Schizophrenia Support Group
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by impairments in the perception of reality and by significant social dysfunction. Untreated schizophrenia is typically characterized by demonstrating disorganized thinking and experiencing delusions or auditory hallucinations.
Friends!
This is a really important topic we need to open.
As it turns out, some of our common medicines actually kill nerves and brain cells. Some are more harmful than others. Some medications help nerve/brain cell functioning while simultaneously harming nerve/brain cell functioning. Other medications only harm cellular lifespans, and as far as I know, possibly some other medications are not toxic to nerve/brain cells at all.
I'm still learning about this but it's important. I think it has a direct correlation to things like risk of Tardive Dyskinesia and why even after lower and lower dosages, of Haldol, my side effects are worsening even though my reduction/elimination of psychosis is pretty much constant.
I never knew this fully until recently, but the increased understanding has helped me to know what I will not be returning to older medications anymore.
Just recently I started researching Haldol (an older, "typical" anti-psychotic medication. I needed to know more about neuromuscular atrophy, the breakdown of muscle nerve cells. So I did a keyword search using terms related to that. I can't remember the exact combination of words, but it was a breakthrough for me.
There are a few different results that come up including a study by JANSSEN, the makers of Risperdal and Invega where they report that Invega is less neurotoxic than Risperdal is less neurotoxic than Haldol.
There are even some psychiatrists out there that think that Haldol should be banned.
I can't go into all the details, and I will try to post up links later, but the main idea is to look up as much stuff as you can and learn how the parts of the brain work, at least the HypoThalamus, since that's that part hit heaviest by our type of medications.
And the HypoThalamus affects the Pituitary Gland, which is the master gland affecting all other glands in the body.
There are ways to cross-reference the known side effects of meds and what you experience with which types of receptors the medications target in the hypothalamus. And different meds target different parts of the hypothalamus too.
If you remember nothing else, remember to look up...
-neuroendocrinology (INSTEAD OF PSYCHIATRY)
-what the hypothalamus does
-symptoms of damage to the hypothalamus
-parts of the brain and their function
pick whatever from those 4 groups you can tolerate the most and learn what you can. Becaus they implement drugs that work in a totally different way, that's the part of the brain that's getting sometimes hurt by the drugs even while they help us cope with the psychosis and/or delusions and/or hallucinations and/or other wierdnesses.
But remember. Quality of life matters.
I'm not anti-medicine. I'm pro-medicine. But what exactly is a medicine?
Medicine is not supposed to damage your body and your brain and make you feel horrible emotionally and cognitively and sexually and physically. If it's doing all that, just maybe it's one of the more neurotoxic meds.
At the very least look up which antipsychotic meds are more neurotoxic than the others. I'm still trying to do that. But I've only just begun. All I know, is that it's a direct correlation to all the issues I've been having lately with anhedonia/gynecomastia/sexual problems/massive mental and physical exhaustion/sometimes insomnia/light sleeping/involuntary muscle spasms/kidney functioning/irritability/lack of focus/etc.
I'm doing noticeably better lately, because for the moment, I'm just beyond the medication. It's faded out of my system just enough for me to feel normal all over again, but only for about 2 out of 42 days until I postponed the next injection of Haldol.
I won't go off treatment entirely, but I'm switching to something that doesnt make me feel so miserable. I think there are other meds better than what I've been taking.
Don't give up hope, guys. We have to defend our bodies and our brains and it's not all or nothing. We need solutions in the forms of compromises that we can tolerate biologically and psychologically.
The lowest effective dose of what we can tolerate the most!
This is a really important topic we need to open.
As it turns out, some of our common medicines actually kill nerves and brain cells. Some are more harmful than others. Some medications help nerve/brain cell functioning while simultaneously harming nerve/brain cell functioning. Other medications only harm cellular lifespans, and as far as I know, possibly some other medications are not toxic to nerve/brain cells at all.
I'm still learning about this but it's important. I think it has a direct correlation to things like risk of Tardive Dyskinesia and why even after lower and lower dosages, of Haldol, my side effects are worsening even though my reduction/elimination of psychosis is pretty much constant.
I never knew this fully until recently, but the increased understanding has helped me to know what I will not be returning to older medications anymore.
