Can stress aggravate psychosis?

Hi Everyone.

I’ve been doing really great the last few months. I felt I was finally on a med regimen that was highly effective. I’ve been very consistent with my medication, never skipping a dose.

Trouble is, in the last couple of weeks, I’ve experienced a great deal of stress due to issues in my family. On top of that my brother stole something very valuable to me and very expensive and I may never get it back, which is what added to my already increased levels of stress. I am now suddenly seeing a resurgence in symptoms like coincidences (ideas of reference, I believe it’s called), as well as mild paranoia (people seem to be responding to my thoughts). I’m also getting a lot of headaches. Nothing about my medication regimen has changed.

Why would my medication just suddenly stop being effective like this? Could it be the stress that has caused this?

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Stress can trigger you off. This has happened to me many times even when medicated

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It can definitely be stress. I get significantly worse when stressed.

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What did you do about it. Did you just recover after lowering your stress levels or did you have to go back and alter your medication again?

Short answer is Yes. Stress can be a major contributing factor into the return of symptoms and even psychosis.

It can do your head in - literally if your schizophrenic.

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Stress definitely makes me worse. If I know the stress will be happening for an extended period of time, I usually ask to temporarily increase my dose until the stress is resolved. If the stress is something I can change through my actions, I take the steps I need to lower my stress. If I know the stress will be over in a month or less, I usually just tough it out with maybe extra therapy, or calls to the crisis line.

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Sz/sza are both very sensitive to stressors.

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Yes, I find that stress makes my sza worse. If I’m going thru rough patch all I do is temporarily increase my meds dose till it passes

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