Do any of you take a low dose and choose to have a manageable amount of positive symptoms? Even though you could take a higher dose and get rid of your symptoms completely?
I’m taking a sub therapeutic dose of abilify (7.5mg) , but it’s working the same as the 10mg therapeutic dose.
A word of caution though, I took 5mg for a while and started getting suicidal ideation, so that obviously screwed with me in some chemical way.
It’s all Russian roulette at the end of the day.
Yes. I don’t like my symptoms AT all (I did something while driving yesterday I’m not gonna forget anytime soon), BUT… my digestive tract simply cannot tolerate the meds at higher doses for more than a few days.
It’s a risky trade-off, of course, and if I get unduly hypomanic or screwy thinking, I can PRN my meds up a little, as well as lock myself in my bedroom and chain myself to the bed.
2 Likes
@notmoses Can I ask what medication and dose your on? Is the illness manageable compared to a full blown relapse?
I take the highest dose of all my meds: 12 mg fanapt twice a day, 10 mg haldol twice a day, and the newly added depakote 500 mg twice a day but i still have alot of symptoms. But medications doses work differently for everyone and if you want less side effects then taking lower doses might be a good option if you can still handle the positive symptoms. If i could take lower doses I would.
Even though you have a lot of symptoms have they got better? Have the medications made your insight better?
Seroquel quetiapine. Way down to 12.5 mgs nightly, but I will go to 25 or 50 if my mindfulness training says, “Hey! You’re getting cranked.” (I was on 300 for a while years ago.)
Has been for a bit over a decade, though I can get sufficiently hypomanic to induce sufficient allostatic load in my autonomic nervous system to induce delusionality and even panic attacks.
The mindfulness training (roughly “habituated self-observation” on the plains of sight, sound and sensory awareness) makes the delusionality glaringly obvious, however, so I Take Steps immediately. If meditation won’t knock the wrench up into fight or flight down – or if I have passed fight or flight into freak, freeze or fry – I PRN. If, however, I flop into an autonomic depressive state, I just wait it out, rest and eat right.
I learned all this from Bruce McEwen, Sonya Lupien, Bessel van der Kolk and Peter Levine, all of whom are experts in PTSD causes and treatments.
@seriouslydisturbed yeah my symptoms are manageable some days but some days they arent. One thing i did notice change was that I can think more clearly now on these meds, but my paranoia has not let up. Just posting on here is freaking me out because im thinking that the government is looking at me on here but i needed answers and support and wanted to help others so I am here.
Likewise here. I no longer have the “Men in Black” stuff, but my Voices still think I am waaaaaaaay more interesting to The (conspiratorial) Forces of Darkness than I could possibly (actually) be.
@notmoses Wow, your on such a low dose.
The reason i am asking these questions is next year i am going to be lowering my dosage and if I get symptoms I am thinking will they be mild or a full blown relapse.
Yeah for me I feel like im on a mission for destruction of myself just so that no one can take me hostage get information and kill me.
I suspect it’s impossible to tell for sure, but I do know that research is demonstrating that those who learn and use the mindfulness-derived self-observation techniques are better able to see the stuff coming and either nip it in the bud or roll with it if the symptoms get florid. This has certainly been so for me.
If you’re intrigued, you can go to http://behavioraltech.org/resources/whatisdbt.cfm and http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/ for starters. I’ve gone way past DBT now into other techniques, but it was The Starting Point for my effective symptom management. And I had to learn to walk before I could run.
Nah, I don’t care if my meds are a low or high dose, as long as they work for reducing symptoms.
Personally I wouldn’t choose to take a low dose to remain a few positive symptoms just to manage them myself…
I take 160 of Geodon and I still have symptoms
Wow…that’s a lot of haldol. 
120mg of Geodon is not a low dose but not the maximum 160. I choose to perform cognitively and physically over being dumb fat and happy.
1 Like
I use to be on 15mg of Abilify but I relapse on that. I’ve been on 30 mg for a while but have gone down to 25 and I’m still doing okay. I want to go down to 20 mg cause thats when I feel best.
so true. you’re d%$#@% if you do, d%$#@% if you don’t. took a larger dose of Haldol one day and was nearly paralyzed and couldn’t move for a day. I don’t do it by choice, but the side effects become greater with higher doses.
Yeah but surprisingly i dont have many side effects besides the constant feeling to move.
How do you get rid of the feeling to move constantly?