The current medications sucks imo, but it’s what we have. Would be awesome with some medications that could make or lives even just 20% better. I’m praying for the new meds to be successful.
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You gotta stay hopeful for the future. You have to think that since they found a new mechanism, maybe they can expand on that mechanism even further if it’s possible and refine it. Maybe it leads to further discoveries, who knows.
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Exercise on its own will do that. 
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I agree. I would strongly encourage you to take control of your life rather then praying for something which is years away
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I do agree with GammaFox who is a very wise person. I’ve waited 30 years for a magic fix and I haven’t found on yet. I’m very satisfied with my current meds and I’m not going to try any new meds because the long times effect first are known 10 years after approval.
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They say this century is going to be “the century of the brain”. With the help of supercomputers we can get the different pathways in the brain figured out. The research they’re doing on psychotropic med’s could be very valuable to this effort.
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Ditto. I’ve also spent thirty years discovering over and over that “the next great thing” wasn’t so great. Actually worse in some cases. If I had waited for my recovery to come out of a pill bottle alone I’d still be waiting. Best to use current meds and leverage them with other recovery tools.
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To be honest most of the newer APs are too activating for me.
They act too much like antidepressants.
Vraylar made me completely manic and I had to be hospitalized.
No thanks, I’ll stick with my tried and true drug, risperidone
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Ok guys I get your point. I think it’s perfectly fine being optimistic and excited about a novel drug that’s coming out, and having hope that they can improve people’s lives.
As for improving my life in other areas… I feel like I have room to improve probably, but I’m already doing things for improvement, I could do more, sure.
Optimism is fine, but not if you put off any efforts at improvement today because there “may” be improvement from a new treatment in a couple of years. There are members here who have wasted large chunks of their lives doing this. Some of them have also permanently damaged themselves over that time (it shows).
Recovery from this illness takes daily, ongoing effort. It’s not easy and you don’t get a break from it. That’s just how it is.
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What do you mean when you say recovery? Less negative symptoms? overall better mental health? Less positive symptoms? I’m not trying to be a smart ass just curious.
Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst, IMO. Having an expectation of a magic fix is likely to lead to disappointment.
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- Lowest possible positive and negative symptoms (may not be possible to entirely get rid of them).
- Improved ability to manage or work around positive/negative symptoms.
- Improved insight into positive symptoms.
- Improved physical health through better diet and regular exercise.
- Improved emotional health through better management of mental illness and physical health.
- Improved energy levels.
- Improved ability to function personally, socially, and possibly professionally.
- Possible reduction or elimination of medication as a result of all of the above combined.
This differs for everyone, but I believe that we all have room for improvement.
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Velocraptor I liked what you wrote about the steps to recovery that should be taken. Those steps you mentioned I’ll incoperate into my personal journey to recovery.
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I think you are going too hard on others.
I think a lot of people are suffering because medications don’t work for them the way they would like. That is why they hope for a magic pill. And, magic pills will come out- it is a matter of time, whether 2 years or twenty years.
The disease will if I don’t. Suffering is the default setting with this illness.
Someone has to change the @#$%ing dial to a better setting.
I agree that you need to be sympathetic towards people especially when they are struggling. Pushing people towards a hardline only alienates them against the information. The reality is however that no one is going to live your life for you.
The sate of the medication as it stands leads to much to be desired, they are very far from perferct. However talk of a ‘magic pill’ is wishful thinking. Medications will always have side effects in biologicals systems. Changing one neurotransmitter will have diverse effects in the brain. Further, the line of a magic pill that corrects a neuro-imbalance in the case of depression is largely falsegood and not what it really happening.
Most cases of depression are a product of the way people live their lives and how society is structured. People hoping for a magic pill to correct sadness is a thought trap. The same general principles apply to all mental health disorders and in terms of taking charge of your own life. As much as the medication is the cornerstone of recovery in schizophrenia, all those other things are just as important. Mental illness is after all interaction with the environment and not separate from it.
While we do not have a complete understanding of the mechanism of disease finding a hard cure isn’t possible. Additionally fixing something as complicated as the brain in its entirety is beyond the capabilities of people in the 21st century.
@magz
If you have an undergraduate degree, can hold down a full-time job, have romantic relationships and exercise regularly, friends. Then for all intensive purposes you’ve made a ‘full recovery’ in the eyes of society. Internally, there is more to it than that, but if you can pull off all those things then yeah that’s basically the end game. FYI these are all things that have been shown to be protective against developing schizophrenia and or severity/recovery. Focus on chasing one or all these in the intervening years while you’re waiting for the next best medication.
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I certainly hope that the new meds help a lot of people. During short trials, a number of people dropped out, which suggests that the meds were not working well for them or the side effects were intolerable. Over a long time, it is possible that more patients might withdraw. The withdrawals from the trials suggest that these will not help every patient.
So I am hopeful but not too jazzed.
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That’s surely were some wise words you wrote gamma fox and I totally agree with you that as long as we must treat this illness with meds they will cause side effect’s of some kinds.
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I don’t think med cocktails solve anything