Schizophrenia drugs

[HDD]

Thanks, mandance. I do believe he told them he heard voices and he told them he contemplated suicide. They put him in a facility for that and that is when the anti-psychotic drugs were started. He was on the ssri's at this time.

He referred to himself as having a mental illness recently. This was the first time he has said that. I don't know what to think. Hopefully, I can get him to tell me what the doctor has said and give him some encouragement.

 

[mandance]

Ive thought about suicide lots of times. Many people do. There is a difference between thinking about suicide, and engaging in those thoughts. I tell my doctor many times, I feel like suicide is sometimes the only escape from this hell, and he asks what happens then. I tell him...I hate that though and try to go back to what matters in life and by that, he determines it isnt a real issue I guess. He seems to think its only a real problem if you start to engage the idea of killing yourself, aka planning it mentally etc. Or attempting.

I know another guy that has heard voices that told him to kill himself. He suffers from a lot of fear, anxiety etc and has Chronic fatigue syndrome...but I can have a completely normal conversation with him so I know hes not losing his mind...Sometimes drugs, fear, depression...can have dementia or schizo like symtpoms..but that does not mean that is what it is. I am sortuv upset by the doctors going to the extreme as to prescribe anti psychotics. I mean..it seems like they panicked and did not rely much on real intuition but went by the text book with him. But maybe its better safer than sorry...I dont really know. I just think people go through difficult times, and suicide can come up during those times but you have to look at the intent behind the thoughts.

That guy I mentioned did say he took an SSRI once and it made him extremely suicidal. your son could be sensitive to the drugs possibly. I mean..those drugs have claimed many lives. I agree he should be monitored and its good he is living at home while he is going through changes. I would def hope he finds a good therapist who preferably has a few decades of experience with hundreds if not thousands of different patients.

This text book psychiatry can be very dangerous, especially when drugs are involved. I think a reevaluation is needed, and perhaps a family intervention if its possible. Your son cant self diagnose himself...its going to make his fears worse. I know because I have had break downs since being off SSRIs because I got so afraid that I was going to lose my mind that it actually caused these sortuv, messed up panic/depression attacks that made me feel trapped in my body and made me feel suicidal..so thats why its important not to buy into any diagnosis or thought and to tell him to stay within the reality of what is actually happening. If he is functional, talking and does not snap or cause harm to others...he is highly unlikely to be mentally ill. I think again, those docs just freaked but I dont know your son. I could be completely wrong and maybe he was really planning on suicide? But suicidal thoughts happen to people in life...especially when going through such a hard time with so many changes.

Sometimes I cry to my family that i cant go on living but that I am sad to say that because its not who I am and I dont really want to die. And then I remind myself that I really dont want to..im just stressed and going through a tough time etc. So suicidal thoughts in themselves can cause further stress if there is an anxiety problem behind it also.

Also it would help to see a therapist that can also give him tools to overcome the core issues. I have been doing mindfullness and CBT for over a year and before I got off the drugs, it did make a big difference. Its hard now just because of the changes but I know that with mindfulness, you can really avoid a lot of suffering if your practice is strong. But maybe first things first...get a new doc, get the diet down...get the drug situation figured out. It could be that your son doesnt need any drugs and just needs to focus on those core things and changing how his mind thinks. I know a lot of my suffering comes because of simply my thought process. Anyways, hang in there. ill keep sending positive thoughts your way. Im sorry for the tough times..hopefully it will get resolved soon and you can let go of the worry eventually. Just remember...and I need to remind myself this also...nothing is permanent.

 

[4peatssake]

It may be worth looking into DSMO. Peat mentions it briefly in his altered consciousness article and there is mention of its efficacy in this article DMSO - The Real Miracle Solution

DMSO has been useful in the treatment of patients with the following diagnoses: (1) overexcited states (acute schizophrenic reactions, manic phase of the manic-depressive psychoses, alcoholic psychoses, symptomatic psychoses); (2) some symptoms of the chronic psychoses (autism, stereotypia, negativism, abnormal behavior or delusional states) ; (3) severe neuroses (anxiety reactions, obsessives)( Ramírez, Luza, 1967).

