Can we try without anti-psychotics?

i met a patient who is having delusions but not taking any medication. how is life without anti-psychotics ?.he said he is now used to voices. can we manage to survive??

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We can try…but it never worked well for me.

I’ve met a few people on here who can manage without A.P.s.

they have a good support system, got to therapy… really work on keeping an eye on their health. No drugs and pot…

I really admire them.

For me… I know I need the Seroquel and Latuda. The paranoia and drama amps up when I end up not taking my meds.

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This question comes up every few years or so.

If you can survive without medications, be glad and happy that you don’t have sz.
Go live your happy life, unmedicated.
If you have a stress free life, maybe its possible?
But who has a perfect support system?

But please don’t temp people that need meds, or can even kill themselves if they go off them.

going off meds NEVER ends well. As my son said, Why suffer?

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I’m not on meds. I use various cognitive therapy methods that expel delusional thoughts. These approaches allow me to consider my thoughts (and subsequent emotions) rather than be taken over by them. For example, the 5 step model examines a “Statement” that seems true but is more likely a delusional thought:

(1) Statement - anything that might a delusional thought.
(2) Information necessary to evaluate the truth of the statement - what proof do I have that the statement is true? Is it possible to verify the statement?
(3) Delusional explanation - what’s a delusional way to explain the statement?
(4) Rational explanation - what’s a rational way to explain the statement?
(5) Conclusion - after considering both delusional and rational explanations, what can I conclude?

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Problem I have when psychotic is that rationality just goes out the window. My thoughts DO consume me and I have lost ANY way to try and steer them back to reality.
I do and say things that scare the â– â– â– â–  out of me after the fact.

I’ve tried recently to go without meds, once again epic fail. If one can do without meds like APs then I wish them luck.

my major tranquillizer would knock a bull elephant out

absolutely the choice is live with meds or go down some sort of death apocalypse madness no no no
we can’t live without meds

I’ve never been on medication and have improved over time. One reason is just that years have integrated the voices and experiences so that I’m used to some, but I would say that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy was the very best thing I have ever done. If I ever have a psychotic break, where I’m completely gone, then I would want meds, but I’ve been really lucky enough to have retained some sense of self through the years. However, I don’t know if I sacrificed a lot of time and relationships etc. I don’t know if my experience would have been better on meds. But they are not an option for me because I don’t trust them.

My old psychiatrist usual gave his patients a trial of being AP free - but on the proviso that meds would be reentroduced if things got bad.

Here in the uk sometimes people get a community treatment order in which, I think, folk can get placed in hospital if they refuse their meds. I think even against their will.

Some docs do this often. Think it has a legal procedure that needs following - tribunal/lawyers etc. Have met a few folk who have these. Pretty much 100% of them where in depot APs.

Tribunal’s are every patients right in hospital
I had one I doodled and couldn’t concentrate they kept me in .
I thought I was doodling to the psychiatrist to my left
I was put on a depot there
It saved my life

Piles of research show that sz pts tend to get “better” when they…

  1. Get a copy of this book and read it and have their families read it, as well.
    http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Schizophrenia-6th-Edition-Family/dp/0062268856

  2. Get properly diagnosed by a board-certified psychopharmacologist who specializes in the psychotic disorders. One can find them at…
    https://psychiatrists.psychologytoday.com/rms/

  3. 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.

  4. The best of the therapies for that currently include…
    DBT – http://behavioraltech.org/resources/whatisdbt.cfm
    MBSR – http://www.mindfullivingprograms.com/whatMBSR.php
    ACT – https://contextualscience.org/act
    10 StEP – http://pairadocks.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-10-steps-of-emotion-processing.html

  5. 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

  6. 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 – http://www.beckinstitute.org/what-is-cognitive-behavioral-therapy/About-CBT/252/

its not a good idea tbh.

I’ve sometimes wondered if I could do without AP’s by substituting meditation, exercise, and no caffeine. (I don’t think the caffeine affects me that much, but it is psychologically bad. It’s so defeatist.) Every time I’ve tried coming off my AP’s I’ve messed up, though.

Some people can do it. There is a huge spectrum of psychosis and we all fall somewhere under that umbrella. Some people are less severe, and can manage without meds. Some are more severe, and don’t stand a chance unless they’re medicated.

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The statistics are very low, but you are correct. Some people can get along without anti-Ps.

But in the annals of psychiatry, they were almost always not actually schizophrenic to being with… but presented with enough of the symptoms to be diagnosed as such.

The physiology and neurochemistry of actual sz is what it is, however. And they almost always require some medicinal intervention that blocks varying combinations of dopamine receptor sites along several neural chains in the limbic system. Especially those leading from the amygdala to the hippocampus.

Robert Sapolsky’s excellent lecture on sz on YouTube is probably the best single video summation of this one can easily find and/or understand without very considerable prerequisite study.

If you think you’re schizophrenic and you’re not on meds you will fail. I don’t like anyone saying schizophrenics don’t need meds…■■■■■■■■.

That’s simply false. I’ve never been on meds. Schizophrenia is a spectrum disorder/illness. I am grateful that the demons that have attacked me, made me bash my head into walls and cut myself up, wanting for 30 years to kill this body that I’m trapped in, have not won. Am I the most high functioning individual? No, but I’m alive. I’m re-married, I work, and I raised a son. I struggle every day with voices and visions, etc., I know other people have it worse. Other people benefit from meds, but I can’t because they terrify me. I guess we won’t know whether or not I fail until the end, but it’s been 35 years since I was first attacked, and I’m still here trying.

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well, you don’t sound like you have schizophrenia to me. A person with schizophrenia can’t “handle” the illness without meds. simple as that. there are others on this board that say that they don’t take meds. I say you don’t have the illness.