hey hey hey everyone! How do you measure how severe your schizophrenia is? I think I have one of the most severe cases in history, mine almost killed me, I had to be taken to the emergency room and hospitalized just to keep myself alive. I take enormous amounts of medication that would scare most people. I wish they had a way to measure severity levels of schizophrenia like mild, moderate and severe.
2 Likes
Welcome to the forum.
You’re not alone in your story. Lots of us here have had many similar situations, been hospitalized, been considered dangerous, are on tons of meds, and even more.
Hopefully, you’ll be able to see you’re not so unusual (at least as far as SZ goes), and you can make some connections here!
2 Likes
Hey @SkeeterMan, welcome! It can all seem too much at first, too much going on, too many meds, this is a good place to ask questions, get ideas, get feedback, just vent if you need to, the people here are actually very REAL people who go through their own situations, but are very cool about sharing and answering questions. You’re totally welcome here.
This is an extremely difficult question for me to answer about myself. I’m often confused.
I think the worst cases are homicidal and suicidal.
I’d say my mine was pretty severe the first 2 1/2 years. I couldn’t really function during that time and spent 8 months in the hospital. And I was on a such a massive dose of a certain medication that they don’t even give doses that high anymore. I didn’t work or go to school for three years after I was diagnosed but I’m doing fine now. Your case may be more severe than mine but you’re right: it’s hard to measure. For those first 2 1/2 years I felt I was going to go stark raving mad at any moment, I barely hung on. My case was severe to me.
One way of judging how severe your case is by how well you function. If you can clean yourself and feed yourself and function outside a hospital then you are doing pretty well.
1 Like
I was pretty severe for many years.
Stable for now, but I do take the maximum recommended dosage of Fanapt.
That’s neat I haven’t seen many people mention fanapt.
1 Like
That’s why it is so difficult to quantify the severity of schizophrenia. A person can be perfectly normal acting and then go home and hang himself.
2 Likes
Hello @SkeeterMan Welcome to the forums!
At first they didn’t seem too concerned but after a short while they started considering it pretty severe. They did their best to bump me up in the queue to get me into the mental health facility as soon as they could. I was there for 5 months. They put me on a very high dose of a very potent antipsychotic medication. 40mg of Olanzapine (Zyprexa). For reference the company that created that medication recommends a maximum dose of 20mg. I’ve also been on antidepressants and benzodiazepines, and other medications for side effects.
I’ve had schizophrenia for 17 years. I am now in my 40’s and I think it has lessened in severity. My second pdoc told me schizophrenia symptoms tend to mellow out in men once they turn 40, and I think that is what I have experienced, she also said they tend to get worse for women when they hit their 40’s.
I am now on 60mg of Lurasidone(Latuda) which is weaker antipsychotic and relatively speaking a much lower dose than 40mg of Olanzapine and I am doing better than ever now.
2 Likes
There is a scale of severity. I can’t remember what it’s called though.
Off meds my SZA/bipolar psychosis is severe
There are many scales. But PANSS is common for symptom severity. It has to be administered by a professional.
1 Like
Things got better with time for me.
Finding the right med, learning about this illness and gaining insight has made me mentally stronger
I was a severe case, but now it’s well-managed
1 Like
I got PANSS rated 12 years ago and my score was 184 out of 220 max score.
Typically, we like to leave inactive threads alone and just start a new thread instead. This is different than how some forums are run, but we do it this way because it frequently upsets users to have old topics revived when they are no longer relevant. It can also be frustrating to the person who revived the thread when they don’t get a reply, because the original poster is no longer active or no longer finds the topic relevant. Feel free to start a new thread on this topic.
Thanks,
Volunteer Moderator