# Anyone been misdiagnosed?



## katiecrna (Jan 29, 2016)

Doctors and psychologists can be wrong at times. I'm just wondering if anyone has been wrongly diagnosed. I'm curious how common this is, and how it couldn't mentally affect you to be told your x,y,z when hour not.


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## katiecrna (Jan 29, 2016)

And the reason why I asked is because I think it can be so damaging to be diagnosed wrongly. 
I was diagnosed with ADD, and I think it was good In a way because it explains a lot of my behavior. But then again a problem with these diagnosis is that we can't be cured from them we can just get our behavior under control, or make the best out of it. 
Now that I'm living at home my parents and sibling are now really noticing some of my add behavior and when they confront me about them I kind of have an excuse that well yea I have add. I just thought how crazy that would be if I was one of the thousands who was wrongly diagnosed and I've been living with an excuse and crippling myself.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

Yes, every day on TAM!


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## MJJEAN (Jun 26, 2015)

My brother and sister are quite a bit younger than me and our mother was disabled, so I did a lot of the school and doctor related stuff while my father worked. 

When my sister was in elementary school the teachers demanded she be taken for evaluation. About 4 appointments with doctors and an all day 8 hr marathon with a child psychologist, she was diagnosed ADHD. Two years later, my brother went through the same process. He was diagnosed ADD. My sisters diagnosis, I suspect, is probably correct. My brother, however, was found to not actually have ADD, but to be dyslexic and have a hearing problem.

Bless her, my mother never once let their diagnosis be an excuse for behavior issues. "But I have ADD/ADHD!" would usually be met with a cold stare and "So? All that means is you have to try harder."


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

Katie, you have way too much energy.

You need to burn it off..

Every day do aerobics, run, bike, swim, power walking, Roomba, Jazzercize, whatever!
Get a workout partner. Women running on the street, worry me. Find a gym with an indoor running track.

When younger I had the same issue. I worked up to sixteen hours a day, ran marathons, built my own house [most of it]. Stayed in the Army Reserve for forty years. I never sat down.
I kept my mind and body active.

I did not have time to reflect or to get depressed!!

Now that I am older, I am reaping the rewards. Still in shape.

Sshh....uh, yeah...stiff in the morning.
I tore a lot of tendons in my life...
Many head injuries. 
Don't even say it!!


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## katiecrna (Jan 29, 2016)

SunCMars said:


> Katie, you have way too much energy.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I have too much mental energy. Along with obsessive tendencies. But I agree with you, exercise is the best medicine/therapy there is.


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## tech-novelist (May 15, 2014)

I have been diagnosed as having Asperger's by an inlaw who is a social worker.
I don't fit the profile well at all, being an extravert who gets along with (most) people pretty well.


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## jorgegene (May 26, 2012)

i was misdiagnosed many years ago as a young man. i was having severe anxiety attacks like in waves.
back then (1970's) anxiety was not classified as a disorder, but symptomatic of something else.
so the psychiatrist diagnosed me as 'latent schizophrenia'. 

many thorazines and panic attacks later, that same shrink told me that despite the thorazine not apparently doing squat, 
he insisted it was holding me back from sinking into the abbyss. if anyone has any experience with thorazine, you will know it makes you into a zombie.
so, i was turned into a zombie with continued panic attacks. 

finally, about 18 months and a number of gurus later, i saw a psychoanalyst trained in the old german school of dream analysis.

after two or three sessions, he told me "there's nothing really wrong with you; you just had some kind of really traumatic experience". 
he took me immediately off the thorazine, and put me on a minor tranquilizer. the next day, the panic attacks stopped.

it took me another two years to fully recover, but once i did, the panic attacks never came back after some 40 years.


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## katiecrna (Jan 29, 2016)

jorgegene said:


> i was misdiagnosed many years ago as a young man. i was having severe anxiety attacks like in waves.
> 
> back then (1970's) anxiety was not classified as a disorder, but symptomatic of something else.
> 
> ...




Wow. I'm sorry.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

tech-novelist said:


> I have been diagnosed as having Asperger's by an inlaw who is a social worker.
> I don't fit the profile well at all, being an extravert who gets along with (most) people pretty well.


