The risk of relapse was 5 times higher in the patients who stopped taking their medicine compared to the patients who continued to take medicine. The risk of relapse is high, even after the very first episode of schizophrenia, and the risk of relapse is very much associated with whether or not one is taking medication
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With me it’s infinite times more likely not 5.
With meds I have few symptoms and without them I’m guaranteed to become psychotic.
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Yes. Same for me.
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I disagree, partly.
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I think the results are heavily influenced by the fact that psychotic or prodromal people are often offered nothing at all besides meds. No therapy, no practical help, no emdr, no body work. If they would actually HELP people with psychosis, percentages might be different. As is shown by the results of open dialogue in Finland - hardly any med use, 85% recovers completely (drugfree).
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Nobody knows how many of these relapses are actually caused by med withdrawal. Ive seen research where the “no meds, ever” group had way less relapses than the meds group. Also, if you randomly assign people to either med withdrawal or med continuation, after 2 years their relapse rates get similar and the off meds group is functionally way better.
I am pissed they put me on meds right away without even first trying to really heal me with emdr and therapy. I only got fullblown psychotic AFTER meds. I think meds should NOT be the first response to people who first start getting borderline psychotic, especially if there are clear environmental causes.
That doesnt mean quitting is always a good idea - if i quit now, after all those years on meds, im crazy and either dead or in a ward in no time.
summary : That was a very long post, sorry. I think it is less black and white than this. Medication also makes you more sensitive to psychosis and people arent currently offered any other kind of help. This imho makes people relapse more often than necessary.
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It’s annoying that the more you relapse the more meds you need.
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Well i haven’t relapsed yet, touch wood… lol
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The damage done to me by repeated relapses is unreel. I too wish they had told me I was ill for a start and gave me therapy. On my first episode there was more of me still there and now I’m totally gone when I relapse. I don’t know how they can expect someone to take these drugs for life.
I know…I feel the same. The relapses caused loads of damage and they simply refused to even talk to me about the traumatic things i experienced in the real world and in psychosis. They saw drugs for life as a nice and easy and first option, while i see it as horrible and the last resort.
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Just so you know, that Finnish study had about 55% (not 85%) of the people “recover” but that does not mean symptom-free. Nor was the whole 55% off meds.
Another confounding factor is that people who are more ill often take more meds. People who are less ill may take less meds. Obviously you don’t want to have people take more meds than they really need.
I don’t know of any study with an 85% remission or recovery rate, that would be Nobel prize territory if it could be replicated.
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I wish you could tell my previous Psychiatrists that lol
I got so fuucking pumped full of meds i didnt know left from right…
Psychiatrists are very arrogant people from my personal experiences
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It’s a real problem.
But you gotta keep in mind when reading those studies is people who are sicker are probably going to be on higher doses.
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I reread the results to be sure. We read different studies then. With the finnish method 80% is symptomfree after 5 years, 85% is working, the big majority (67%) is off meds, says a dutch site. Schizophrenia percentages were reduced in the area. I will search for the original studies to be sure. I think those are pretty interesting results!
The other study is randomized, which means people are randomly appointed to either a discontinuation strategy or maintanence strategy after first psychosis. Symptom severity had nothing to do with which group they ended up in. The discontinuation group after 7 years used wat less meds, had way more recovery (40% vs 17%), way better functional outcomes and similar amounts of positive symptoms. I was wrong though to say they were all off meds. They went either fully off meds, or went to the lowest dose possible. In the maintanence group they were stuck on a regular dose. The study showed that most other studies are too short - at 2 years things reversed and the discontinuation group started to fare way better.
That sounds like some great results, could you please link the study or article. I would love to read it.
If that can be replicated, it should be done eveywhere.
I have only got the Dutch description… I will search the english version, and i want to see the original to be sure, not the news article.
Edit: I want to look into it tomorrow, because i want to read the “neutral” study, not an article on an antipsychiatry site or a psychology journal.
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I wouldnt worry about it…
Someone just flagged it cause they saw the word Anti Pschiatry lol
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Huh. Thats real weird, cause I was even saying something against anti-psych :))
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Anyway. Im not against meds and i think nobody should quit without good guidance - I was nearly dead because of that.
I just think psychs shouldnt solely rely on meds and they shouldnt overdo the drugging.
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Yea i agree with you. This debate has been going on since Germany pioneered Psychiatry, so its a well documented case.
But meds have helped alot of people so im neutral on this matter. Its a difficult one