I’ve come to a place now in my life where I feel it’s time for me to explore an alternative approach to my health. I never went on medication with the view of being on it long term… I have now been on meds for two years and they have greatly helped! But I really want to be able to live without them. Purely because I do not like the effects they have long term… so I’m asking for recommendations on alternative treatments. Has anyone tried going that route? Did you find any remedies that worked? Please let me know thank you
People can get in trouble on this forum advocating alternative treatments in place of antipsychotics. There aren’t many good alternatives that have actual antipsychotic properties though. I’m on a max dose (12 mg) of Paliperidone and taking Niacin megadoses to reduce the voices I hear to something negligible. I don’t feel that the Niacin will replace Paliperidone, but it seems to help.
There’s also a CBD oil that has antipsychotic properties, one person on reddit remarked that it helped to stop her shouting voices.
Odds are that whichever route you take, you’ll still have to take antipsychotics to control most of the symptoms.
There are no natural alternatives to APs. Only APs have been proven as clinically effective in being able to maintain stability in psychosis. If we could take vitamins or herbs to be stable, no one would be on antipsychotics.
There are supplements you can take to APs that can help with negative symptoms, but nothing is going to treat those positives.
I am high functioning enough to where APs aren’t a necessity for me, and most of my life I haven’t been on one, but my illness does significantly affect my quality of life even if it doesn’t seriously impact my functioning. Like any time I have any stressors or alterations to my sleep schedule or not enough activity in my life or social interaction I can get flare ups that are hellish for me, just constant torment by demons and paranoia. So I’m really trying to find an AP that works for me and would not recommend not being on one even if you are high functioning off because who wants to put themselves through that?
I don’t think there is an alternative to psychiatric medication at present. We all know that these psychiatric medicines may produce some bad effects in the long run. But is is quite possible that you may not use them for a long period of time. If your Sz subsides then the doctor may take off these medicines after a short period of time. Only in certain cases the patient has to take these drugs for a longer period of time, may be life long. But this is not the norm in all cases. Good exercise and proper diet may help you in lessening the side effects these medicines may cause. More over if you stop these drugs and switch over to some other alternative medicine, the disease may increase if these alternative medication does not work. So there is no alternative to psychiatric medication at present.
I’ve been off the antipsychotic paliperidone palmitate since like the 7th of Feburary and it’s the best decision I’ve ever made in my life
I’ve never heard voices or got hallucinations before though. And, when you come of paliperidone there is a withdrawal process. Do what works best for you but make sure you have people supporting you through the process if you do decide to stop (for example, a GP and Psychologist) and you regularly update them on how you’re doing. If it doesn’t work out you could always go back on the antipsychotics.
But, be aware that there are risks associated with antipsychotic withdrawal so make sure you research them first and talk with your GP / Psychologist first. I would also recommend tapering down gradually rather than going cold turkey if you’re going to stop because that what worked for me.
If there was natural alternatives, no one would be taking the meds… I know you don’t like them but maybe you can find an alternative med you feel more comfortable taking.
thank you 