Or the successful one’s don’t come back on this website. I know when I was off of aps for 5 months I didn’t come here anymore. Only came back after my second episode.
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I believe that my symptoms are caused from trauma and stress as an adolescent. I don’t have a history of drug use, and I suffered from bouts of depression. I believe that I cannot come off of medication.
Does anyone think I can come off of aps ? Maybe try and taper myself off.
To be clear, I definitely needed my AP. I was homeless and had nobody in my life to support me. With the help of geodon, I was able to start working full time, find friends, find a spouse, buy a home, and become a parent. I am STILL in treatment, just with different medication and therapies. I can no longer take my AP because I developed TD from it, so my doctor wants me to try no AP before switching me to a new one. This has been a very slow process. When I’ve tried stopping my meds before, without replacing them with another form of treatment, I ALWAYS crashed and ended up in the hospital. I might end up in the hospital this time, too. I am being closely monitored for signs of relapse.
I am a somewhat unuque case because as a child I had a brain tumor and subsequent surgery to remove it. I would not have chosen to taper off my medication this time if I hadn’t developed TD and NEEDED to taper off this med anyways.
I AM STILL ON MEDICATION. I just have a different treatment protocol that is very experimental and personalized.
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I think the only thing you should actively do is try to get down to your lowest effective dose. I don’t think coming off them should be the goal. Then if you’re on a dose that is almost negligible and doing perfectly fine, for quite some time, you should seek to ask your doctor if you’ve been miss diagnosed.
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That’s what I figured out. Would risk coming off once more if and when the pdoc agrees though.
Just wish I could go back in time and not take drugs and deal with stress differently.
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Does anyone know if it’s the illness or the Olanzapine causing my lack of emotion?
Nobody actually knows, not even doctors. If you want to test it, maybe try switching to a different med. When I was on depakote I was miserable and blank all day long and only wanted to be in bed. But on geodon I had energy to do things and actually had better access to my emotions than prior to starting meds.
I have it too. Lack of pleasure in doing things is called Anhedonia. I have that as well.
It could also be a combination of both the Ap’s and the illness. Anhedonia is listed as a negative symptom of sz as well as a side effect of some drugs.
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Yeah just feels like I’m going through the motions. I do feel a tiny bit of emotion but not enough.
Felt slightly better after reducing dosage but not a lot
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About 20 percent of people with Schizophrenia come off APs.
As for me I have no hope. I didn’t have one or two episodes, I had 10 years full of episodes.
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There’s nobody to be found on this whole website who’s managed to successfully come off medication for a number of years.
I know. I don’t understand why.
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I wish there was a twenty percent chance. But seems to be far less to non existent
Well, according to research almost 20 percent of the people come off medications over a period of time. Those that stay off medications after that are the ones with high resilience.
I suspect that a percentage of that 20% also still deal with symptoms. They just manage them.
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I have heard a similar percentage btw
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A twenty percent chance would be great at the moment.
I don’t know if they deal with symptoms or not.
I suspect for some people it just goes away. That is my feeling, not that I have read anything based on science.
and you also have to keep in mind that a lot of those people struggle a big percentage of their lives, like john nash, before finally coming of them in later years. In and out of hospitals…on and off medicine.