I was able to reach remission after hearing voices 10 years ago because I caught the symptoms a 3 days after it happened. 5 years ago, I got a relapse, which involved hallucinations with no insight. I unfortunately got it treated 2.5 years later, and I never fully recovered… because of this, I have a serious disability and wish I was able to recover 100%.
I feel demoralized reading all the research articles about long DUP (duration of untreated psychosis) correlating with lower chances of full recovery and bad outcomes. I reached a medication plateau and it didn’t get better after that. Is there any hope for a full recovery for people like me who had their sickness treated late? Any non drug related ways to boost the medication plateau? Thanks everybody.
I wish there were better developed meds for this. But it seems like most of the research is geared towards preventing psychosis rather than catering to our group where the most damage is done. I heard clozapine could help but my psychiatrist was very wary about it and said it was dangerous. I scoff at the “Early Intervention of Psychosis” centers. If they really wanted to reduce the time it takes to get treatment, they should publicize early treatment for psychosis more. I only got to hear about them once I got IN the mental hospital. If no one knows about early treatment in better ways, how can they be informed enough to catch it early?
LS! I became psychotic at a young age and later age 27. Treatment started when I was 40. I then went to a Fountainhouse Clubhouse in Amsterdam for several years and I managed to get a wellpaid job as mental health researcher. Alas it did not last longer than two years.
Medication got rid of my paranoia and delusions. They’ve stayed gone, but the hallucinations never left. I was in treatment for Bipolar before I started hallucinating so that’s about as early as you can get. I won’t consider it remission until the voices go away for more than a month though.
I worry about having not gone to get treatment until 8 months later. It annoys me how I regularly think back and regret that I need to get over that
I hope I will still be OK. I consider it relatively late treatment too. In comparison to a week.
I wasnt diagnosed until i was in my fortys - tho its agreed ive had Sz for years before. I went downhill after some arsehole doctor said it was purely alcohol based and gave me the label of BPD, and thats when my injections stopped.
Its taken 5 years to feel stable again on the depot jabs - and ive never looked back since.
I personally feel a bit upset that my family didn’t get me help earlier when they knew I was losing my mind, and they dealt with my uncle’s schizophrenia. I talked to my mom and she said she knew something was up but didn’t get treatment for me because my CPS-assigned therapists and social workers all said it was just “behavioral” and that my mom “needed to work on her parenting.”
