There is alot of support and knowledge on this site about medication. We had to run the gammot and have been on every med known. One of the keys is to give it time, but give it up if it doesn’t work for you. Haldol and Seroquel was of the worst. But Invega was way overdosed on first try and ended up being a good med later with time and dosing adjusted.
You might want to read here what other people’s experiences have been at “Soteria”:
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For me it is a necessary evil. I don’t like a lot of what it does to me, but I can’t do without it.
Without meds, I was imagining pretty bad stuff happening to me. If I had never taken them, probably even worse stuff would have actually happen to me. Meds and the willingness to conceive of myself as ill were able to safe my self-esteem and my life as I knew it. That’s a pretty good thing.
idk why people don’t want to take meds, its just like taking headache tablets or epilepsy meds or insulin, we wouldn’t be taking it if there was nothing wrong and we know that there is something wrong so whats the problem?
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Side effects…
you get side effects with most meds anyway…
Well the last time I was hospitalized they got a court order and induced drugs for three weeks — they were going to try and have me court-ordered to 1 year of outpatient haldol decanoate. Luckily I got out of it.
The other thing about traditional hospitalization is that if you refuse medication, they don’t provide any alternative treatments, like psychotherapy. You draw, you paint, you go to an AA meeting, but there is no treatment of the underlying illness — except medication.
That’s a shame for me. Unfortunately almost every institution relies on a medication approach to mental illness, and it’s difficult finding reputable institutions that eschew traditional psychiatric culture. They exist — but in Europe.
Sounds like you had a bad experience, it can happen sometimes, all I know is that the last thing on my mind when I got sectioned was fighting the system, I knew I wanted help even if they had to force medication on me at first it was for my own good.
Not the kind and degree you get with antipsychotics.
Are you sure? What about chemotherapy or anti convulsants I heard they were pretty nasty
You said most medicines. Those are for extreme conditions.
i think sz is an extreme condition that affects the brain and how we function, i guess i meant that, but i would like to find out, i wonder if anybody has ever compared them to see which drugs have the worst side effects etc,
this is just a supposition
What he said
For me the problem is that they drain me of a lot of physical strength. Also, the typical anti-psychotics are extremely unpleasant to take, and I can’t write on them. Now days they’re giving anti-psych med’s to inmates in prison. As soon as they get out they quit taking them. One former inmate said, “I can’t take these. I have to be able to defend myself.” I have felt the same way before, but I realized that in my case the best way to protect myself is to keep a level head and not do anything precipitous. That’s more likely to happen if I stay on my Geodon and Seroquel.
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I’m not going to mince words, medication is a god-send. Yeah they have side effects, but so do too antibiotics. I am very pro-med, and I owe them my high level of functioning and they bring me out of my shell and let me interact with the world.
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I am from a developing country india and I beleive the outcome is better beacuse of family support
and less medications .It is also better becuase of alternate medicine like ayurveda .many foreigners visit india
for alternate medicine and get good help at the root cuase .however clicinal trials in alternate medicine are just beginning
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I’ve been relatively compliant with my medication!
I got to the point where I was in crisis before I started a antiphychotic, as I didn’t have access to a phycologist at the time and the EIP’s phychatrist was also on maternity I had to see people who were standing in, which meant they didn’t get the full picture from my notes.
What I’m getting at is with some Vallium to calm me down or temazepam so I sleep more than 4 hrs a night I was a wreak! At that point I would try anything so started on Zyprexa (Olanzapine) 5 then 10mg.
I’m not sure how much difference having a psychological intervention earlier would have helped, that said I think I would have managed to avoid my first and only hospital admission a year later some 4 years ago now could have all been prevented using mindfulness techniques and meditation and relaxation tapes! But I guess no 117 after care without a hospital admission!
One thing springs to mind my CPN once said to me that their is a strong correlation between people not taking their medication and people being admitted to hospital!
EIP = Early Intervention Psychosis.
CPN = Community Psychiatric Nurse.
117 Aftercare = http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/legal-rights/aftercare-under-section-117-of-the-mental-health-act/
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