They make me feel numb and they just quiet the voices down, not make them go away completely. I’m not my normal self when on them and they make me drowsy. I have tried so many different combinations and none of them seem to do the trick. What do you suggest. Anyone who isn’t on meds?
Try to talk to your psychiatrist about this. It’s going to take several trials to arrive at the best medication for you. It did for me, and I gained much weight in the process. However, I take a medicine now that doesn’t cause much side effects. I used to tremble and shake and stuff.
So stick with your doctor’s recommendation and tell him if you’re not comfortable with your current medicine to recommend another one. Anti-psychotics work differently for different people.
Wish you all the best
Didn’t you just start Risperdal a few days ago, after being concerned that your doctor wasn’t giving you appropriate medicine for your condition? You are going to have to be patient if you are serious about finding the right medication to get better.
I’ve been off meds for 6 months now and I’m doing well. I’d bring it up with your pdoc. You should slowly wean off instead of stopping abruptly.
[quote=“Brightside, post:1, topic:34907”]
Anyone who isn’t on meds?
[/quote]I was off meds for 9 months and did perfectly fine. My psychiatrist & case worker coerced me to start taking meds again after I got into a verbal argument with my mother’s then boyfriend who was bipolar & manic and causing me problems.
I’m now off of meds again, and this time it is permanent. It’s only been a month and I still feel like I am recovering from the medication withdrawals, but things are looking much better and I hope to arrive to my unmedicated state I was in during my 9-month break.
I still hallucinated & still heard some audio, but to be completely honest it was welcomed as much of it began to turn positive when I started to positively reason with it all & changed my character.
At any rate, it’s your body and your right to discontinue medications. Taking prescription drugs is voluntary & we are starting to see lots of new research emerging that shares how psychotherapy is beating drug therapy in terms of stabilizing & recovery of individuals with SZ.
Take care.
No we’re not.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, I was off meds for 2 years, then crash and burned and ended up in hospital.
it’s your body and your right to discontinue medications
Can you give a source on that? Is that on the law?
I’m in Brazil, maybe this still works here?
I had a big fight with my pdoc who didn’t reduced my dose after implying he would. I want to go off or to go very little med.
I feel like a prisoner, I can’t even choose what I put into my body.
I don’t know what hole you’re hiding in, but in the past year I have found plenty of studies, predominantly from UK & Canada, that supports what I am stating. If you’re still following the lagging U.S. biased sources, then that’s quite unfortunate.
And, sorry for your crashing & burning, but not everyone fails that decides to go unmedicated. I’ve had numerous real life & on-this-website encounters that have positive stories of unmedicated living.
To each his own.
If a woman can legally abort a fetus, you can legally discontinue drugs. Speak with a lawyer. At the very least, my lawyer recommended I continue treatment with a psychotherapist & just focus on social therapy.
It’s unfortunate, but unless you have a psychotherapist, all the psychiatrists are just going to do is continue promoting prescription drugs. There’s no “out” once you’re “in” their treatment program/plan. You have to make some calls and find a decent therapist who is willing to defend your unmedicated living style.
It would be hard for me to find a lawyer, i’m still dependent on my mom who wants me on meds.
My psychotherapist motivated me to try to go off meds, but when the time came she was like “don’t you think its better to keep meds?” and my pdoc wanted to hospitalize me if i go off.
Yes, and if you’d spoken to me during my 2 years off meds, I would have been another one. There’s always a fresh batch and steady supply of ‘off meds’ people. It means nothing.
[quote=“everhopeful, post:11, topic:34907”]
It means nothing.
[/quote]Don’t be so pessimistic & biased. No drug is a “one-size-fits-all” glove. We need more optimists on this board.
My doctor never even gave me the chance to go unmedicated. All he did was force “upping” the dosage. You’re lucky. I’d bring that up with her - that she once recommended you get off of them.
And hospitalization is completely voluntary. I told my case worker off when she wanted me to volunteer to be there for three days.
Now I’m living indepently & managing just fine. People need to stop trying to control others and just offer options. I’m sick of the control switches & god delusions people have over others.
