Over or Under Diagnosed?

What do you think? Do you think that bipolar disorder is over diagnosed? Under? I'm not sure. I've never been formally diagnosed but it has been suggested to me that it's likely. Not just from friends but also my general doctor and hospital staff when I had my meltdown last year. I got maybe 4 hours of sleep last night but I'm feeling pretty fantastic today other than a paranoid thought I had this morning. I don't know. I don't want to assume that I have bipolar disorder. For some reason I feel like I'm making light of other people who have been diagnosed!

Personally, I haven't run into huge numbers of people diagnosed with bp, and it took many, many years before I was finally diagnosed. Do some pdoc's overdiagnose? Probably. As in all things I guess.

Myself, my sister, my brother, my husband and most likely my son have been DX bioplar. all of us were not DX lightly. My brother was in jail when he got diagnosed. My sister had a nice 6week stay in the hospital. My husband was mis DX for years. Me I got caught being hypo manic (more than once) because I thought that was normal. I'm sure both my parents have been DX and my grandma said I she wished there was medication back then. When she died we found depakote and cymbalta in her bathroom hidden,.

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It looks like over DX. My Dad feels its over dx'd and it maybe in people that have family history's of bipolar but considering I'm the sane one in my family I don't doubt it runs strong in my family.

Generally it takes a lot to get dx'd including family history.

Short answer maybe when there is family history but generally no.

I'm not sure. Sometimes I wonder if I've been mis-dxed, and if maybe I have BPD instead. But every MH professional I talk to seems pretty convinced I'm bipolar.

I have several friends who are also bipolar. Some of them, I think may have been misdiagnosed. But I can't see into their thoughts and secret emotions, so I can't really judge whether or not the bipolar label fits. One of my friends had her dx switched to "mood disorder NOS"; she had a hard time accepting this ambiguous label, but she said that it makes sense now.

My brother has depression and OCD. As far as I know, bipolar has never so much as even been considered for him, despite the fact that I (his sister) have it. So not all doctors take family history as an instant diagnostic tool.

I agree -- the docs use family history very often in the Daignosis

I am new the group -- I am 62 years old and suffer from depression -- I have been prescribed Tramadol --- it works wonders for me .. yet I rarely see tramadol as a depression med... it is mostly used as a arthritis med ... any input on Tranadol ? thanks so much
Stewart

I don't see it being over-diagnosed or under-diagnosed particularly - I think it's quite a healthy balance (where I live, at least). The only issue I really have is that I see a lot of people self-diagnosing before blaming everything they do wrong on the disorder they most likely don't actually have. For some reason, mental illness seems to have become "trendy" among the adolescent population. When I was diagnosed, I was an outcast (only a few years ago) yet people claiming to be Bipolar now tend to be seen as "quirky".

It annoys me.

I agree Resident Bipolar with the self diagnosing. Two of my half sisters have bipolar and I'm suspecting that my father may have had it as well. I remember as a kid that every so often he would make large purchases and take on big projects. And my mom was always stressed and crying because of our money situation even though my father had lots of nice things. It makes me mad thinking about it.

The problem is just straight up low diagnostic accuracy, and that works both ways.

I used to believe it was highly over diagnosed. I also used to believe BP 2 was a bullcrap diagnosis altogether. This was mainly due to the fact that I was dx BP 2 and I never believe it because I never felt like I got traditionally manic. And I didn't believe in hypomania. I was struggling with trauma when I was dx'ed and I blamed my problems on that. And honestly a lot of my problems with depression DID stem from the trauma and from the way I was raised so I full on denied any other possibility. I felt that people used BP 2 as an excuse for bad behavior and that doctors used it to push drugs on people who didn't need them. I felt people used medication as a crutch and refused to do any real hard work in therapy so they could continue hiding behind the BP 2 label.

Weeeellll all that came around to bite me in the butt. I still believe it might be over diagnosed because pills are much cheaper than therapy and insurance companies would rather pay for meds than therapy but coming here has shown me BP 2 is very real and just as debilitating as BP 1. Hypomania is real, and I know that now because I have experienced it. Looking back I realize I was experiencing it all along, it was just more of an angry and irritable mixed state rather than the euphoria I expected it to be.

Now I'm no doctor but I still feel like it's over diagnosed in adolescents and I think some doctors are chucking some pretty strong meds at teenagers while their brains are still developing...but I guess I can't really say because I'm not in that situation so I don't know what the parents are going through. I just work with the disturbed teens so I see their behaviors in school and I see why someone might want them medicated.

IM the only one in my family dxd bp

I believe it is over diagnosed in some places of the world. And I have noticed many who were not mentally ill, look up the symptoms, self diagnose and then become unstable.

I was honestly shocked coming to this forum and seeing that patients can choose their own meds and basically treat themselves with the pdocs handing out scripts. It saddens me the amount that are now addicted to benzos or on heavy duty antipsychotics for issues that are better addressed in therapy.

It took inpatient to diagnose me, doctors had to observe both mood states happening for an extended period before they stuck a label on. Too many people seem to think that any mood disorder is bipolar, mood disruptions can be caused by a variety of things and it is not always on a chemical level.

Mood diaries, being completely honest and recording ALL of your symptoms and triggers can be really helpful to some by showing them there could be other reasons for their "swings".