Quitting e ciggrette psychosis

Hi there I have schizophrenia and i feel like i am trapped.

I recently switched from risperidone to abilify and during the switch i picked up e cigarettes to help with the withdrawal symptoms. I used to be a cigarette smoker for 10 years.

Now i am addicted to e cigarettes and when i try to quit i feel like i am going psychotic and start acting weird.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

What dose of abilify are you on now? How long have you been on that dose?

been gradually switching to a 12 mg dose, started at 2 for a week went up to 5 next week then 7 week then 10 mg week, ive been on 12 for about 2 weeks now.

I also used to be on 12 mg before and it worked well for me

I don’t understand why stopping the ecig makes you feel so bad. What mg of nicotine do you use?

i went from 6 mg nicotine to 3 last week,

thats when i noticed at first that i felt a bit loopy.

now when i stop for even a couple hours i have that on edge feeling where i dont feel like myself.

That sounds just like “ordinary” nicotine withdrawal. Plus abilify will make you feel anxious anyway. It’s possible the 6mg was helping with abilify induced anxiety. But I don’t know.

Go get the patch you should be fine but that’s the best solution I have for you

on edge as in my brain gives me weird thoughts like thinking a song is somehow speaking to me by saying similar things.

I never had this before i tried quitting.

It was part of my psychosis before though where i thought song lyrics were somehow connected to me.

That’s pretty strange. Nicotine doesn’t affect abilify at all. I don’t know. Is it possible it’s a coincidence? All you can do is go back on 6mg and conduct an experiment to see if that brings things back to normal again.

If it does mention it to your doctor.

I take abilify 5mg twice a day. I quit smoking ecigs recently because a er physician told me i have small pleural nodules on each of my lungs. I have to get my lungs checked in six months. Anyway, i hope you ease off the ecigs eventually. I had nicotine overdose on them several times.

And i was having breathing problems.

Y’all should try dip or snus

@dmak
My second time psychosis was when I was on Abilify and I quit smoking. I had a relapse which lasted 5 months.

Please discuss with your doctor.

I wore a patch at the time and it triggered psychosis, it was really bad.

Update:

Been 4 days e cigarette vapor free.

Feel like i want one every second of the day, but the psychosis is easing.

I was worried it would become full blown psychosis but its was only mild and very manageable.

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i was a smoker for nearly 20 years and the last 3 or so i have switched to an ecig. I need the nicotine i am convinced it helps ease my symptoms because every time i try to go without nictone i get pyschotic. The % of schizophrenice that smoke is very high and i would put money on it being the nicotine that many find to help ease stress etc. but thats just my opinion basaed on no scientific facts

I definitely think my brain works a lot better when i smoke or use E Cig. I just don’t want to get health problems from it so i have to quit.