I have a couple of questions about the prodromal stage of schizophrenia.
Firstly, what are the symptoms? I’ve looked on the internet and can’t seem to find a list of symptoms, just vague explanations of what it is.
Secondly, do you go through a prodromal stage before every psychotic episode? Or just the first?
I think I’m recovering and looking like I’m going into remission from my schizohprenia symptoms. I will keep taking meds for the rest of my life, but I just wanted to know if there were any prodromal symptoms I should be aware of. Or if I should have to be aware of them at all.
@turningthepage, does your book have much information on this?
Researchers have also attempted to describe the course of the prodrome. Evidence suggests that the following course is typically observed [37–40]. First, individuals commonly experience negative or nonspecific clinical symptoms, such as depression, anxiety symptoms, social isolation and school/occupational failure. This is often followed by the emergence of basic symptoms, attenuated positive symptoms (APS) or brief, intermittent APS of moderate intensity. Most proximal to psychosis, individuals commonly exhibit more serious APS that remain subpsychotic in terms of frequency (once or twice a month), duration (often lasting for only a few minutes and usually less than a day) and intensity (skepticism as to the veracity of hallucinations or delusions can still be induced [41]). During this final high-risk period, individuals often exhibit predelusional unusual thoughts, prehallucinatory perceptual abnormalities or prethought disordered speech disturbances.
Not much info in my book I can remember. But I think for me my prodromal symptoms were loss of sleep, loss of cognitive ability, slipping into a fantasy world and low school performance.
http://mentalhealth.com/mag1/scz/sb-prod.html offers an overview of changes that have been observed in the prodromal phase, and discussion about the concept itself. (scroll down to the large table).