Apparently, when you use memantine as an adjunct to most anti-psychotics, it only helps with negative symptoms, but when you combine it with clozapine or olanzapine, it has an effect on positive symptoms as well. There are a few studies to this effect. Well, I’m on both, and the combo (@10mg of memantine) managed to stop a few delusions that only Clozaril has managed to stop before. And, now that I’m on 20mg of memantine, I feel like I just “woke up” and my overall rationality and lucidity have improved to near-clozapinesque levels. It has only been a few days but my mind is clearer right now than it ever has been in years — except for a brief stint on Clozaril, that is. I never should have been pulled off of it, but every time a hospital would give it to me I’d have my outpatient clinic refuse me it. It’s a long story but they basically just thought I was a lying sack-o-*** Borderline, making up stuff to get on meds. I have been diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder from the age of 16, and started hallucinating at around 12 years of age or so. I failed five anti-psychotics by 20 years of age. So the stigma there would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that going without anti-psychotic meds is extremely bad for me. Jerks.
I wish it would work with invega
I have experimented with memantine and Invega and can’t conclusively say it helps with negatives as I haven’t experimented enough but I think it does put me in a better mood.
How long were you on it, and at what dose? I found it barely affected my negative symptoms at 10, and even on that dose it took over two months to fully kick in.
I played with dosages a bit, 10 to 30 mg I believe, I don’t have it in pill form it is powder dissolved in water but I have had the pills before and I know that this is memantine.
I haven’t consistently dosed it more than a few days at a time at the longest. My impression is that it should work immediately and not need to build up, I may be wrong though.
It will do certain things immediately, but the way it works primarily is to prevent damage caused by excessive glutamate levels, so basically you have to wait a few months for your brain to heal up after the toxicity of excess glutamate is blocked by the memantine.
Could you explain more about how there would be excess glutamate?
Basically a lot of disorders cause excess glutamate levels. Memantine levels them back out without decreasing it lower than normal. The toxicity from glutamate can cause degredation and when it’s rebalanced the degredation is able to reverse. Memantine also hits D2 dopamine receptors as an agonist, which explains why some of its effects come on quicker than others.
I’m so, so sorry to hear that you went through that horrible experience @Anthony_Hernandez. No one should ever have to experience that. God bless you.
Thank you, I appreciate that. Inpatient doctors who know about the BPD still have no problem treating my SZA, except for one instance where they were working with that clinic and actually diagnosed me with Munchausens and sent me home without anti-psychotics. Outpatient providers for the past year and a half have repeatedly slashed my doses of anti-psychotics down to subtherapeutic levels, declined to prescribe them, or declared they were going to taper me off of them as I go through therapy. And of course every time I change providers, I get blamed. This isn’t stigma, it’s downright life threatening discrimination.
My current provider cut me off of further med adjustments after she made a BPD diagnosis, leaving me with negative symptoms, depression, and ADHD and in a situation where I couldn’t take care of my apartment and was facing eviction. I had to self medicate with methylfolate and I lucked out and had it help with my apathy and drive to the point where I could actually clean. I’m only on 20 of the memantine because the pharmacy I go to accidentally filled two scripts at once for 10. I upped it myself XD if they don’t want to let me stay on it then to the internet I go…
How can it work on negatives when it has the same profile as ketamine, which has been shown to induce schizophrenia-like behaviour in healthy controls?