How do doctors diagnose bipolar disorder?
If you think that you, or a person you care for, may have bipolar disorder, see your doctor. Getting the right diagnosis is the first step to getting good treatments and being able to live a normal life. Doctors often find it hard to diagnose bipolar disorder.[1] And you need the right diagnosis to get the right treatment. It can sometimes take people five years to 10 years before they get the right treatment.[2] This is partly because people are more likely to visit their doctor when they have depression (a very low mood) than when they have mania (a very high mood).[1] If your doctor doesn’t know that you also get mania, he or she might think you have ordinary depression. But the treatments for ordinary depression are different from the ones for bipolar disorder. So be sure to tell your doctor about all of your mood problems, not just the times when you feel depressed.
