I 've not been in hospital since 1983. Am way past an acute stage of illness. The issue though would be the quality of the functioning. You might need to drop to 2.5 to warrant hospitalisation but are you doing yourself any favours coming off meds and dropping from 5-6 to 3-4? The thing is would you even know how much you’d been adversely affected? Good insight only gets you so far.
Just putting some thoughts out there.
As u wish…!!!
That’s the problem. I lose insight pretty quickly off meds. Once you lose insight you’re in big trouble.
Why mess with success?
That ,of course, is the risk . It’s like throwing the dice in monopoly and hoping you don’t land on the jail square without a get out of jail free card.
I would say titrate down before going off them. It’s usually better to see if a lower dose gives you the same effects with less side effects, since some people, in maintenance, can come onto lower doses and be fine.
Titrate would be the way to go if I decided to come off/reduce dose but hard to do when on lowest therapeutic dose of your depot.
Oh, if you are already on the lowest dose then that’s not possible, I guess. 
Hmm, yeah, then that’s a major gamble, but it’s easy to go back on it if you’re starting to feel off and are aware. Hopefully you would remain aware long enough to seek help before it became unmanageable.
Don’t think I’d come off it but am just thinking out loud . Trying to raise the issue that it’s not always about the worse case scenario - hospitalisation -when considering whether to come off or not. Even a drop in functioning without getting to the point of hospitalisation is something to try and avoid.
Please don’t. Don’t even think about stuff like this. The reason you think you can get off them is because they’re doing their jobs. Stay on your meds.
Yeah for me the first signs are never positive symptoms. It’s usually dysphoria and lack of sleep. It’s ok to think about these things. I personally am on a minimal dose and tried reducing further. But I just kept feeling like crap. Everyone is different though. For one person missing a dose can put them in hospital. For others they retain insight and med as needed.
Anybody who considers going of meds needs to consult with their doctor and make sure other people know too. so that way if things start to go wrong there’s a safety net.
Some people have reasons for going off of them sometimes the drop in function is better than the side effects for some people.
But still doctor approval required
I think these thoughts entertain my mind because I often wonder whether I’m that ill in a psychiatric sense. Then there is the issue that my main problems are with social and practical,daily living as opposed to a particularly high level of textbook , clinical symptoms .
The thought that I may have a fairly low level of clinical symptoms precisely because of medication doesn’t totally elude my consideration though.
I’m sorry to have to close this thread down @firemonkey but there have been a rash of these going off med threads today and I’m closing them all down at this point. Please don’t take it personally. 