My diagnonsense

So I called a potential new psoc my t recommends to see about possibly seeing someone for a second opinion. I may have messed up.

The receptionist said that I needed to fill out an intake form over the phone with her. One of the questions was my diagnosis. See it's complicated because my current psychiatrist says bipolar with psychotic features but my psychologist (t) says schizoaffective bp type. So I said it's complicated but my psychologist says schizoaffective bp type and PTSD.

Is it wrong to have told her that? I wasn't sure how to answer. Eh. I'm worried.

The doctor will review my intake form today and they will call me tomorrow to tell me if she will accept me as a new patient.

That would be odd for your t to refer you to a pdoc that wouldn’t take you based on the diagnosis your t assessed.

I wouldn’t worry about it.

It's just my pdoc says bp 1. I'm afraid I've messed up. I was just put on that spot and wasn't sure what to say. My t recommends her. I'm not 100% sure I wanna switch but I think I do. At least get a second opinion. My current pdoc has me on tons of meds and has other tendencies I don't really like.

I just don't know how this will turn out

Hopefully it turns out well.

I am sure it will work out just fine.

From my experience with private psychiatrists (and even some psychologists) is that though they may take a previous diagnosis into consideration, they actually like to come up with your diagnosis themselves. It happened that in all such cases with me that all of the psychiatrists came up with the same diagnosis - bipolar type 1. The "features" of my bipolar 1 often changed with episodes. Sometimes I had typical bipolar 1 without psychosis. Sometimes with psychosis (typical or mixed), sometimes without psychosis mixed, etc. I just say I have bipolar type 1.

The key when getting a second opinion is to really want a correct answer. That means please do not omit or exaggerate details. From my experience, I think a really careful out-patient private psychiatrist should take at least 2-3, 50 or 60 min sessions to come up with their final diagnosis. I think it really takes that long to hear and consider a patient's whole entire story. Hospital pdocs have the advantage of observing and receiving observations for days, but even they should ask some key questions beyond what is "seen" during a hospitalization.

Yeah I'll explain further if I see her. I just got put on spot and fumbled. I haven't even heard of she will accept me as a patient so yeah.