Bipolar type 2 UNDIAGNOSED OR TAKING YEARS TO DIAGNOSE

@grammato3 I absolutely agree with everything you said there, and as is so often the case Shakespeare sums it up with this line from Romeo and Juliet, hope I remember it acurrately:

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet".

Yes, this has been my experience as well. What was most frustrating was, I finally thought I had the optimum drug in Manerix (Canada), and the doctor took it away, sent me to a bipolar group specialist, in the early 2000s. Ultimately, I found out my thyroid had been "watched" since 1987 for an abnormal bump. It was only removed in 2013, but through that entire time, I struggled with mood fluctuations. Now I wonder if all the meds were just a Band-Aid, until my thyroid developed pre-cancerous cell changes. It is astonishing to me that, even today, the international endocrinology association still recommends this "practice". In Canada, care is not integrated, that is, a psychiatrist doesn't work in tandem with an endocrinologist, at all. They are "too busy", I was told. Now, on Lamictal, Synthroid (at a bit higher dose than normal), and stable, I wonder: if my thyroid had been removed at the first sign of the nodule, would I not have needed all this psychiatry? I hope and pray that doctors WAKE UP. My working life has been ruined by, what I see as mismanagement of my lowered mood problems. The only reason I was "saved", was by researching and finding an endocrinologist adjunct professor, whose son, also an endocrinologist, had the same issue as me. If I had no background in pharma research (15 years), I would be dead today of suicide. It is through a lifetime of persistence, as a patient stuck in a medical specialist's system that works in silos, that I finally have better and imperfect days, not as good as on Manerix, for sure. Now I am fighting to keep my Synthroid dose where it is, since the pharmacist is arguing now that it is "wrong". It is exhausting to fight uphill. I would have liked to go to the MAYO Clinic, and investigated it, but the $ and travel would have been too much. I feel robbed of years if my life. So you are not the only one, by any means, who is going through this.

@tisme As I outlined earlier in the thread, I had a relatively late-in-life bipolar 2 diagnosis (I was 59 at the time). Much like you, my depression was eating me alive, and the diagnosis only came after being hospitalized following a near suicide. In my case it turned out that a common antidepressant had been driving what had been lifelong but fairly manageable depression right off the cliff. This didn't get discovered until a few months after the hospital stay. The doc had initially added a mood stabilizer that knocked the depression down a notch for a short while, but ultimately couldn't keep pace with it.

I wrote out the details above, so I won't rehash it here. My main suggestion for you, however, is don't give up and be open to trying new approaches. For me, along with quitting the antidepressant (Effexor), a medication switch to Lamotrigine turned everything around. I haven't had even a mild depressive episode for two years now, and this after persistent cycles of depression that had come at me several times a year going all the way back to grade school.

I'm not saying Lamotrigine is the right drug for you, that's for your psychiatrist to determine. But I am saying that it's worth sticking to it and trying different things, because something out there might very well work for you.

I have been taking medication for a cardiac issue for 25 years. About 10 years in a switch was needed. It was a good lesson on how sometimes effectiveness wears off over time, and also the importance of being open to changing meds if the one you're on stops working.

My only regret is not getting help long before it hit the crisis stage. I knew it was bad, and had been relentless and deepening for several years. If I'd sought help earlier, it's possible that a lot of mental anguish and some pretty severe behavioral issues brought on by it, as well as that visit to the hospital, probably could have been avoided. It sounds like you're working on it, which I didn't do until it was almost too late. And if your depression is getting worse, absolutely keep your doctor informed. It might be that changing medications will at the very least ease that.

Keep trying. It can get better.

I started lamotrigine but found it triggered palpitations which woke me up. I know I need something to help the depression WOW. it took ages for me to finally try lamot so disappointed in that side effect. Having similar issues to rheumatoid drugs. cant take this one cant take that one.