My son is 22. He has had two pscyhotic breaks and 2 hospitalizations with paranoid features, disorganized thinking and some hallucination. The first time pot was on board, the 2nd time without pot, just a lot of stress from school. The psychiatrists are calling it Psychosis NOS. One doctor says it could be early Schizophrenia. He is also very anxious and sometimes depressed.
How did many of you go about getting diagnosed? How long did it take after the initial episode? Was anyone given the wrong diagnosis and what made it change? Did your meds change drastically depending on what diagnosis you were given
Doctors are still uncertain about my diagnosis - they all agree that it includes bipolar, anxiety, OCD they are just not certain about the schizophrenia part - my last diagnosis by 2 doctors was schizoaffective disorder - my current DX is bipolar type 1 - they are all really confused.
The incidence of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disease are a lot different in the USA than the UK presumably because of different diagnosing practices.
A lot of docs treat the symptoms and leave the actual label alone. Plus… I feel that things in my brain have changed as I’ve grown up.
I was having a lot of problems as a kid… As a youngster I was ADHD… then OCD… then PTSD… I was struggling a lot when I was 14 but no one wanted to say SZ since I was so young…
15…I started using drugs… so that muddied the waters as far as a diagnosis. I completely broke and shattered when I was 17. I was in hospital when I got my final diagnosis of Undifferentiated Sz.
Now that I’m 30… 6 years clean/ sober / stable and med compliant … my diagnosis might change again… to schizoaffective.
Due to the mood swings… The Latuda and Seroquel are still on the menu… but Depakote got added to help level out the manic highs.
Good luck to your son… I’m rooting for you both.
My first hospitalization was in 2008 but I didn’t get a schizophrenia diagnosis until 2010. Looking back it was always sz but I just didn’t know that at the time. Psychosis NOS is pretty close to sz though, I was first told I had adjustment disorder, that wasn’t even close.
When I first had my breakdown, I was diagnosed Bipolar (in Dec 2002), the month after that I was hospitalised for the first time and diagnosed schizoaffective, then two months after that I was hospitalised a second time and at last diagnosed with schizophrenia. Years later when I had my relapse (in 2012) I was again diagnosed Bipolar before being hospitalised a fifth time, when they assessed my condition and full psychiatric history and re-diagnosed me with schizophrenia. Since then, it has stuck.
One day it may be called adolescent adult puberty. or something akin to that. For now, i’d suggested trying to find the time to listen to your son, if one of his hobby’s is playing video games or listening to music, possibly suggest a game of monopoly board game. If not, share the story of a book you enjoyed reading when you were near his age, ask him what about the story behind whatever he may find a lesson in. Just an idea.
This is so helpful. We have been doing family therapy and the take home message for me is to back off. I have been micro-managing my son, getting him to fill out his mood log, counting how many times he smokes pot, cigarettes and drinks beer, asking him if he has exercised etc. He only finds this irritating and the therapist says I need to back off. I like the idea of playing a game together. We recently took a 4 hour car trip (Dad was driving) and I read out loud just like I did when he was growing up and we read Harry Potter together.
To ween off cigarettes for awhile one thing I did at a time was to smoke two cigarettes every two hours, everyday i’d reduce one smoke break. It got to the point where i’d smoke a cigar a day, then once a week, now I smoke occasionally but not monthly some years. Much oblinged Wendylynn.
Yes, Sometimes I wonder how important it is to get “The Right Diagnosis.” Our psychiatrist is recommending that we go to a Teaching Hospital and get a second opinion so that he can be accurately diagnosed. However when I talked to one of the people at the University he said that they are now treating Bi-Polar and Schizophrenia the same (with Olanzapine/Zyprexa. I wonder how important it is to have a “Diagnosis” I think not everyone fits into a box that is easily labeled.
I love my parent’s dearly… I feel I lucked out in the supportive family department… but there were times I didn’t WANT to always talk about my illness… I didn’t WANT to be reminded every minute I wasn’t like everyone else…
I really did appreciate our family therapist who helped my Mom leave the Sz on the shelf a few times and just treat me like a person first… not a walking illness that needed constant attention and tinkering.
You can sneak some goals in… with my Mom and Dad it got better when they quit asking “Did you get any exercise in” and started asking… “hey… let’s walk this park trail I found”
I was told that they are treating Bipolar and Schizophrenia with Zyprexa/Olanzapine so it is not as crucial to get a diagnosis of one or the other. Has that been your experience? However my son also has a lot of anxiety and some depression. I have read that you can’t give anti-depressants to someone with Bi-polar.
Can I get an Amen on that one. As I got older… med compliant and more stable… my doc is just itching to change the diagnosis again… From Undifferentiated Sz to Schizoaffective…
All that does is let any other doc know I have a mood element in my head circus. (the change of the word on the paper label doesn’t really change how I get through my day.)
In Europe you need to have psychosis for atleast 6 months to get schizophrenia diagnose.
I got dx with schizophreniform after being in hospital for 6 months. My current pdoc has no lablel on me. Not that I know of. But they don’t always tell the patient what dx they have if it is not needed to insurance companies or something like that.
A one-size-fits-all thing? Hard to believe anyone relatively sophisticated would see all bipolar or all sz as uniformly treatable with only one out of 25 or so medicinal possibilities. That said, bipolar 1 and sz are relatively similar in terms of how to deal with them medicinally… but at least somewhat different when it comes to psychotherapy.
While it is properly done with a pt who’s in a treatment resistant depressive phase of bipolar 1, it’s usually a very bad idea when the pt is no longer in that phase (i.e. is back into mania or hypomania), or is either cyclothymic, rapid cycling or bipolar 2. Abti-D’s are stimulants, and bipolars are already over-stimulated. (I was mis-dx’d major depressive and given anti-D’s when I was actually rapid cycling. BAD idea.) The peer-reviewed papers on this go back to 1991 that I know of.
