They may they may not. Those things can also be caused by negative symptoms, which antidepressants do not treat. But if those things are being caused by depression, and if your depression is true mental illness depression and not just life related depression, they may help.
There’s not really any harm in trying. I would not recommend wellbutrin for someone who gets psychosis (or mania) as it strongly influences dopamine which can trigger those things. I would recommend an SSRI to start such as prozac, zoloft, etc.
My psychiatrist refused to prescribe antidepressants, he said I only have negative symptoms of sz. But I don’t want to believe that because depression can be treated while negatives can’t…Abilify helped but it caused me worse issues than negatives. He said Wellbutrin might help as it raises dopamine but it just made me manic and have suicidal ideation.
Am I stuck with untreatable negative symptoms forever? I can’t seem to accept that no matter how hard I try. I keep whining here about my negatives and about non-approved ways to “treat” them. I feel like a baby.
If your psychiatrist refuses to listen to you and do everything in their power to try to help you, then you need to find a new psychiatrist.
There may not be ways to make negative symptoms go away but there are ways to cope with them. You should not feel like a baby for sharing your legitimate frustration and despair at having to struggle with serious disability. I think it is completely logical that you want to do anything you can to improve your situation, and this is a site where we are here to support each other through our hardships not shame each other for speaking out about them.
Aziz I wonder if Strattera for ADHD would help you. My psychiatrist gave me Strattera for my ADHD not for negative symptoms. However, it is more stimulating than Wellbutrin and may well help with your negative symptoms. As I mentioned before, I actually had positive symptoms from Wellbutrin for two days but I do not have any symptoms on Strattera. I feel like psychiatrists never know what drugs’ effects would have on a person, but they deny giving us a particular drug just because of what their previous experience with some patients had been like. When in fact every patient reacts differently to every single drug. I had to convince my psychiatrist to give me Strattera too.
Its hard here to switch psychiatrists as healthcare is free. 7 psychiatrists and no one said I have depression…The problem is me not accepting my negative symptoms and that there is no treatment. Some days I accept, others I don’t and think about stopping my meds like I did last week for 3 days. It gave me severe headaches, insomnia, irritability, aggressivity and violent voices. I took 4 high strength Tylenols everyday for 3 days. I was lucky to not have full psychosis and be hospitalized.
It stopped your negative symptoms? How severe were they? I stay in bed all day everyday, only get up to eat. In bed I am either sleeping or on this forum. I am 30 y.o. and I gained 165lb, taking meds for high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes meds.
Well I haven’t had negative symptoms since my onset years ago. However, I did read that stimulants when mixed when anti-psychotics can potentially reduce negative symptoms. Just like how Wellbutrin was supposed to reduce yours. Wellbutrin is similar to ADHD drugs and is prescribed for off-label use. Strattera has similar mechanics to it in that it affects dopamine and norepinphrine. I wonder if it is because of too much anti-psychotics suppressing your dopamine in your case leading to negative symptoms. That’s why I am inclined to think boosting your dopamine and norepinephrine might help. I am only on 20mg dose, which is a sub-therapeutic dose for true ADHD. That’s because my psychiatrist is still worried putting too high of a dose would lead to psychosis.
I will ask my psychiatrist about it but I may need to change him bcz last time he got mad saying I need to stop playing with and changing my meds and that there is no treatment for negative symptoms.
Good luck. My old psychiatrist was incompetent. He was convinced I had bipolar and gave me mood stabilizers and told my parents to apply for mental incompetence lol. Can you imagine, a working professional being told mentally incompetent to the degree that my parents should have guardianship of me. Hope you get a good psychiatrist that listens.
Since you have positive symptoms history you can’t take any drugs like antidepressants like srri, serotonin increasing ones, atomoxetine, bupropion etc as these all can induce positive symptoms. The effect you’ll notice when take these drugs is similar to reducing your current anti psychotic dose.
Stratterra looks better than Wellbutrin as it only increases dopamine/norepinephrine in the prefrontal cortex and not the whole brain, meanining less psychosis and no addiction. I read that low prefrontal cortex dopamine causes negative symptoms. Not sure if that’s the case for everyone with negatives though.
No I did not. I have schizophrenia and depression, not schizoaffective, so I am not prone to mania. I did get positive symptoms from 150mg Wellbutrin though.
I mean its got to be depression. Happy people dont want to off themselves, even a content schizophrenic. I wanted to suicide several times, only reason i didnt is because i figured it was too hard or i would mame myself, or many other reasons, like hope or whatnot. Schizophrenia symptoms and life factors and mental state all contribute to the ideations.
man,i wish i can get something like ritalin or drugs in genral for adhd,but nah unfortunately its very to get it here in australia or get a psychiatrist to prescribe it specially for if they know you have schizoprenia or depression or something like that.