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Diagnosis depends on the individual practitioner. For my diagnosis I brought in a bunch of old records from elementary school and talked to the psychiatrist and that was it. For my wife, the same psychiatrist and a therapist thought she had bi-polar. She tried the medications for that and they just made her feel terrible, gain weight and in some cases they made her worse. Then we sitched to our current specialist. Diagnosis for her consisted of a massive symptoms questionnaire that we did together, and hour Q and A and a computer based diagnostic featuring a blinking square. I took the paper questionnaire too. After that we saw the doctor every two weeks for about 3 months. Cost wasn't cheap, it was 500$ for all the testing and was (and still is) 120$ a session, but it's worth it. We wasted a year with a general psychiatrist and that cost us way more in terms of stress and lost opportunities. She ended up being diagnosed ADD inattentive type and OCD with depression and anxiety, and the treatment for that has worked out a lot better than the treatment for bipolar. None of it was covered by my insurance as our specialist isn't in anyones network. The current treatment system is balls, basically if you're upper middle class or better, (or have well off parents) you can get what you need. If not, you fall through the cracks. Society needs to change it's attitude toward mental health, especially paying for it. I'd like to see single payer, but if not we need full mental health parity, supposedly we have it but my insurance does whatever the hell it wants anyways.
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Oct 12, 2009 20:16
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 08:13 |
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Adderall would make my heart race, so I stopped taking it. It also gave me insomnia and killed my appetite, but I got used to those effects. Ritalin just made me nervous. I take Strattera now, but if I have to go back to a stimulant it'd be Dexedrine. Trying out ADD drugs is a little bit like trying on shoes, you never know what will fit you until you try them.
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Nov 16, 2009 16:53
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