Can meds permanently break dopamine receptors over time?

DX'd - Other
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Can meds permanently break dopamine receptors over time? Will you become the same as before sz if you stop meds?

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I mean I stopped meds for two years but my negative symptoms were still worse than before sz.

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I read about the dopamine super sensitivity theory from long term ap usage.

So when you come off you can get rebound psychosis.

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Are you the same as before sz now that you’re off meds? No negative symptoms?

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Why can’t we be the same as before sz? Is it permanent brain damage? No hope to recover?

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I don’t think people can come out the same when you become ill… it often involves trauma and can change the way people think.

But that’s OKAY. You can achieve the things you want in life.

Look at what has value to you, hold on to it, so you know where to look when you feel lost.

Everything is a progress, there is a way.

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I still have days where I don’t feel like doing anything. Kinda like brain power feels 70% slower. Still get avolition and lack motivation

So I try to work off of habits. It’s kinda the only way I get through it.

Aps I just use if I’m having issues with psychosis. Like the violent oriented type.

Some days I still get mild positive symptoms. Might hear voices or see bugs crawling or some intrusive images. But I am ok with it and don’t see a need for med for that for myself.

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I still think that a big part of negative symptoms is sz itself and not med related. I think changing or stopping meds can only have a partial effect on negative symptoms.

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I don’t want to be the same as before SZ. I was an addicted loser and now I have a life I like with people I love. Not interested in going back.

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I think meds can worsen negative symptoms but are not the root cause.

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I agree with you… I want to be better than pre sz.

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I doubt you will ever be the same again before sz. But you can still improve

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Not for me, it’s been 17 years and whenever I stop meds or lower my dose too much I become psychotic. I will never be like I was pre-schizophrenia. And that sucks, before schizophrenia my life was way better.

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So you don’t take an anti-psychotic regularly @LevelJ1 ? Only as needed?

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Yeah I just take them as needed.
A long story short is my first couple major episodes I was never medicated. And then I’d more less recover from it. So I never got put on a medication longterm. That and my parents were anti psychiatry for a long time.

I went about 7 years without medication.
I kind of learned to live with the voices and visions. So I was functional enough.

My dx is bipolar 1 with psychosis

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That’s interesting. I just know how doctors are about keeping a steady level of a medication in your system. I’m like you, I’m getting used to the voices and it affects me less as time goes by. I do take meds, but they don’t do anything for the voices

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Yeah I hear ya. My pdoc is ok with me taking it as needed. She said some of her other patients do the same but it is obviously riskier.

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I never did attempt to answer the question in the title “Can meds permanently break dopamine receptors over time”. The truth is that I don’t know. I don’t believe so though. As someone else in the thread mentioned, I’ve read about dopamine hypersensitivity after using aps long term so I don’t think that they do. They actually can make you more sensitive to dopamine if you go off of them.

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I don’t know how a dopamine antagonist can break receptor, it just blocks them, if it breaks them then you have a cure for schizo since it lowers dopamine permanently in the brain

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All I know is that I’ve been taking APs for pretty much a quarter of a century now and I’m doing okay.

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