The inlaw must not like you. Did this inlaw share his/her opinion with other family members or friends?
That would be telling.

Aspergers is a loose term. There are many levels presenting. You may have a few of the characteristics.
Then again, the inlaw may have not seen the extrovert in you. Or chose to ignore it.

Being 'on the Spectrum' is a damaging charge.

Some people are quiet, close lipped, not sociable, touchy, not especially friendly. They are *Saturnine. My favorite term. 

*Of Saturn.


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## tech-novelist (May 15, 2014)

SunCMars said:


> The inlaw must not like you. Did this inlaw share his/her opinion with other family members or friends?
> That would be telling.
> 
> Aspergers is a loose term. There are many levels presenting. You may have a few of the characteristics.
> ...


She said that in the hearing of other family members.
I thought it was extremely inappropriate of her to do that, especially since I hadn't asked her opinion and wouldn't consider it valuable.


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## Andy1001 (Jun 29, 2016)

katiecrna said:


> And the reason why I asked is because I think it can be so damaging to be diagnosed wrongly.
> I was diagnosed with ADD, and I think it was good In a way because it explains a lot of my behavior. But then again a problem with these diagnosis is that we can't be cured from them we can just get our behavior under control, or make the best out of it.
> Now that I'm living at home my parents and sibling are now really noticing some of my add behavior and when they confront me about them I kind of have an excuse that well yea I have add. I just thought how crazy that would be if I was one of the thousands who was wrongly diagnosed and I've been living with an excuse and crippling myself.


When I was about nine a new teacher in my school started failing me on any tests we took,up until then I was usually top of the class.He phoned my mom and told her I had ADD.She came up to the school and asked to see my test papers but he didn't want to show them to her at first and then he admitted failing me without actually checking my results,he said I never paid any attention to him and it was pointless checking them.The principal was called and he nearly **** himself when he realised what the teacher was up to and then my mom said she was going to the school governors about this clown and his amateur diagnosis I should say here my mom was a professor of English Literature at the time so both of them were out of their depth.
The school psychologist was called and my mom said she would allow me to take an iq test as long as the teacher took the same one.
Three tests and I beat him each time,my moms last words to him were "You are an idiot".
He was gone a couple of weeks later,as was I.
Nobody messed with my Mom.


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## Mr. Nail (Apr 26, 2011)

Finally, after 3 months and 2 specialists my Dr. just threw up his hands and said, "everything is weird with you". We got it fixed, it was painful, and expensive and now I know what to watch for and how to head off an attack. It turned out to be Gout, but my point here is that when everything is weird , you get misdiagnosed a lot.

How does it affect me mentally? That's the interesting bit. It's not good, or healthy. I tend to distrust any diagnosis. But more especially if I don't like the treatment. For example I took injected testosterone for a period of time. I didn't like the needles, I didn't like the side effects, and I didn't like the limited improvement I was getting. So I just stopped taking it. One morning I woke up and looked at the vial and the needles, and said stuff this, I'm not doing it any more. Did not call the doc and discuss, did not consult with the nurse my insurance company keeps on staff, did not discuss it with relatives or even my wife. I guess I'm just a terrible patient. Some months later when my doctor asked I said it wasn't helping so I stopped. He put me on a new therapy.

Overall you are right medicine is hugely complicated. It's easy to misdiagnose, or advise an ineffective therapy / medication. I would be better off to take my concerns to a doc sooner, but under the ACA all doctors seem so over worked and harried that you really have to be in serious discomfort before you bother them with your pain. 

That about covers my take on your original question.


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## Andy1001 (Jun 29, 2016)

tech-novelist said:


> I have been diagnosed as having Asperger's by an inlaw who is a social worker.
> I don't fit the profile well at all, being an extravert who gets along with (most) people pretty well.


I swear I would have told her to take her amateur diagnosis and shove it up her ass.Social work is a far cry from having the intelligence,experience and qualifications to diagnose something as complicated as Asbergers.Some but not all of the symptoms are depression,OCD,ADHD,and anxiety.
I don't know you obviously but your description of yourself doesn't sound like someone with asbergers or even someone on the spectrum.
I hope you called your inlaw out on her diagnosis.


