Tuesday 19 June 2012

Update + Positive GP Appointment

I'll try and do a proper catch up post, but in summary a lot has changed since this time last year. I've pretty much knocked ED behaviour on the head and I'm back to a "safe" weight/BMI. I've recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder after an episode in March.

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I saw my GP today to get another quetiapine prescription.

I hadn't booked a longer than normal appointment or anything, but she chatted to me for ages. She said that she could tell as soon as she saw me that I was doing really well in terms of mood stability. (The last time she saw me was in March and I'd been hypomanic and starting to verge on mania/psychosis). I talked about how I was doing a lot of reading about bipolar disorder and trying to come to terms with the diagnosis. I knew a few years ago I had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and I asked about this as it's something I'd been thinking about. She said that it was now thought that was the wrong diagnosis and bipolar is right and it was fairly typical for a bipolar diagnosis to take a long time.

She asked whether my psychiatrist had discussed long term plans for medication and I said I was hoping to try and manage without long term medication and how I'd prefer to only take medication if I got early warning signs of an episode. My psychiatrist had mentioned this as a possibility before but had said he wanted to wait until my mood had stabilised before making decisions with me. My GP didn't dismiss the idea and said that I had responded really well/quickly to medication when I got ill in March and that she thought I generally retained good insight (which was nice to hear) so didn't see why it wouldn't be managable. She then went on to talk about some of the benefits for long term medication. But it was a relief to know my GP would be supportive of whatever decision I made with my psychiatrist. I also discussed how I was trying to change my lifestyle (stopping recreational drugs, cutting down caffiene and alcohol).

I saw her add a lot of what I said into my notes. "NoN is doing really well, is managing triggers and has very good insight". Awesome!

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