I’ve been on medication for most of my adult life, but I can’t shake the feeling I don’t need it. After months of talk, the doctor I see reluctantly allowed me to start tapering off my quetiapine. It’s been about a week since I went down to 250mg from 300 and I feel fine.
I know it’s not for everyone, but I truly believe I can do without meds. My reasoning is that negative symptoms were always my main issue and maybe those were a treatment resistant depression that got mislabeled as part of schizophrenia. I never had a full break but have been told I have sz (or more recently, sza) a few times by different psychiatrists, and I think that was due to me not functioning well, which I do now. So I’m giving being off meds a go.
Anyone ever been in a similar situation? Do you think I’m making a mistake by stopping as some people told me? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
That’s what I thought and even what my doctor thought because I am in the top 1% of being stable in spite of ongoing symptoms. It turned out that going off meds for the better part of a year set me back and even the doctor agrees with this now.
If you don’t mind me asking, were your symptoms worse afterwards? What about negatives? Did meds work the same when you got back on them? Sorry for the load of questions lol
That’s the thing, I’ve never been to a mental hospital, I feel like I have way too mild positive symptoms to be on meds for life, maybe I’m just being dumb but I’ll feel the need to give it another try
I had mild positive symptoms at first but was depressed and suicidal thats why i went to mental hospital by myself. i feel like my positive symptoms got worse after stopping meds for 2yrs
Well, lots of people on meds believe they can go off them and many try to taper off them. People think their case is special but it’s rare that anyone successfully gets off meds. I truly wish you good luck and I hope you don’t relapse but it seems most people do.
And by the way, there’s also many people who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia who doubt their diagnosis. A big clue for you should be that #1) multiple psychiatrists diagnosed you the same, #2) you were put on AP’s and #3) you took those AP’s for years. Are you just going to ignore those three facts when all three of them were true for years and you lived them?
Yeah I do have my doubts, probably always will. I don’t want to sound unreasonable but I have little excuses.
2 said I had sz, 1 said sza, lots treated me for bipolar because I had family history without diagnosing me with anything and a few made the wrong call for bipolar. A couple said there wasnt anything wrong with me. I do trust the first one to say sz the most because I saw him for years and think he knows his stuff, but I`ve learned misdiagnoses happen.
Fair point, but they could be wrong. I had a doctor hand me a prescription for lurasidone and ask me if I was sure I was well enough to leave on my own. I never figured out what she meant, as I was not having pretty much any positive symptoms back then.
I did, but went off them on my own a lot, which was stupid. Been on quetiapine for 1.5 years only. I think anyone could have symptoms quitting cold turkey like I did, that is why I want to try and do things right at least once. If I have symptoms now, I`ll know its my brain not the meds.
I hope I don`t sound too stubborn lol, I do appreciate the points you brought up a lot, and will definitely keep them in mind.
Over the years I did it several times, they gave me a lot of different ones too, so along with me quitting on my own there were changes. I don`t remember really well but I guess I was off all meds for 8-12 months, 6-8 months, 4-5 months, 3-4 months, 5-6 months and 2 months. Those are my estimates from the times I can think off the top of my head
More often than not I`d just feel really dumb. I could not remember things and feel like I used to. They would tell me meds would help with that and I’d give them another go. Closest thing from psychotic I get is when I feel really frightened in the evenings and make weird connections for a while, all doctors I saw agree I never quite lost insight, so I don’t think I was technically really psychotic. No voices either, which I figure is not too common.
It is the 5 year anniversary of my doctor taking away my AP. I went psychotic and spent a month in one hospital and ten days in a second hospital. I hope that doesn’t happen to you. I need APs for the rest of my life.