Just recently I started researching Haldol (an older, "typical" anti-psychotic medication. I needed to know more about neuromuscular atrophy, the breakdown of muscle nerve cells. So I did a keyword search using terms related to that. I can't remember the exact combination of words, but it was a breakthrough for me.
There are a few different results that come up including a study by JANSSEN, the makers of Risperdal and Invega where they report that Invega is less neurotoxic than Risperdal is less neurotoxic than Haldol.
There are even some psychiatrists out there that think that Haldol should be banned.
I can't go into all the details, and I will try to post up links later, but the main idea is to look up as much stuff as you can and learn how the parts of the brain work, at least the HypoThalamus, since that's that part hit heaviest by our type of medications.
And the HypoThalamus affects the Pituitary Gland, which is the master gland affecting all other glands in the body.
There are ways to cross-reference the known side effects of meds and what you experience with which types of receptors the medications target in the hypothalamus. And different meds target different parts of the hypothalamus too.
If you remember nothing else, remember to look up...
-neuroendocrinology (INSTEAD OF PSYCHIATRY)
-what the hypothalamus does
-symptoms of damage to the hypothalamus
-parts of the brain and their function
pick whatever from those 4 groups you can tolerate the most and learn what you can. Becaus they implement drugs that work in a totally different way, that's the part of the brain that's getting sometimes hurt by the drugs even while they help us cope with the psychosis and/or delusions and/or hallucinations and/or other wierdnesses.
But remember. Quality of life matters.
I'm not anti-medicine. I'm pro-medicine. But what exactly is a medicine?
Medicine is not supposed to damage your body and your brain and make you feel horrible emotionally and cognitively and sexually and physically. If it's doing all that, just maybe it's one of the more neurotoxic meds.
At the very least look up which antipsychotic meds are more neurotoxic than the others. I'm still trying to do that. But I've only just begun. All I know, is that it's a direct correlation to all the issues I've been having lately with anhedonia/gynecomastia/sexual problems/massive mental and physical exhaustion/sometimes insomnia/light sleeping/involuntary muscle spasms/kidney functioning/irritability/lack of focus/etc.
I'm doing noticeably better lately, because for the moment, I'm just beyond the medication. It's faded out of my system just enough for me to feel normal all over again, but only for about 2 out of 42 days until I postponed the next injection of Haldol.
I won't go off treatment entirely, but I'm switching to something that doesnt make me feel so miserable. I think there are other meds better than what I've been taking.
Don't give up hope, guys. We have to defend our bodies and our brains and it's not all or nothing. We need solutions in the forms of compromises that we can tolerate biologically and psychologically.
The lowest effective dose of what we can tolerate the most!
Sorry it took such a long time for me to get back to this thread.
I have had to cope with a lot of different recent issues in my life.
Luckily, on this Friday I'm going to a different clinic to try a different more modern and sophisticated med than Haldol which is several decades old now, and is just not practical anymore.
It will take me some time to find the links I found on the internet before, but I will eventually post them up.
I'm glad you found some kind of relief from Cannabis.
Every time I was emotionally flatlined, it was from being given too much antipsychotic (neuroleptic) chemicals or it building up in my system too much.
Every time I went off the antipsychotic chemicals, my emotions went back to normal. Maybe you got overmedicated too?
"Schizophrenia" is really just a broad term for at least about 80 different diseases that are not well understood. This is the modern consensus amongst modern researchers.
To just say that we are sick is an oversimplification by the the practicing medical workers.
We have to defend our bodies and our brains because nobody else will and the drug companies get rich off of us no matter what.
The psychiatrists can go home to their family and friends at the end of the day and forget about us and just spend their monies they get from seeing us for only about 15 minutes every 2-3 months.
But we have to live within our own bodies and brains and feel the reality. It's here within ourselves that the serious stuff happens, and we are the ones who cope.
Peace be with you. And I wish you wellness and relief.
I am extremely relieved and have better care now socially, medically, and biologically. And this lifts my spirits.
Never give up on yourself.
Defend your body and your brain, because it's you and yours and nobody else cares as much as you about yourself (in a good healthy way). Because only you are you.
Peace be with you.
Because psychotic episodes cause atrophy, the correlation shouldn't be dosage to impairment, but to dosage to need for treatment to impairment.