I feel cheated!

Hi to all

I haven't posted here for a while now and will try and read and catch up with you.

I just can't believe this! I just obtained copies of my medical records from the psychiatric hospital that I was in 10 years ago for severe depression/psychosis and at the end it says that I have periods of extreme highs and that although I suffer from depression I have symptoms of a bipolar disorder.

Now.......I only obtained my diagnosis of BPII in May last year and ALL THIS TIME I HAD BIPOLAR but I just didn't know that the doctors knew back then and they didn't bother to tell me!!!! I am furious, I feel cheated, I could have coped and been well all those years with proper medication instead of just being treated for depression.

How do I take this further? First am going to go to my own GP and tell him. But what next?

I am upset and confused. I just knew it was more than depression but they just kept pumping me with different anti d's and ended up having huge hypomania because Effexor was a trigger......bad, bad all bad stuff......

Rant over, for now anyway

Ohhhh {{{{{{{{{{{{Babs}}}}}}}}}}}}}} I'm so sorry, I have no idea what you need to do, but I'm here for you anytime.
It's not fair and you have any right to feel cheated.
PM me anytime~

I feel for you, I feel cheated too, with some of my issues where I too, have been mis-DXed or under DXed, Grrrrrrr!
I've had about 10yrs wasted of my life and/or health due to a very similar situation, and I am angry but realize I cannot go back in time (when I start that I get so down and desperate) and only go on in the present time, but I have spoke to my pdoc and doc about how I feel cheated,and other words,etc. by the former docs I had when I lived in PA, mainly. Here I am going on 50 end of this month, and 10yrs have passed me by and I so wish I had those yrs spent feeling better, mentally and physically, valuable time wasted. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!
All we can do for now on is voice our opinions, and feelings on what we are feeling, and we need to stress to the pdoc and/or docs that we know what and how we feel.
We need to let them know what meds have worked for us, and what hasn't, and what we do not care or do care to try next.
I recently told a new endocrinologist that if she isn't willing to work with me, take the time, then we should not go any further, I do not want to waste my precious time left on this earth any longer, and I do not wish to be treated like a menopausal (doc's new excuses) hypochondriac, I feel unwell and want to feel well again, simple thing to ask for, especially when all I have needed was proper thyroid meds. Grrrrrrrrrrr!
Oh yeah, went down that route of AD's variety too, handed to me by my former GP's, calling me depressed, 6yrs pass, no improvment, then DXed by a pdoc and psychologist as mild bipolar.
Ah, it is so depressing in itself, when stuff like this happens, leaving us cheated.
I hear you, and feel for you.
Please take care,
DE

(((((( babs92 ))))))))))

I have a feeling many of us have been cheated with this illness. Now they can diagnose kids, but looking back at my 40 years of life, dx in 97 but no meds till 99, I know I wasted some precious time doing stupid things, not thinking, you name it. The only think I have really are my kids and some of them have this as well. Though I try to get past my regret of my at times bizairre behavior and doing the first thing that comes to ming and the fact that I did have way more than depression, the dx I carried around for years, I can't. I just pray for a good day to come my way when i won't feel so bad about things. it is a double edged sword, glad to be dxd? but not really happy that I have a dx at the same time. You have a right to be upset but honestly, what good will it do with the past, now get the appropriate meds and do your best to try to achieve a "normality' for yourself.

At least you found out! Good luck!

Thanks all for your replies and I am sorry to learn that you have been through similar situations to mine. We just have to be thankful that now, I guess, we are getting the right treatment.

DS - am going to my pdoc next week (he does'nt know anything about this) so he will be quite surprised I am sure!! or probably not I was diagnosed a month before my 40th last year, it was a hammer blow. I feel for you.

take care all

Babs, the depression/bpII thing is a recent phenomenon and what bpII "meant" 10 years ago is different from today. I was diagnosed "borderline" in the 1970's but it had nothing whatsoever to do with what it means now. These things change over time. It's still not clear where the "line" is or how to treat them, etc. Look at this study from just August of 2006:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q..._uids=16682104

I'd try to change my perspective to feeling "thrilled" that we live in a time where medicine is learning some of the things they didn't know before, so quickly. My mother died in 1954 of a brain tumor, the same year they began to figure out radiology for brain tumors (but she'd had it since 1948 so it was too late for her). Everytime I have a CT scan or MRI I wish that they'd been invented in time for my mother.