Hey guys! BIG NEWS! My boyfriend has agreed to see his psychiatrist as soon as his insurance goes through at work!!! This is such a huge deal. I know it’s not just going, it’s managing and keeping up with it and I understand the frustration of medication changes and adjustments. I NEED as much advice as I can get… Regarding recommended medicines, medicines that made your life ■■■■, things to watch out for…? To give you some background, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia first when he was around 8 years old I believe. He was re diagnosed when he was a young teen and put in a hospital. I’m pretty sure he has been diagnosed one more time since then. He was on medication on and off for his childhood/pre teen days. He was a meth user for a lot of his teen years but not when he was 8! He (somewhat) recently quit using. It’s been long enough that the aftermath of quitting a substance is no longer apparent. Just the occasional craving is all. He has hallucinations, mainly with voices. Those happen every day, even at work. Full blown psychotic episodes happen anywhere from every other day to once a week. If anyone has ANY advice on the medication/management side of things, I would appreciate you forever.
It’s different for everybody. Most medications work on me, abilify is great for me because it causes no side-effects and does the trick very well. It’s probably the best in the biz right now…that’s why it’s as expensive as it is (albeit not too bad once you have insurance). I also take trileptol which works well for mood and anxiety. And klonopin for anxiety, but not everyone can resist the abuse of klonopin.
Some other good medications are zyprexa (some weight gain involved though), risperedone (sexual side-effects)…and then there’s many more like invega and a few others that people can probably tell you about that I’ve never taken. Clozaril is the most heavy duty anti-psychotic I’ve known…doesn’t sound like your boyfriend needs that. And haldol and thorazine and prolixin…stay away from those. Peace.
Thank you so very much.
what do you think about seroquel? if you’ve been on it, of course
I’ve taken it in the psych ward but was so out of it that I’m not sure how much it benefitted me. It did help me sleep though a lot, so probably causes drowsiness, but that’s why you take it at night.
Since my boyfriend has a legitimate history of self medication, the inevitable side effects of various medications scare me. If what he takes makes him drowsy, I’m afraid that will set him off to need a “pick me up.” After quitting uppers, he’s been really tired and out of it and with his new job, he needs to remain at least at normal alertness. You know?
I am on Olanzapine and I hate it. I am supposed to take 20mg per day, and that knocks me out the next day until at least lunch time. I am having to adjust the dose to try and work. It’s a balancing act at the moment with symptoms and side-effects. From what I have heard, it’s really unique to the person what meds work best. Make sure he gets a doctor who’s knows about all the different meds and can make recommendations.
Thank you, Scott. I know how hard medication introduction and adjustments can be. I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder alongside bipolar disorder… The medications they had me on made me numb and tired… I went from doctor to doctor and they kept piling on diagnoses. This medication messed with my anxiety so here is another pill to take. That one made me tired so here is another pill to take. That one made me irritable so let’s put you on a strong anti psychotic etc etc. When I got pregnant with my son about five and a half years ago, I quit taking all of my medications. It was rough as hell at first but over time, and with the complete change of heart motherhood granted me, I learned how to manage without any medications. It took years of learning about myself to finally have it under control but it takes constant effort. With my boyfriend being in such a fragile state, we are in quite the predicament. He doesn’t have the mind about him right now to step aside and truly dedicate his life to managing it alone. That’s why I think he needs to see a new doctor, be completely honest with him or her, and give medication an honest effort. I am terrified, however, of the side effects and his delicate “self medication” predisposition. It’s a mess. It’s terrifying how wrong things can go… When he has his episodes, it gets explosive sometimes. Like… Having to call the cops explosive. And the next day he is mournful over what he had done and the mess he made. If he gets on the wrong medication and it causes him to melt down even more severely, it could get bad. I’m being a baby about it… And over thinking it maybe? Talking in circles etc etc. It’s just such a delicate and potentially dangerous situation. Ugh.
You cannot over-think it. The medications have more potential than anything that has ever existed before, but they still come with their own problems. I think your boyfriend is very lucky to have someone as thoughtful as you are looking out for him - that’s the kind of support he needs.
I hate taking meds, but I’d probably not be sitting here typing without them. I was a complete mess. I hope one day something allows me to do as you have and come off them, but I think for myself and from what you’ve said your boyfriend that’s not an option in the short-term at least.
It sounds like there is a lot of hope for him. I know from personal experience how hard it is to break the cycle of drug use, so he has the will inside him to sort things out. I wish you luck and I hope the psychiatrist finds something suitable to calm him down.
I know when I was psychotic in hospital they gave me Lorazepam, Olanzapine and Diazepam to calm me down. Perhaps he needs something to take to edge of until he stabilises?
I don’t know, it’s a lot to discuss with a psychiatrist when you get such a short amount of time with them. If you’re anything like me I ponder on the things I should have said and worry endlessly about it!
Have you looked into Dr. A men’s work at all? At his clinic (Amen Clinic) over 80,000 brain scans have been performed. He uses SPECT. (Others are following his lead and are working on 3D SPECT.) If I recall correctly, 75 percent of those seen at his clinic are satisfied with the results he has provided. Dr. Amen has a 2013 TED talk available that informs viewers of his intentions when it comes to treatment. This TED talk will benefit you in some way.
