I’m pro meds since I got on Latuda but was Antimeds on risperdal. Something about the fact that I was growing breasts and obese made me think all meds were that way
I’ve always tried to maintain a promeds attitude, the meds help just not completely. The only med I was on that I don’t have a promed mentality is fanapt. Fanapt tore up my stomach and I was sick the whole time I was on it.
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You’re right (now). All meds are not that way. (See Adverse Effects of Antipsychotic Medications | AAFP and scroll down to Table 3.)
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If one gets into a few of the psychotherapies listed below, there is a good – if not absolute – chance that one will be able to reduce the med dosage, and, as a result, the nasty side effects.
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Psychotherapies for that currently include…
DBT – http://behavioraltech.org/resources/whatisdbt.cfm
MBSR – Welcome to the Mindful Living Blog
MBCT - Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy: theory and practice - PubMed
ACT – ACT | Association for Contextual Behavioral Science
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the even newer somatic psychotherapies like…
MBBT – An Introduction to Mind-Body Bridging & the I-System – New Harbinger Publications, Inc
SEPT – Somatic experiencing - Wikipedia
SMPT – Sensorimotor psychotherapy - Wikipedia
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or standard CBTs, like…
REBT – Rational emotive behavior therapy - Wikipedia
Schematherapy – Schema therapy - Wikipedia
Learned Optimism – Learned optimism - Wikipedia
Standard CBT – Psychotherapy | NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness & scroll down
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Get two or more of those “down,” and one can use the skills therefrom in this way to combat delusional thinking and emotional reactivity very quickly: 10 StEP – Pair A Docks: The 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing
I was anti meds, then went off them, was hospitalised, went on them, went off them again, then realised I couldn’t cope without them.
It took me years to realise it was ‘pills for life’.
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I am cautiously pro meds because they do help some/many people. They have their limitations though and some over hype their benefits.
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I’m not anti meds, just wish that these antipsychotics were safer and more effective.
I am going to switch meds soon, away from Risperdal, don’t know which med I’ll be going to yet.
I would like to avoid all antipsychotics altogether, but I don’t think that my psychiatrist will agree to it.
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I’d say pro. I have this (delusional?) idea popping in the back of my mind at times though, that, to put it bluntly, I cheated my way out of psychosis by taking meds. That I had ought to solve this situation au naturel. Then I think of the relief that medication brings after an episode and decide that that couldn’t possibly be a bad thing, and think it is vanity speaking there. I had luck in my medication responses, I tried risperidone, that worked a treat to come out of the first episode, had some side effects, then tried aripiprazole which seems alright for me.
My doctor tried to reduce my meds and I got paranoid just at the idea. I’d rather take meds then risk being paranoid ever again
Had you done any of those psychotherapies I listed? If you had not, I am not surprised. If you had, and became proficient with the skills they teach, I would be a bit surprised.
I do NOT suggest dose reduction all by itself without learning the “mind management” skills taught by those therapies.
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Once you get on a safer med you’ll see. i kept thinking on risperdal how I was growing breasts and that’s not a natural thing to worry about
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Pro meds all the way. Even if I taper off I experience full blown psychosis and I realize now that I have a serious disease and need to take medication. Too much horrible ■■■■ has gone down in my life because I went off my meds. Too much terror and confusion. It’s not fun being off meds.
I’m pro-recovery. That means I’m pro-medication (emphasis on lowest working dose), pro-therapy, pro-diet, and pro-exercise. If it works, I want it in my toolkit.
Pixel.
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I’m pro-meds but I wish there was a better way.
Absolutely… The low dose is important too. You don’t want to become a zombie. I go to a clinic that emphasizes therapy and low doses as well as minimal antipsychotic polypharmacy.
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i have a neutral stance…
if they work for you…awesome
if they don’t…you find another way.
( there are cases where aps are prescribed to very young children…that is not cool ! )
take care 
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People who are anti-med rarely admit it here.
@cactustomato @cbbrown @everhopeful @firemonkey @flybottle @HulGil @shutterbug @Blizzard @darksith @Malvok
One of the things I forget to add when I should is that anti-Ps do not treat sz (or any psychotic disorder) per se. What they treat are the upshots of sz in battered autonomic “fight or flight”) nervous system. (Which is why anti-Ps are now the #1 got-to for PTSD.) (Well, duh. But it took decades to get that across to the pinheads who studied pharmacology for two or three years and never connected the obvious dots.)
Dr. Sapolsky’s rundown on the physiology of sz in his YouTube lecture at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEnklxGAmak more than touches on that, but he’s far from the only expert who knows this. Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine, Bruce McEwen and Sonia Lupien – all major names in research into and treatment for traumatic stress – are all onto it.
The relevance of this for the 80% or so of sz patients who clearly show florid PTSD symptoms when they are not medicated (and lower-order PTSD symptoms even when they are) is that there is more than one way to skin a PTSD-tortured cat. So… here we go again:
- Get properly diagnosed by a board-certified psychopharmacologist who specializes in the psychotic disorders. One can find them at…
http://doctor.webmd.com/find-a-doctor/specialty/psychiatry and https://psychiatrists.psychologytoday.com/rms/
. - Work with that “psychiatrist” (or “p-doc”) to develop a medication formula that stabilizes their symptoms sufficiently so that they can tackle the psychotherapy that will disentangle their thinking.
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Psychotherapies for that currently include…
DBT – http://behavioraltech.org/resources/whatisdbt.cfm
MBSR – http://www.mindfullivingprograms.com/whatMBSR.php
MBCT - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22340145
ACT – https://contextualscience.org/act
Vipassana – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassanā
. - the even newer somatic psychotherapies like…
MBBT – https://www.newharbinger.com/blog/introduction-mind-body-bridging-i-system
SEPT – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_Experiencing
SMPT – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensorimotor_psychotherapy
. - or standard CBTs, like…
REBT – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_emotive_behavior_therapy
Schematherapy – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_Therapy
Learned Optimism – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_optimism
Standard CBT – https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Treatment/Psychotherapy & scroll down
. - Get two or more of those “down,” and one can use the skills therefrom in this way to combat delusional thinking and emotional reactivity very quickly: 10 StEP – http://pairadocks.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-10-steps-of-emotion-processing.html
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Yes, I agree that it is important to recognize that meds do not directly treat or cure SZ but they can help a lot I think. I have therapy and it helps me get the most out of it.
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Neither.
Pro: I know people who’s lives were literally saved by meds and who are happy with their lives now. It’s good that they had the possibility of meds.
Con: for me personally meds were unnecessary, very destructive, and I wish someone had honestly warned me about risks involved and I had tried harder without meds. I’ve also seen others deeply harmed by them.
Conclusion: I think psychiatry is completely off balance today…too many meds, too little psychotherapy and other methods. I believe psychiatrists should try much harder to really help people solve their problems, before they hand out pills.
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But with schizophenia, physiology plays a huge factor and sometimes for therapy to work you need to already be stabilized by medication. If someone finds a way to manage symptoms and be stable without medication, then I commend them, but sometimes someone is so disconnected from reality that they absolutely need medication to function.
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