Posted by med_empowered on March 11, 2005, at 0:43:10
In reply to Re: APs CAUSE Hallucinations?!, posted by HappyGirl on March 11, 2005, at 0:08:38
ALL antipsychotics have the weird ability to induce psychosis...it seems to be the nature of the beast. Anyway, gradual withdrawal of an antipsychotic might be a good idea to at least try...even the relatively strict guidelines for treating straight up schizophrenia call for withdrawing antipsychotics after a period of treatment when the person involved is experiencing a first or second acute schizophrenic psychosis. Schizoaffective, assuming you have it, is a tricky animal; some understand it as a "moody" form of schizophrenia, some as a kind of "half-way point" between classical schizophrenia and classical bipolar disorder...and still others further divide it into depressive-type (no mania or BP suspected, just depression) or bipolar-type (mania,mixed-episodes,etc. present) schizoaffective. There's very little research available, but what is around tends to indicate that schizoaffectives as a whole have a better prognosis than "true" schizophrenics (in terms of suicide rate, symptoms over long-haul, etc.)...this is ESPECIALLY true of the bipolar-type schizoaffectives. Schizoaffectives in general are often DX'd differently at different points in their lives, which also happens to some with BP I and Schizophrenia; at times symptoms may present a picture more akin to schizophrenia, at others a form of Bipolar, and at others somewhere in the grey area between the two. Anyway, if your doc or a doc is willing to help you and you want to do it, you might want to try a VERY VERY VERY gradual withdrawal of your antipsychotics.
poster:med_empowered
thread:469511
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050308/msgs/469544.html