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## tech-novelist (May 15, 2014)

Andy1001 said:


> I swear I would have told her to take her amateur diagnosis and shove it up her ass.Social work is a far cry from having the intelligence,experience and qualifications to diagnose something as complicated as Asbergers.Some but not all of the symptoms are depression,OCD,ADHD,and anxiety.
> I don't know you obviously but your description of yourself doesn't sound like someone with asbergers or even someone on the spectrum.
> I hope you called your inlaw out on her diagnosis.


Yes, my first reaction was to tell her where to shove it.
But I didn't do that because we rarely see her, so I don't have to put up with her very much. 
I'd rather not make my wife's relationships with her family any more strained.


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## honcho (Oct 5, 2013)

katiecrna said:


> Doctors and psychologists can be wrong at times. I'm just wondering if anyone has been wrongly diagnosed. I'm curious how common this is, and how it couldn't mentally affect you to be told your x,y,z when hour not.


In the realm of mental issues I think misdiagnosis is more common than it should. To get a proper evaluation it takes much longer than a couple of visits. My ex was diagnosed with too many things to mention here all depending on which practioner she would see. And that's part of the problem, people will jump from one doctor/therapist to another and can easily display one set of issues or mood one day then flip to a different set the next. 

For myself the diagnosis was correct but the prognosis was completely wrong. I had a hemorhagic stroke, night it happened I was told I won't see morning, OK they got that wrong. Then was told it would happen again with in 5 years and I wouldn't survive that. That was over 10 years ago. I'll readily admit that when you have doctor after doctor telling a person they have x amount of time you tend to live your life on the clock. I remember jokingly asking myself after 5 years, now what?

My brother had an injury in his late teens and was told he would never father kids....after the first 2 kids the doctors said they may have been in error.


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## Andy1001 (Jun 29, 2016)

honcho said:


> In the realm of mental issues I think misdiagnosis is more common than it should. To get a proper evaluation it takes much longer than a couple of visits. My ex was diagnosed with too many things to mention here all depending on which practioner she would see. And that's part of the problem, people will jump from one doctor/therapist to another and can easily display one set of issues or mood one day then flip to a different set the next.
> 
> For myself the diagnosis was correct but the prognosis was completely wrong. I had a hemorhagic stroke, night it happened I was told I won't see morning, OK they got that wrong. Then was told it would happen again with in 5 years and I wouldn't survive that. That was over 10 years ago. I'll readily admit that when you have doctor after doctor telling a person they have x amount of time you tend to live your life on the clock. I remember jokingly asking myself after 5 years, now what?
> 
> My brother had an injury in his late teens and was told he would never father kids....after the first 2 kids the doctors said they may have been in error.


I love that line there "may" have been an error.When my older brother was born my parents were told that my mom would never conceive again.
Yet here I am!


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

There was no ADHD when I grew up in backwater Europe. It took the clinical faculty of an American school to diagnose it. Yet I developed pretty elaborate coping mechanisms, mostly planning and decision making.

My DD1 has ADHD also, but diagnosed early and under control.


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## Satya (Jun 22, 2012)

A professional diagnosis is based (hopefully) on many founded and grounded factors, studies, facts, consistent professional experience with the particular condition. An amateur diagnosis is usually based on point of view and personal experience, which could be skewed and biased, but is nonetheless real to that person. I personally firmly associate myself with the latter and wouldn't dare to do otherwise since I lack the proper certifications. 

For instance, one could say that you create new posts with pretty decent frequency. What differences do you think a professional vs. an amateur would offer up regarding the reason for that? Boredom vs. Narcissism? Intellectual curiosity vs. Manipulation? Need for contact vs. Need to prove one's self? Knowledge seeking vs. Knowledge transfer? Or, should they all be flipped around given the ranks?

Only you truly know why you do what you do, whether consciously or otherwise. The diagnoser is just putting together a puzzle based on what could be a very complex profile, involving factors outside of your immediate behavior and choices. Sometimes that behavior is predictive or follows a script. The Cheaters Handbook is a good example. 

We all like to think that we are deeper than a script but in my very limited, amateur experience, I think that we are all pretty predictable given our MO has an opportunity to be absorbed.


