Bipolar Support Group

anyone have both disorders? how were you dx?

i am concerned i may have both. I have been dx with BP type I since 2004. Also of concern is hypochondria. I sometimes worry that perhaps i am blowing things out of proportion and dwell too much on my issues. How many of you also have hypochondria? am i making too much out of possibly nothing?

Post edited by: maMONa, at: 11/27/2010 12:57 AM

I am bp and schizoaffective. I think there are a lot of people that have diff. combos of mental illnesses. I have the problem of focusing on my illness too much, almost obsessive at times.

take it "one day at a time."

im quite a hypochondriac and worry a lot about the long term effects of my meds...i struggle to keep things in proportion when it comes to beliefs about my health sometime...i also really feared schizophrenia/psychosis when i was in a bad mixed state some months ago (although now i realise that your diagnosis matters far less than your ability to get well...)

Patients are often diagnosised as they present to the docter - often on an emergency basis when it comes to psychosis. My aunt who lived to be 88, was diagnosed as many things in her years in and out of hospitals, schizophernic, nervous breakdowns, multiple personalities, baby blues and many more. It was not until her hospitalization in 2004 when I came to see her and told them that bipolar ran in the family that they treated her with lithium and she came around in 5 days. She was the most psychotic person I've ever had to personally deal with and undressed in the hospital and asked me to burn her clothes and then showed me demons marching across her wall. She also wanted me to call the TV station to come at 4:30 pm when she said they burned the bodies outside her window.

Schizoaffective will not be a diagnosis when DSM-V comes out. Schizophernia and bipolar look very much alike at the far ends but there are meds which only schizophernics and/or only bipolars respond to. Bipolars maintain their core personalities and intellegence and there is a crazy sense to what they do and see even when psychtic. Schizophernics go flat and their thoughts are completely disjointed. Bipolars have delusions and hallucinations that run with their moods - like mania and angels singing outside the window. Schizophernics have hallucinations and delusions unconnected to affect. Bipolar is episodic with periods of complete normality even without meds. Schizphrenics do not have spontaneous remission. Family genetics play a part in both illnesses. AND other physical illness and substances can make people appear to have one or both of these illnesses.