since updating to 5.1 i feel like i'm having serious battery issues and was wondering if i am going crazy and really am getting good battery life should wait for the next update or swap it out at an apple store.
Not me, but I've always had decent battery life and it has improved since the 5.1 update. Did you update OTA? If so and if it's not too much of an inconvenience, reset Your device completely via iTunes. Be sure to do an iCloud backup or iTunes backup BEFORE you reset your device.
Do you by chance have 'round the clock' Push notifications for social sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? If so, you might want to make some changes in the apps' settings.
I was having a similar issue with perceived battery time. What took care of it for me was to go into the settings app and turn off location services for timezones and iAds.
Sorry I don't have my phone on me at the moment so I'm not sure of the exact location - but it's in location services somewhere, then system services I think.