorry to hear you're struggling right now. It sounds like you have a very attentive pdoc, so that's a good start to getting things sorted out. The problem with psych diagnosis is that it's really not an exact science. There are no laboratory tests that give you the threshold of "normal" vs "illness", and the guides the pdocs have are fairly limited in their scope. They're revising the guide the US docs use (DSM), but I'm not sure when the last ICD revision was. They've learned so much more about bipolar disorders and how we don't all fit the nice symptom lists in the books.

That being said, my husband just went through a similar process as you are going through. He was ultimately diagnosed with "bipolar spectrum disorder" or "soft bipolar" - essentially "Bipolar NOS" in the DSM listing. I have Bipolar I, so our illnesses look very different, but it's still there for him. There's a website we found helpful that helped explain a lot of what he was experiencing. It's written by an American pdoc who runs a mood disorder clinic and has the backing of some well-known pdocs. Not all pdocs agree with his ideas, but they are worth looking at. Take a look at it and see what your pdoc thinks. Here's the link: http://psycheducation.org/

I hope you can get things sorted out soon.