I was stabilized on clozapine 125mg for around 2 years. But since past 3 months my old symptoms like paranoia and suspicious are coming back and they got so intense last week that I thought I was about relapse.
My pdoc offered no explanation other than to increase my clozapine dose to 200mg or more if my blood counts don’t drop.
What could be reason for my psychosis to come back ?
Sometimes meds lose a bit of their efficacy (effectiveness). Science doesn’t know why this happens, but it does. Your body and brain get used to the dosage and you have to move up on it. Happens to me and many of us from time to time. 2 years is a good amount of time and forgive me if I’m wrong but is your dose of Clozapine a normal therapeutic one?
Are you under more stress?
No. I was well below the maintenance dose. I took 125mg for 2 years but maintenance dose is usually between 300-450mg.
Upping the dose seems to be a solid solution. At least your doc thought so. Let us know how it goes when you officially do. I certainly hope all goes well and you’re back to the stability you’ve had @clinic.
I was also experimenting with couple of cognitive enhancers like strattera(atomoxetine). Also stopped prozac for couple of months as pdoc said so. Does making changes to your meds make u relapse ?
Strattera can cause psychotic symptoms. Probably not a good idea. Dropping the Prozac could lead to mood instability which may not help also, unless of course your doc had you do it. If you were tinkering with the Strattera w/o your doctors knowledge, that might be why he couldn’t tell you why you were having some instability @clinic.
I started strattera with my pdoc permission.
Maybe you should ask your doc these questions.
Your clozapine might have stopped working, this just recently happened to me. After a long time the effects of the clozapine subsided and it started working again, I think the medication has an effect on your blood sugar and various hormones that make it stop working after awhile and once you get things working again it goes back. Exercise helps alot and might miraculously cure you, it had a powerful effect on me.
You can be doing everything right and still relapse. That’s just the way it is with schizophrenia, it happens to many people. But you can do certain things to lower your chance of a relapse