I’ve been stable on Geodon and Seroquel for over ten years now. These drugs are newer “atypical” med’s, but they’ve been on the market long enough that they can go generic, making them cheaper. Generally speaking, the atypical med’s are much easier to tolerate than the older “typical” med’s. I did, however, come across a guy on the internet who had a hard time with Geodon, and found Haldol, one of the harshest typicals, easier to tolerate. How a person responds to different med’s can be unique. Geodon, Seroquel, Risperadol, Zyprexa, and Clozaril are all atypical med’s that have been around long enough to go generic. A lot of the time, if a med. is new and expensive, the pharmaceutical company will help you pay for it if you can’t afford it. I don’t know how the insurance companies handle psychotropic med’s.
Scott, I do the same damn thing. My overly thoughtful brain has been both a blessing and a curse. I always had a list of things to address and when I got there, I addressed maybe half of them. Haha. LIKE GROCERY SHOPPING. I only need milk and eggs. Come home with a hundred dollars worth of whatever the hell and no damn eggs. Thank you for your words of encouragement. That’s what we need right now.
Nykia, thank you for the advice! I have never heard of the Amen clinic but I will most definitely look into it. And as for the TED talks… I LOVE TED Talks. I watched the entire “season(?)” of the defying diseases ones because it has to do with my major/career. Thank you so much for the recommendation.
Crimby, you know an awful lot about these medications. Way more than I do!!! I need to do some research and what’s what and why. I am going to accompany my boyfriend when he sees the new doctor, at least the first time, and ask all the questions. I know he will be anxious while he’s there and probably won’t have it in him to ask what he needs to ask. I feel like his mother haha. I’m glad your medications are working so well for you. I hope with all of my heart that he finds what he needs.
I am so happy for you and your boyfriend, that he decided to get treatment 
You are so lucky in that.
Best wishes to you both
Thank you, kasia!!! EVERYONE needs support. Him and I are both lucky!
I am still looking into Dr. Amen’s work myself. I do not have a substance abuse issue, but this is one area he lists as a service. I take this to mean SPECT imaging can benefit those with MI and substance abuse.
I’ve read a lot of negative stories about Dr. Amen. I’d be careful - you don’t want to lose your money.
Here are just a few:
and this:
and also this:
a quote from this page is below:
Key Questions
The key question in evaluating a diagnostic test is whether or not its findings are useful in determining what treatment the patient should have. SPECT is a research tool useful for exploring how the brain functions, but the findings are nonspecific, and uses related to treatment of emotional or behavioral problems should be considered experimental. Dr. Amen has vast clinical experience and says he has performed and interpreted more than 35,000 scans. However, I do not believe he has demonstrated that specific scan patterns reliably reflect specific clinical problems and how they should be treated. Even when he is able to show a correlation between a diagnosis and an area of low perfusion (blood flow), he has not shown what this really means and how it could aid clinical treatment. Is low perfusion an indication of the primary pathology or perhaps just a secondary brain response to the symptoms? His published research comprises “preliminary studies,” and most psychiatrists believe it is premature to use SPECT clinically. In fact, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has issued two skeptical reports, one pertaining to children and adolescents and the other pertaining to adults.
In 2005, the APA Council on Children, Adolescents and Their Families concluded:
Although knowledge is increasing regarding specific pathways and specific brain areas involved in mental disease states, at present the use of brain imaging to study psychiatric disorders is still considered a research tool. . . . . Particular caveats are indicated with regard to brain imaging involving radioactive nucleotides for children and adolescents because of children’s known greater sensitivity to radiation and risk of radiation induced-cancer. At the present time, the available evidence does not support the use brain imaging for clinical diagnosis or treatment of psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents.
The APA’s Psychiatric Evaluation of Adults Guideline (2006) states:
In patients with schizophrenia and mood and anxiety disorders, structural and functional neuroimaging studies have reported differences between patients and healthy control persons as well as differences in some patient subgroups and in responders and nonresponders to some treatments. Nevertheless, the clinical utility of neuroimaging techniques for planning of individualized treatment has not yet been shown. Further research is needed to demonstrate a clinical role for structural and functional neuroimaging in establishing psychiatric diagnoses, monitoring illness progression, and predicting prognoses.
Dr. Amen claims to be able to choose the best therapy based mainly on scan results, but this claim is supported only by anecdotal evidence and testimonials.
The following questions might be useful for evaluating Dr. Amen’s claims:
Do patients treated at the Amen Clinics do better than patients treated by competent professionals who do not use SPECT?
Are the SPECT findings consistent enough that blinded observers could agree on the diagnosis from the scan alone?
What are the rates of false positives and false negatives?
Have the effects of different treatments on the scans actually been compared?
What is “brain balance,” and how is it measured?
What does the scan tell us that would change how we treat a patient?
Does Dr. Amen claim that SPECT can help evaluate the patient’s “soul”? If so, what gets measured?
Why did Dr. Amen leap into clinical applications, writing for the public, appearing on television, and lecturing about findings that most doctors would consider preliminary?
I will use those questions.
In his 2013 TED talk he discusses SPECT and how traumatic brain injury was evident in some individuals. He discusses how he was not ethically comfortable shooting darts in the dark. Meaning he uses SPECT to look at the organ he is treating.
That’s completely understandable. I’m excited to watch it.