Coincidental Symptoms

Medications
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Just thinking this morning about missing a dose, reducing dose and such this morning. I think some people are fooled by what I would call, “coincidental symptoms” sometimes.

I am guilty of this myself, I believe.

For example, When I was reducing meds, I sometimes believed that my paranoia was significantly increased when I took 2.5 mg of abilify instead of 5mg.

I believe that this was likely my imagination that the decrease increased symptoms quickly.

When I went down from 3mg of vraylar recently to 1.5 my pdoc told me that it would take like 3 weeks for levels in my system to actually drop down to 1.5 levels. Its very similar to the build up time it takes for an AP.

There are some Ap’s that have a tranquilizing effect upon taking and maybe the feeling is real here. IDK. Probably. But I’m thinking that much of the “I missed my dose by 4 hours” or “I missed my dose for the day” huge impacts on psychotic symptoms is either imagined or coincidental.

Some people may not like this theory, but I believe it to be true. I think in some cases this is the placebo effect. Or perhaps the opposite of the placebo effect is more accurate(not taking something short term and feeling significantly different almost immediately).

This is probably the case often with supplements, AP’s or whatever.

There was a member that used to come on every once in awhile that constantly claimed that such and such cured his negative symptoms as another example. Every other month , something new cured their negatives. I think this is another example of what I’m talking about. Just because you have a good day, doesnt necessarily mean that this new thing your taking is the cause.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts this morning. I guess what I want to do is maybe urge you to consider that sometimes this may be the case. Maybe look at things in longterm or consistant patterns over time, instead of submit to the a one time feeling that may or may not be imagined or coincidental.

Thanks for reading.

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I read it all!

I have good and bad days and I don’t try to read too much in it.

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I agree with what you say. Also I have found that many supplements only work well for a few days, then the feeling dissipates.

My theory on that in my case is that there is very limited amount of feelgood neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine to go around because of the supression of these by the antipsychotic, zyprexa which I am on. I have a feeling that the supplements ride on the little neurotransmitters there are, and when they are depleted the supplement stops working. I find that some supplements work if I use them sparingly, like once or twice a week.

It would have been interesting to know how supplements work in conjunction with other ap’s than zyprexa for me, but unfortunately I have only been on zyprexa really. Never sucsessfully transitioned to another ap.

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Whenever I take my meds late or reduce dose I have problems falling asleep. When I stopped meds I was able to sleep so I think the body get used to it.

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I think if reduce or forget the meds we become super aware of symptoms, and we can become sick just by over thinking.

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They is a level of hypervigilance and hysteria that is evident in psychiatric patients around medication. This comes from the way the system educates people. People freaking out a few hours later is most people being hypervigilant this is not necessarily an incorrect experience as there is a lot of truma that goes with episodes and especially in patient admissons.

That said 5mg is not necessarily a therapeutic dosage of abilify in absolute. Therefore you’re blood levels could be at the threshold and the pharmacokinetics could be different. Also hyperbolic curve for aps to block 60% of dopamine receptors will determine how you respond. I.e. where are you within the recommendation dosage range.

Also if you are currently experiencing strong active symptoms while on medication then you might notice these get worse quite rapidly if you are already in a deteriorated state.

There is no one size fits all. When you stop taking the medication there would strong peak around the start discontinuation probably ranging from 24 hours to 2 weeks. It could start the moment you miss the first dosage if you fail to sleep completely and then end up staying awake for more the a day.

Yeah you are right that it’s a bit of hysteria. There is also fear mongering by psychiatrists and facility staff who prefer to deal with docile clients say take you meds in everyones ear. It’s pretty warranted though give most of the outcomes when unmedicated.

Most people feak out because they take their medication every night and they don’t want to get unwell. The deduction people are making also makes sense, if you have to take medication every night then you can’t skip it. Otherwise why wouldn’t you just take it every couple of days. The answer is you kinda can but would have to take three times as much and then calculate it out with the half life. Anyeay you’re probably not going to go insane straight away but it can be destabilising. It’s just most effective that way if you keep it regular.

Everyone knows paranoid people are in general a bit paranoid. Also if doctors really believed it was going to be the end of you they would send you back to the ward. If you miss a dosage they just say to pick up where you left off the next day.

These things are all known, it’s just you can’t discount individual response because guaranteed there is at least one person out there who experiences feeling destabilised even hours after missing a dosage. You will also note that people on here don’t respond to their own threads. Also that the flavour of posts in this subsection. People asking for user experiences hoping to hear something positive. Huge bandwagon effect where if one person mentions something others feel more comfortable coming forward. People giving statements about how they are happy with med changes and going well always get a couple of likes. People mentioning supplements that never really pan out to much ect. Most people are just frustrated, struggling with the medical system and are looking for someone or somewhere they can feel heard. When you’re in crisis and you have a tendency to be paranoid your not thinking am I being paranoid you’re just worried about whatever you’re worried about, we’ve all been there.

When you’re in crisis you don’t necessarily need solution focued advice you just need to know that someone cares about you. The community as a whole knows speak to your doctor line but maybe people haven’t caught on to the meta of ‘you’ll be okay, just take your meds as long as your not 12 hours before your next dosage otherwise just skip that dosage and continue to take as usual.’ Or whatever advice is most appropriate.

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