Our 4 year schizophrenic journey has finally calmed down, 45 yo daughter has had her meds adjusted after massive fails, to now not being as psychotic or paranoid.
Terrible daily shakes, vile intrusive thoughts, muttering to herself are still part of daily life, however, the screaming, not engaging, self isolation, suicidal thoughts, paranoia, psychotic episodes, haunted looks and nervousness have eased.
Numerous therapies including a wonderful psychiatrist, psychologist, (painting one on one with a specialist therapist and a boxing programme with a female trainer) paid with government support, have helped her self control this year, the last hospital admission was in July 2020 for 2 months, so, so far so good.
The current medication is;
Abilify, Ampisulprude, Sertraline, Benzatropine together with anti epilepsy medication.
She has anosognosia, takes the medication with apprehension out of her fear of going back into a mental facility.
I know life will always be tough, and I do worry about the future, but hopefully for now with my support we can meddle our way through this wicked disease.
Thankyou for listening, this site, your caring and knowing we are not alone has helped and continues to help me no end.
So happy for both of you
Does she live with you?
Yes @Rida she currently lives with us but has her own home, that will be one of our next goals to have her live independently without fears, it may take months,years or never…
Oh, Maggie46, I am so so happy that your long hard struggles have found improvement for your daughter. I have thought about you oh, so often, hoping for some breakthroughs to make the psychosis less for her.
My daughter has steadily improved on her haldol shot, and even has a bit of insight now into her “crazy days” as she refers to them, but that is after 2.5 years on a medication that worked for her, and it is only a tiny bit of insight. Your daughter may/should continue to improve as she stays on a medicine regimen that works for her.
I hope the best for you and your family.
Many thanks @oldladyblue life is now calmer for our daughter, even though the voices do mess with her, I feel the organic therapies have made a huge difference with her coping skills.
I’m so pleased life is now so much easier for you and your daughter, we still have “crazy days” but less and less, our daughter is not the same person she was before this sz prognosis, however, her life is a lot calmer after 4 years of juggling medications.
Take care and all the best @oldladyblue … Maggie
I’m glad your doing better, If you haven’t already tried or know about Clozapine being a miracle drug for many individuals on this forum, I’ll just put this here. Many doctors are not educated on Clozapine and therefore never mention this drug. I follow https://curesz.org/ which is a group dedicated to informing people of this miracle drug. Here’s a little bit from their monthly newsletter that I just received below. I’ve reached out to them numerous times and often I get replies back from doctor’s, CURESZ is gold and Clozapine is the gold standard of medication. You might already know about Clozapine, but if you don’t, please do some research. Xo, Jen
Many of these individuals achieved recovery thanks to the underutilized medication clozapine. In the United States, while 30% of patients with schizophrenia qualify for clozapine, only 5% actually begin the medication. This means there are 500,000 individuals in the United States who are disabled and have never been prescribed clozapine, which has the potential to eliminate severe delusions and hallucinations, and bring them back to their baseline. (Check the CURESZ Clozapine Expert Panel to find a nearby physician who prescribes clozapine from our national Panel of 118 experts.)
We at CURESZ share the news that, for people with schizophrenia, disability is not inevitable. Full or partial recovery is certainly possible. And we are so pleased to reach out to families and offer them advice as they continue on their loved one’s path to a better, healthier life.
Thankyou so much Jen this is very helpful information, i will subscribe to their newsletter and pass on the info to the psychiatrist, I’m so pleased it’s “gold” for your son. Maggie