McGrady called special attention to an extraordinary paper presented by Dr. Eduardo Ramirez and Dr. Segisfredo Luza of the Ayetano Heredia University in Lima, Peru. After extensive tests on animals and then on normal humans, Dr. Ramirez reported "injecting 50% or 80% DMSO intramuscularly into patients with acute and chronic schizophrenia" and that "of the 14 acute cases, every single one was discharged from the hospital within 45 days after the start of DMSO treatment... He said that 4 of the 11 chronic cases, one of whom has been ill for 14 years, were discharged eventually, and the other 7 improved a great deal and were given occupational therapy... He observed rapid decrease in agitation... recession of persecution feeling, a relatively sudden tendency to communicate and to stay clean.., the wane of obsessions, return to alertness, and a calmness where there had been restlessness and anxiety". (Haley, 2000)

There also was a recent thread about DMSO

 

[Swandattur]

Did hearing the voices start before or after any medication? If it was after, you would, of course, wonder if the medication was responsible since medications can have some weird effects. Sometimes people hear voices for a little while and it goes away. Some people have milder forms of what is diagnosed as schizophrenia. I guess my cousin has had that diagnosis, and she's had her ups and downs over the years, but she's managed a pretty good life, and she's about 63. She has a nice husband and kids who seem to have done pretty well. She certainly looks good.

 

[HDD]

Thank you all for your support. It gets a bit overwhelming at times. Not many people in my circle to relate to about this.

There is a reference to DMSO in Ray Peat's article. I am also looking into serotonin antagonists. There was a post about an antihistamine and b6 working like medicine used in pregnancy. A lot of ideas to try if he is willing.

 

[leo]

I know how difficult it must be for you as a mother to want to help him....but they have minds of their own. I went through that with my daughter who refused to take thyroid for a while. I just relentlessly kept forwarding her articles on hypo thyroidism and she finally caved. She is on Erfa now and doing much better.

I know I have read t3 is prescribed by psychiatrists for a host of issues. I would not be afraid to take it alone. I have taken it for almost a decade now, and do not feel my heart has stopped or anything like that....remember Peat was experimenting with high doses when he said that. Many many people on the thyroid forums take Cytomel only....you might want to drop in and read their stories.

Also, anything one says or does while on SSRI's or just having gotten off...can be attributed to the medication.

I wish him well.

 

[HDD]

Appreciate your input, Leo. Yes, it is not so easy now that they are adults. His sudden turn about the t4/t3 I think was a result of a siblings influence.

I do need to get articles for him to read but they need to be short and to the point. He would not read a Ray Peat article.

In the meantime,I have my fish head stock cooking and chicken necks ordered.

 

[burtlancast]

I do believe he told them he heard voices and he told them he contemplated suicide

I know for a fact auditive and/or visual hallucinations are the distinctive signature sign of schizophrenia, whatever that terms means.

I would really consider taking at least 3 g of niacine/ day, as prescribed by Hoffer, for a few months and see from there.

There's as well the food intolerance factor to consider, like avoiding gluten and milk, which are heavily implicated in schizophrenia.

Here's a highly recommend doc (free) called "Feed your head" about the work of Hoffer; there's Margot Kidder explaining how she reversed her bipolar symptoms with Hoffer's protocol while the official medical establishment pronounced her hopeless, as well as other statements of improved schizophrenic patients.

http://www.alluc.to/documentaries/watch ... 47952.html

 

[jyb]

I would really consider taking at least 3 g of niacine/ day, as prescribed by Hoffer, for a few months and see from there.

There's as well the food intolerance factor to consider, like avoiding gluten and milk, which are heavily implicated in schizophrenia.

If it were me, I wouldn't do that as a first attempt. Firstly, because I am not convinced that milk is implicated in schizophrenia. If you are referring to those studies from the A1/A2 milk debate, then my conclusion to date is that milk is pretty safe. Secondly, because without milk or dairy you are missing out on calcium. If you believe in the RP theory, then a lot of calcium throughout the day is really important to get the right hormones in place, which would be the preferred way to heal (hormones and nutrients) rather than medication (other than thyroid, progesterone, small dose niacinamide...) even good medication - and I would include high dose niacin as a sort of medication - even though both might lead to healing. You could of course have calcium carbonate from powdered eggshells if you did want to avoid dairy, but then you miss out on protein and you need a lot of protein so I don't know where you'd get them from.

