I shouldn’t of made this post I was just hoping someone would tell me what I wanna hear that “nothing is wrong with me” but off of my meds I thought I could cure cancer was severely manic even though I felt on top of the world I was very delusional mania can feel great tho until you do some stupid ■■■■ and then it becomes a vicious cycle atleast in my experience
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Your post was fine. You were asking for opinions and we gave you ours. It’s possible for some people to get off meds, but for most schizophrenics and schizoaffectives, it’s a losing proposition in the long term IMO.
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I’ve been on meds since I was 14 originally for psychotic depression then at 21 they labeled me as paranoid schizophrenia and they suspected I had a form of bipolar disorder on top of it then at 25 I got the diagnosis of schizoaffective bipolar type but yeah I never did anything that I’m aware of that caused it honestly when a year after the psychotic depression diagnosis i smoked weed but it can’t be the case because I had psychosis before that 
I don’t think I did anything it just happened
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It’s a combination of genes and triggers usually stress.
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Yeah, I don’t think I did anything to cause mine either. It’s just a predisposition and the right set of circumstances to set it off in my case.
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It’s not that low. There is a chance.
I’m basically fully recovered now. And it’s not that rare.
But yes, if you want to quit meds do it under medical supervision.
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How long have you been off antipsychotics @anon9798425 ? I’d like to believe that I have a chance to get off antipsychotics myself, but it has been drummed into me that most sz are in for a lifetime. ZombieMombie and people like yourself give me a slim hope though. I am personally scared to slip into psychosis if I were to try to get off AP’s.
And how long were you on them before you made an attempt?
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I’m below the lowest effective dose now but it hasn’t been long so it’s too early to tell for sure. But I have not had any increase in symptoms, besides the temporary withdrawals, so it looks like the meds weren’t doing anything anymore. I’ve been reducing very slowly, over about 6 months so far.
It’s true that most people don’t fully recover. But older research was methodologically flawed and we have better treatments now, at least when it comes to non-pharmaceutical options. Several studies from the last few years indicate about 1/3 recover very well and substantial amount of those again appear to recover completely. Some recover partially but function well without meds.
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I’ve been on them for many years, probably almost 10. I did two attempts previously but had to stop because my symptoms got a lot worse. This time is very different. It’s been about 6 years, I’d estimate, since my last attempt.
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To me theres no “cured” theres only remission. If you can keep it in remission then youre effectively temporarily “cured”, but not from further episodes. Therefore taking meds is still necciasary to some degree. Trust me keep with youe treatment plan. So many people end up in worse situations because they think theyte cured. They stop taking meds and a month or two later theyre in torment. Stay the course or in all likelyhood it will get worse.
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Well, @anon9798425 you seem like someone “who can take it” so I’ll say it straight out to you. I get a little cynical about the occasional claims of a “full recovery” and when you dig a little deeper you find out that the people claiming full recovery are still on meds or have only been off them for several months or not even a year. Or still have negative symptoms or delusions or suffer from paranoia. I’ve seen it too many times. I guess it depends on your definition of a full recovery which even experts don’t seem to agree on.
But to me, if someone claims a “full recovery” they would be off meds and suffer zero symptoms. A full recovery to me isn’t occasionally hearing voices or just having certain delusions. Again, I guess it depends on your definition of recovery. To be honest, despite the 1/3 claims, I’ve never seen anyone who has made a full recovery. I kinda think that even still seeing a therapist or psychiatrist would negate the claims of a full recovery. That’s kind of a judgement call though.
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A cure for schizophrenia isn’t possible (edit: presently). Is it possible your symptoms went into remission? Yes, if you’re on the right meds that do that for you. Can you go into remission without meds? I actually don’t know if there are any cases of it, but I doubt it.
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Even if you successfully come off meds, you’re not necessarily cured. Usually negative and cognitive symptoms are treatment resistant or even permanent. Everytime I stop my meds I go back on them after a few days as I feel weird, not normal.
I still had negative and cognitive symptoms when I was off meds for 2yrs before I relapsed.
Its possible but only for positive symptoms. Negative and cognitive symptoms persist usually, they’re treatment resistant.
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You’ll find lots of research on this if you bother to look. You don’t have to depend on your own highly limited personal experience. See this, for example.
Full symptomatic recovery is pretty consistently defined as not meeting any diagnostic criteria, scoring zero or almost zero on symptom scales, and not needing meds or treatment. So “full recovery” in the literature is not “I still take meds but do fine” or “I don’t have sz but have paranoia” like you seem to believe.
I know you’ve been taught differently for many years. And I know you’ve seen many very ill patients. But you can still change your opinion. This is the convergence of a lot of newer research, not conjecture.
Maybe there’s better articles on it, but not convinced by that particular article/study and your post along with it.
Well you’re not a scientist. Danish register studies are pretty well-known and recognized because of how representative they are. But yes, there are many more like this one. And as they describe, this study is just part of a number of similar findings.
Hell yeah it’s possible you’re cured. That’s awesome man
The last time we got in a discussion you were complaining about having a rational conversation and not making snippy comments or words to that effect. If one out of four schizophrenics make a full recovery why haven’t 25% of the schizophrenics on this site, some who have been on for years, made full recoveries?
You claim a full recovery for yourself and in the next breath you say you are still on medication. I would like to see in plain English that many schizophrenics get off medication and have zero positive and negative symptoms.
The reason I don’t trust that article is that it says nothing about medication, does not specify positive and negative symptoms and does not give examples of recovery.
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