My psychiatrist dismissed me as a patient

matt1162 wrote:I had been tapering off of paxil for several weeks. As I got the dose down low I started having withdrawal problems. The problems were mostly stomach problems. Paxil never did any good for me. It was the 4th SSRI I had taken that failed. My shrink's solution to my withdrawal was for me to start taking Brintellix which is another SSRI. I told him that low serotonin wasn't the cause of my depression. My life situation was the cause. He insisted that low serotonin was the reason I was depressed. I told him I wasn't going to take another "antidepressant". I've taken 25 antidepressants over a 26 year span and none have helped. As he was insisting that my serotonin was low, I asked him what my serotonin levels were and what they needed to be for me to feel better. Of course he couldn't quantify my serotonin (and no doctor can). He responded that there was no test for serotonin. I then asked how he could know my serotonin was low. His response was "because you're depressed". I told him that he was using circular logic at it's worst. He then said he was no longer going to treat me. After 26 years of seeing shrinks I've reached the conclusion that the entire profession is nothing but a bunch of quacks trying to sell drugs. I've had it with psychiatry. I'm now on day 5 without paxil and I'm starting to show normal human emotions again. Of course I was also taking remeron. Once everything settles down coming off paxil I'm going to work on stopping remeron. Remeron is a scary drug. It puts me right to sleep but it's really bad sleep and I wake up after 4 hours and can't fall back to sleep. It causes the worst nightmares too. I just want to feel "natural" again.

Parador wrote:

matt1162 wrote:That's the whole MO of psychiatrists now - mess with the brain chemistry and hope something good happens. It's psychologists who do the real work.

Chainsaw wrote:

Parador wrote:

matt1162 wrote:That's the whole MO of psychiatrists now - mess with the brain chemistry and hope something good happens. It's psychologists who do the real work.

I actually think low about psychologists because they only want to talk, even when this isn't working. They seem to believe that Sigmund Freud is the solution to everything. I believe there are some really bad shrinks, but they can't be more worse then psychologists. If someone has bipolar disorder, just talking to a psychologist won't help them with with their moodswings. Only a psychiatrist can do that, with the correct medication.

Study Shows Many People Who Are Told They Have the Disorder Don't Meet Standard Criteria
By Charlene Laino

Many people who have been told by their doctors that they have bipolar disorder don't really have it.

So say researchers who used a standardized, comprehensive, psychiatric diagnostic interview to evaluate 700 adult psychiatric outpatients.

About 20% had previously been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. But only 13% met the criteria, says Mark Zimmerman, MD, associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence and practicing psychiatrist at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence.

"In about half of patients previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder, we couldn't confirm the diagnosis," he tells WebMD.

There are real dangers to overdiagnosis, chief among them unnecessary exposure to mood stabilizers and all their powerful side effects, Zimmerman says. There's also the stigmatization of having a serious, possibly lifelong mental illness.

The study is being published online by the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry and presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.

Why Is Bipolar Disorder Overdiagnosed?

Bipolar disorder used to be called manic depression because it is characterized by bouts of depression and bouts of mania. Patients experience dramatic mood swings between euphoria and severe depression; they may have hallucinations or delusions.

Patients with anxiety, agitation, irritability, and restlessness that does not persist are sometimes misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder, Zimmerman says.

"These could be symptoms of bipolar disorder. But they really have to be accompanied by other criteria, such as hyperactivity, feeling energetic despite just a few hours of sleep, or inflated self-esteem," he says.

Ironically, one reason the disorder is being overdiagnosed is "because so much has been written about it being under-recognized," Zimmerman says.

"It's difficult to go to a lecture on bipolar disorder that doesn't begin with, 'Make sure you don't miss...,'" he says. "So clinicians are loathe to miss it."

The increased availability of medications for the treatment of bipolar disorder may also play a role in overdiagnosis, Zimmerman says. "Physicians have a tendency to diagnose something that they feel they comfortable treating," he says.