You need to know the withdrawal risks of the type of medication you are on. If your psychiatrist refuses to help you withdraw as many do, than you can always find a therapist or nutritionists they often can help I had one who was willing to help me but it was too soon. I have finally gotten off Abilify 30 mgs and I am soooooo happy!!! I had to overcome the personality and mind effects of it and the condition etc. I had a lot to overcome, and now that my dad has moved out it is also easier because he was enforcing the concept that I had to be dependent on medication for life due to his personal bias and beliefs not mine you know it is most definitely your right. The other person is so accurate, you have a right to your health just like everyone here does–if a person is in an accident even if they are in pain they can say they don’t want to go the hospital. Everyone has a right to refuse treatment, the main reason my mom is not going to a hospital.
But these are the risk: you can have severe withdrawal from your body not able to cope with lack of this medication, much like with drug addiction honestly although it’s so random it can be more severe and dangerous to withdraw from a psychiatric drug if not done under supervision with an idea of what you are facing.
Ok so like Abilify can cause strokes and seizures from abrupt withdrawal. what I did was merely cut it in half and use it as needed, every other one or two days. For me it was easier to take it one day, then skip one, then go to half, then skip, then half, then half of half etc. that was the easier than I have tried before, and it helped without added family stress.
I was refused mediation in jail for two days, and I noticed that I could handle it better that way–so that’s when I started thinking that I needed to be off Abilify because of the same reasons you said. Because AP’s are designed to slow the communication between the neurons. this is not always the greatest for people.
You could have severe reactions to withdrawal so please have this at the forefront and know what to do.
You have to first, successfully get off medication over time without any withdrawal effects–like irritability, depression, suicidal thoughts and psychosis–those are probably the most common and that is extremely dangerous and while it is hard it is not impossible. If done right you could be med-free within three months but to be safe it might be better to try to slowly withdraw for 6 months.
That seems the best—if you were to slowly decrease over the period of 6 months, half a year, and then monitor your recovery over the next 6 months and develop a new treatment strategy that would be the safest way to withdraw to take it step by step over the time of 6 months.
For my illness, I was off medication for 6 months before I slowly went into relapse. This is why I think it makes sense, it takes about 6 months for the medication to be completely out of your system so instead of going off cold turkey and waiting six months, you gave yourself the right amount of time to adapt to the change biochemically.
I am doing GREAT since I stopped my medication about a month ago! I feel clearer minded and I have no symptoms, actually my depression is going away along with the fatigue and numbness. It was hard for the first few days because I had more emotions and thoughts…
I went off medication cold turkey but that’s because I know exactly what I am doing and have taken steps to prevent withdrawal.
Good luck and do take this seriously. On top of successful withdrawal you need to have a fallback plan for if any paranoid delusions return or for coping with an increase in voices for a period of time that might happen.
Since being off medication and starting my holistic treatment instead–I have had less severe auditory hallucinations than on medication, and they were very mild then…I would hear gibberish from other sounds and confuse the sounds. I can cope and prevent that from happening now but yeah that would drive me up the wall, non-stop talking etc.
Auditory and visual hallucinations like voices and visions are a symptom of misconnection and did you know that it’s actually very common for people to have hallucinations? If you see images on the tv from static for instance, that’s a hallucinations–it’s just your brain making a picture out of patterns or shapes.
My current pdoc is no longer cooperating with me.
She refuses to even lower my Risperdal dose just a little bit.
I don’t know what to do, I mean I would like to try to go lower a little bit, but I don’t want to do it on my own without her guidance.
She’s placing me in a very difficult position.
@Wave , huh? Aren’t you the guy that messed with his dose and said you’d never do it again , that was like 6months ago. Am I wrong ?
Just get a second opinion?
I did not mess with my dose, my pdoc and i had lowered my Risperdal dose down to 1.5 mg
When my pdoc did decide to lower my dose, I was on a destabilizing med - Lamictal.
The difference is that I am no longer on Lamictal, so I might be able to go lower this time around.
I will talk to my pdoc again, she may decide to lower it a bit more, I’ll see.
I am just concerned with the Risperdal side effects.