If psychosis is caused by too much dopamine and things like enough sleep, sunlight, healthy food, exercise etc increase dopamine, then do these healthy things increase risk of psychosis too? Doesn’t make sense that they would. Where does one draw the dopamine line?
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That’s a good question to ask my pdoc if I still had one. She probably doesn’t know to be honest.
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Dopamine causes psychosis.
This has been debunked
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These only increase dopamine by a tiny amount and doesn’t affect psychosis.
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If the dopamine hypothesis was correct then surely we would all be super motivated and have focus etc. The idea that dopamine can be too high and too low in some parts of the brain is BS, if this were the case then antipsychotics wouldn’t cause such severe dysfunction and would merely restore some kind of balance.
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Dopamine may not be the whole sz picture but its surely part if it because meds blocking dopamine work and because stimulant psychosis is a diagnosis in the DSM5 caused by stimulants, dopamine agonists. Honestly I think the whole picture is genetics.
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Actually my psychiatrists believe that positive symptoms are caused by high dopamine in some brain parts and negative symptoms are caused by low dopamine in other brain parts responsible for motivation etc What you don’t understand is that different brain parts have different brain functions.
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I do, but it’s only a theory which benefits psychiatry, no evidence and if that were the case partially blocking dopamine would create homeostasis, which it doesn’t.
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Actually it does, partial agonists like Abilify, Rexulti and Cariprazine are shown to be better for negative and cognitive symptoms and thats what my experience was. I was much more functional on Abilify than on my current risperidone. One thing is also genetics and how we react to meds but generally they are better. Actually in my case I was even more more functional on Abilify vs off meds for some reason.
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My pdoc told me what they should do is find all the brain regions involved in positive and negative symptoms and make meds that increase dopamine in negative symptoms regions and meds that lower dopamine in regions of positive symptoms. He said there is no meds that do that yet but partial agonists are the closest we have to it.
But some theories say there is brain damage in sz so 100% recovery is impossible.
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They dont increase dopamine enough. Hard drugs do so. So those drugs can actually cause symptoms like sz. But just drinking coffee and eating chocolate and going for a walk shouldnt be enough.
Also serotonin plays a big part, thats why the new antipsychotics work on serotonin to decrease psychosis.
That’s what they tried to claim abilify does, but then it would cause homeostasis. Instead it can causes akathisia, depression, anhedonia and movement disorders due to dopamine depletion.
The thing is whats the dopamine lvl for homeostasis? No one knows and I think it may be different for everyone. Abilify’s homeostasis is probably low for some patients since its can cause negatives for some. Like I said, for me I was more functional and social on Abilify than off meds. Off meds I socially isolated in my room and only went outside to walk in the street alone, left all my friends. On Abilify I went to the gym and hanged out with friends everyday, even had short term jobs for a few months, off meds I couldn’t do any of these.
Maybe that was some level of akathisia
I know what akathisia is, I only had it on Latuda.
I actually finished my university degree while on Abilify. Did 5 semesters while on Abilify. I wish I can go back on it but it made me have shopping addiction and irritability.
I think the misinformation that abilify is motivating originates from some low level of akathisia, where someone is compelled to do things, but with no feeling of reward, which leads to compulsive reward seeking behaviour
But only a minority have compulsion. The majority don’t. I was just unlucky. I think med compatibility has to do with our genetics and body chemistry, its why one med thats free of side effects for one person might be the worst med for another person with bad side effects.