 

[HDD]

The following is from this thread-
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1554&p=22275&hilit=Search…+Niacin#p22275

"Case in point. I stumbled on this gem while doing the exact same thing. I was interested in how niacinamide helps with inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, and protects against radiation damage and immunosuppression. After doing some reading on Pubmed, I found this old article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13602793

I emailed it to RP and he liked it a low, and he updated his website to include it as a reference to one of his older articles posted there. For those of you who don't have access to the full study - the doses used in the study were pretty high.The study was done with mice and the dosage was as follows:
To completely antagonize high serotonin - 1300mg/kg in mice, HED 93mg/kg.
To completely antagonize moderate serotonin - 800mg/kg in mice, HED 57mg/kg.

So, as you can see to antagonize serotonin completely you'd need a dose of about 100mg/kg for a human. That's in the range 7g-9g a day, and is close to the doses used by Hoffer et al. to treat mental disorders and cancer.
NOTE: This is applicable for niacinamide/nicotinamide only. As you all know, plain niacin and other varieties such as inositol hexanicotinate actually increases serotonin and histamine."


This seems to contradict. Niacin or Niacinamide?

 

[burtlancast]

Hoffer stated niacinamide is just as fine as niacin for treating schizophrenia, so...
http://www.doctoryourself.com/hoffer_anecdote.html

 

[HDD]

Hoffer stated niacinamide is just as fine as niacin for treating schizophrenia, so...
http://www.doctoryourself.com/hoffer_anecdote.html

Thank you for this link and your other post. I have Niacinamide on hand, so he can start that today.

 

[burtlancast]

Hoffer stated niacinamide is just as fine as niacin for treating schizophrenia, so...
http://www.doctoryourself.com/hoffer_anecdote.html

Thank you for this link and your other post. I have Niacinamide on hand, so he can start that today.

You're welcome.

Consider too the food allergies i wrote about: both Hoffer and Blaylock are in agreement here, based on their personal experiences with schizophrenic patients.

 

[Swandattur]

So how does this dopamine theory of schizophrenia figure into the picture. Are they just completely off base, or is there some reason dopamine appears to be a cause? http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-dopamin ... ty/0003505
I thought it was interesting that elevated dopamine is also thought to result in more creativity.

 

[HDD]

Serotonin seems to be involved.

Ray Peat-
"Schizophrenics typically have an abnormal serotonin concentration in their pineal gland."
http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1 ... 3-p189.pdf


"Schizophrenia is one outcome of stress, both cumulative and acute. Prenatal stress commonly predisposes a person to develop schizophrenia at a later age."
"The frontal lobes of the brain are hypometabolic in schizophrenia. Serotonin can cause vasoconstriction in the brain."
"Serotonin release causes lipid peroxidation."
"Schizophrenics have high levels of lipid peroxidation."
"Therapies which improve mitochondrial respiration alleviate the symptoms of schizophrenia."
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/th ... ties.shtml

 

[Swandattur]

HDD, Thank you. It all seems to come back to mitochondrial respiration, which seems to be a key factor in all these more modern illnesses. Maybe the dopamine involved is the body's effort to correct the situation.

 

[Swandattur]

The Altered Consciousness article is very interesting. I hadn't seen it before. Thanks for posting it. I'll check out the other one, too.

 

[lexis]

Schizophrenia: A Brother Finds Answers in Biological Science

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1421410915/?tag=rapefo-20

 

[HDD]

@lexis Have you read that book? If so, what did you find useful? I tend to agree with the following from "Nutrition for Women".

"Thyroid gland or progesterone, or both, can produce a complete disappearance of mental symptoms when those symptoms result from any biochemical imbalance that can be rectified hormonally, because these two substances have very generalized regulatory functions. I feel that any "diagnosis" (naming in Latin) of a "functional mental disturbance" is at best irrelevant, and may be very destructive. People with diagnosis of "schizophrenia", " epilepsy", "manic-depressive psychosis", "Parkinsonism", "myasthenia gravis", "involutional psychosis", "neuritis", "sclerosis", etc., have reported that they felt normal or improved after taking progesterone, often within 40 minutes."

bold mine

My son thinks of himself as having a mental illness. I don't agree and I believe that how he perceives himself limits him.

 

[4peatssake]

There's a number of excerpts and some reviews here if that's helpful HDD.

Schizophrenia: A Brother Finds Answers in Biological Science (Google eBook)