I’m thinking about passing it on to my Doctor.
file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/Do%20all%20schizophrenia%20patients%20need%20antipsychotic%20treatment%20continuously%20throughout%20their%20lifetime_%20A%2020-year%20longitudinal%20study.%20-%20PubMed%20-%20NCBI.html
Could you post a proper link. It’s impossible to comment with what you have posted.
Link doesnt work …can u repost it …!!!
Coming off meds is russian roulette. I came off meds for 2 years and just ended up in the hospital psychotic at the end of it.
25% of people with schizophrenia do fully recover apparently though.
How many psychotic episodes have you had, Diana? The more episodes, the smaller the chance to go off meds successfully.
There is a new Finnish model of sz treatment which performs better than the current model (apparently - this is just what a nurse told me). APs are used a lot more sparingly than over here.
1 but it was for 3 years…
I see. Anyway, you may show the article to your pdoc, but don’t pull his leg too much. I mean, let him preserve some authority in the decision about coming off or reducing meds.
The studies by Harrow were not randomized trials. Whether a patient took or didn’t take antipsychotic medications was simply a personal choice such that in the long run, those that were able to remain off antipsychotic medications for 20 years were a “self-selected group.” This raises the very real possibility that the unmedicated group – who were not “cured” of schizophrenia and continued to experience mild psychotic symptoms – might have had a less malignant form of the illness such that medications were not absolutely necessary. And it’s still possible that if the unmedicated subjects had taken antipsychotic medications, they might have done even better than they did.
…
instead of the conclusion that antipsychotics caused worsening in medicated patients, it’s just as likely that certain characteristics of a patient’s individual illness such as the type or severity of their symptoms determined whether or not someone needed to take antipsychotic medications.
…
It makes sense then that those with the more refractory forms of schizophrenia will both tend to be on medications as well as fare less well than those who aren’t. Based on clinical experience, this is an obvious explanation for the data that doesn’t require entertaining a paradox about antipsychotic medications.
Joe Pierre M.D.
Do Antipsychotics Worsen Schizophrenia in the Long-Run? | Psychology Today
You’re talking about Open dialogue. Claims that it works better are based on very limited and rather underpowered studies.
How badly are you suffering from side effects? How dangerous was your psychosis? Weigh those things and if you want to roll the dice, do it with yiur doctor’s knowledge, do it slowly, and maybe consider whatever the equivalent of a health care power of attorney is over there, so someone you trust can get you back if things go off the rails - before anything really bad happens.
I think that the study is biased.
Because for many patients life off meds is impossible.
The people who don’t take meds don’t take them for a reason-
these are mild cases that can cope sans medication.
Actually it is almost a shoo in that those off medications don’t suffer from severe positive symptoms,
because if they did they would seek relief with medications.
For me the intrusive thoughts off medications became so bad that I looked to meds as
a rescue from them-and, as a bonus, got a certain improvement in cognition( which may even grow in the future)
and no side effects.
I’m on a lot less meds than I used to be, but I don’t seem to do well at all on no meds. The study doesn’t seem to apply to me.
I have a loss of libido ( I have a boyfriend) and I am always in charge of my moral agency, even in the depths of psychosis. I plan to taper off the meds starting in December…
That’s how I finally figured out it was meds for life for me.
I wish that I could manage or function without meds.
It’s just not possible.
The truth is I’ll be on meds for life.
I become too crazy and dangerous off meds.
It’s not worth the risk.
I can neither reccomend for or against; but if there has only been one psychosis and it wasn’t violent or dangerous, that’s a good sign. It’s also good if you have someone to keep an eye on things, like the boyfriend, and the doctor approves. I wish you well. Keep posting here and we will tell you if we think you’re running into trouble.
I’m basically asexual so for me it’s like “whatever” but I could see where that would be an issue.