New Psych, New Evaluation, Same Diagnosis

I love the new psych. I am not going back to the old one. The new one spent an actual hour and a half with me, listening to me, to my history, to my ideas about my meds. I was prepared this time. In all fairness to my last psych, he got me straight from the hospital, and all I could do for several visits was sit in the chair and cry. But this time, I used my resume to help create a timeline of episodes of depression and hypomania and brought along a list of my meds and when I was given them.

On first blush, the psych agrees that I have some form of bipolar. Probably bipolar II because I don't seem to show a history of full blow mania or psychosis. He's shoving Remeron off my list of meds, which I'd tried to talk my last psych into doing because I knew it wasn't working for me. And while my new psych thinks Lamictal is good for some types of bipolar, he thinks Lithium might be the better choice for me, but we need some baseline blood tests. I go to my new PCP Monday, and my psych gave me a "prescription" for what he required in the blood test.

He also wants my past history from the hospital, from my last psych, and from my last PCP. He's the first psych to be so thorough. And I could tell he listened to me. He agreed with me when I said that I thought they were merely throwing drugs at me and couldn't understand why I was on three -- count them: three -- anti-depressents. He'd like to have me try Lithium and get me down to one anti-depressent or maybe a muscle relaxant? That last bit I'm not sure of. I need to research that more in the treatment of bipolar disorder.

It was a second opinion, though, and he seemed utterly professional and interested in my input -- that I wanted an evaluation and a diagnosis. When I walked out the door, I told him how glad I was to have found him and that he seemed very professional and gave me a better evaluation than I've had since the hospital. He kinda smiled, like he was feeling a little self-conscious, and told me I was a very good patient. So I'm encourage. He seems like someone who's willing to work together on my diagnosis, and that matters a great deal to me.

I really lucked into this non-profit organization. They are, without equal, the best treatment I've received since being in Maryland. I even called the head honcho of the place to let him know how happy I was with my therapist and the meeting with my psychiatrist. After some shoddy treatment, you don't realize what a relief it is to finally find the holy grail of psychological specialists. And we often overlook people who do their jobs, and do them well. I wanted to be sure the head honcho knew what a great set of people he had.