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## Red Sonja (Sep 8, 2012)

Andy1001 said:


> When I was about nine a new teacher in my school started failing me on any tests we took,up until then I was usually top of the class.He phoned my mom and told her I had ADD.She came up to the school and asked to see my test papers but he didn't want to show them to her at first and then he admitted failing me without actually checking my results,he said I never paid any attention to him and it was pointless checking them.The principal was called and he nearly **** himself when he realised what the teacher was up to and then my mom said she was going to the school governors about this clown and his amateur diagnosis I should say here my mom was a professor of English Literature at the time so both of them were out of their depth.
> The school psychologist was called and my mom said she would allow me to take an iq test as long as the teacher took the same one.
> Three tests and I beat him each time,my moms last words to him were "You are an idiot".
> He was gone a couple of weeks later,as was I.
> Nobody messed with my Mom.


Yup, similar thing happened to me in the 2nd grade. You would think that teachers, as part of their education, would be taught to spot a highly intelligent child that is bored out of their mind. But nope, instead we are labeled as "problem" children.

In my case, I was immediately put in 5th grade (after I was tested) ... problem solved.


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## Andy1001 (Jun 29, 2016)

Red Sonja said:


> Yup, similar thing happened to me in the 2nd grade. You would think that teachers, as part of their education, would be taught to spot a highly intelligent child that is bored out of their mind. But nope, instead we are labeled as "problem" children.
> 
> In my case, I was immediately put in 5th grade (after I was tested) ... problem solved.


I've had some great teachers since then.I ended up in a school for gifted kids and it was great.The problem with some teachers is they hate to think that some kid is smarter than them.If this happened today he would have been fired immediately,as it was he moved to another school in the same district.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

A friend of mine was misdiagnosed for several years with fibromyalgia. Once that diagnosis was given, all the docs do it throw drugs at her. Not one did any kind of physical exam.

Her therapist just did not buy it and had to go to a local practice run by some NP's. These NP's seem to be a lot better that most docs I've been in to in recent year.

Any who, the NP was pretty quick to pick up the fact that something did not jive with the diagnosis that my friend was given. So she had my friend get a complete work up. Turns out that her problem was that she had a 15 lb. tumor. I guess it started on an ovary. By the time it was found the tumor was attaching to most of her organs. Surgery was brutal.

Of course she was exhausted and hurt all over, she was carrying around a tumor the size of a small child and it was consuming her innards. Duh....


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## Satya (Jun 22, 2012)

EleGirl said:


> A friend of mine was misdiagnosed for several years with fibromyalgia. Once that diagnosis was given, all the docs do it throw drugs at her. Not one did any kind of physical exam.
> 
> Her therapist just did not buy it and had to go to a local practice run by some NP's. These NP's seem to be a lot better that most docs I've been in to in recent year.
> 
> ...


 @EleGirl, that's terrible, but good that the real issue was discovered eventually. But that must not have left her with a lot of faith in the doctors.. Or any doctors.

My Lyme was misdiagnosed as tendinitis. Yeah, tendinitis that switches shoulders every other day? I had to insist on a full tick panel and I'm glad I did. This was before Lyme was more prevalent and more doctors finally considered it.


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## DustyDog (Jul 12, 2016)

katiecrna said:


> Doctors and psychologists can be wrong at times. I'm just wondering if anyone has been wrongly diagnosed. I'm curious how common this is, and how it couldn't mentally affect you to be told your x,y,z when hour not.


Most people have been misdiagnosed a time or two.

Whether it throws you off kilter depends on your gullibility factor.


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## katiecrna (Jan 29, 2016)

DustyDog said:


> Most people have been misdiagnosed a time or two.
> 
> 
> 
> Whether it throws you off kilter depends on your gullibility factor.




I'm sure it also depends on your age as well because most of us are gullible when we're young.


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## DustyDog (Jul 12, 2016)

katiecrna said:


> I'm sure it also depends on your age as well because most of us are gullible when we're young.


Statistically, gullibility usually peaks in the 20s and 30s...that's something we learn in marketing classes! But some people just get more gullible with age.


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