APs permanent brain damage

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That’s one more reason to take it slowly, if it doesn’t matter that much. I think everyone should be able to choose if they want to stay on meds or not, but if you rush things too much there’s a chance you’ll be messed up from withdrawals. It happened to me last time I quit and it bothers me that my doctor attributed it to sz and not to quitting meds too quickly.

Also about the dopamine thing, I’m pretty sure there are different parts of the brain that cause positive and negative symptoms. You need more dopamine in one and less in the other to get rid of both, but there’s no need to have positives in order to get rid of negatives. What I think happens sometimes is that quitting meds increases dopamine all around and due to that negatives are better and positives are worse.

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I wonder if positive and negative symptoms brain regions are the same. I hope they’re not, if yes I am fkd!

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I did a quick google to check and found this in this link

The dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia postulates that hyperactivity of dopamine D2 receptor neurotransmission in subcortical and limbic brain regions contributes to positive symptoms of schizophrenia, whereas negative and cognitive symptoms of the disorder can be attributed to hypofunctionality of dopamine D1 receptor neurotransmission in the prefrontal cortex (Toda & Abi-Dargham, 2007).

So I guess they aren’t the same, thankfully

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Take your time man. You just dont want to do some quick reduction and have it go sideways. Plan for the worst so you dont get caught off guard. Practice awareness.

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I read some articles on how aps can reduce cortical connectivity i think its called.

But…psychosis can also cause that.

Thats why aps get used there a safer alternative to unchecked psychosis and can get things manageable.

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Is this some sort of scheme to relapse so horribly that you are assigned a psychiatrist rather than your family GP? It is the only rational plot I can come up with for what you are doing @anon67051439.

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Good point. Also the other thing is we’re all aging. Can’t really compare 5-10 years ago to today. I think there’s a natural depressing effect as we age to some degree.

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Yea with mental health stuff it takes minimum 2 weeks to even BEGIN to take effect, nevermind to reach full effect.

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Its been 4 weeks.

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True dude. I wasn’t criticing you just so you know. Just saying. Anything brain related takes like 2 weeks to feel a difference. I’m sure you know already that’s why they usually keep you at the hospital minimum 2 weeks a lot of the time

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My negative symptoms only have got worse and worse and worse over prob the last 10 years but definitely the last 5 years. I have noticed no difference in the meds making them worse. Abilify mighta even made em a tiny bit better but im not sure. Im at the point now where i shower like once every 7-10 days. I dread to go to the store. I change my clothes maybe once a week. And im seriously concidering shaving my head so i dont have to go to the hair cutter once a month to keep it outta my eyes. I am only trying as hard as i am cause i have to for approximately 6 more years but then maybe 5 maybe 7 i will no longer have anything i need to try for and i wont have to try anymore.

TLDR idk if the meds caused my negative symptoms but if they did, quitting the meds made no difference.

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72

That sucks, everyone blames the meds for negative symptoms. I stopped for 2 years before and no improvement in negative symptoms. I also felt like my negative symptoms were better on Abilify than off meds but my pdoc says meds don’t affect negative symptoms. If going off meds for a few months doesn’t improve them I will go back on Abilify or maybe Vraylar if my insurance covers it.

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@LevelJ1 Did you ever try Abilify? Did it improve your negative symptoms compared to off meds?

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@Wave How is the Abilify going, did you increase and is it still helping negative symptoms?

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Hi @anon67051439
I’m still on 2mg of Abilify but my new psychiatrist doesn’t like the idea of me being on two different APs, so I’ll see how it goes.

It’s still helping my negative symptoms but not as much as before

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Thanks @Wave

155

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@Bowens Was Vraylar better than Abilify for negative symptoms?

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It seemed like it was back when I first started taking it. I was just coming out of a psychosis though. Then dosage was increased and shortly thereafter I seemed to lose that high mood.

I couldnt tell you whether the high mood was a temporary effect that mostly went away after getting used to it, increased dose mostly nullified it, or it was related to just coming out of psychosis…maybe dopamine was still high? Or maybe it was something else.

But yes, I seemed to have a temporary mood boost where I was pretty happy and enjoying things.

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I reduced to 1mg yesterday and today I am getting short lapses of 1hr where I feel happy. I am afraid this happiness will end up with psychosis, thats how it was when I stopped meds for 2yrs in 2016. It feels like mania. I am well below the equivalent of 10mg Abilify now, under 10mg I got psychotic last time but negatives improved at the same time. There is no way out.

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I feel like my negative symptoms only get better when psychotic. The increase in dopamine does both. Its impossible to be like before sz, thats what my pdoc told me.

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