I have a brother who is very agressive and verbalizing a lot of thoughts relating to suicide and homicide. He is angry all the time. He was recently in the hospital 3 times over the last two months with several medication changes but nothing is working. Does anyone have any experience with going through something similar? If so, can you share which medications worked? Thank you.
Here I think typical antipsychotics like chlorepromazine or perphenazine can help a lot cause they have very strong sedation abilities too and after that a therapist to point that what bothers him so much that he wants to kill himself.
Ming,
I also have an older brother who has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. I usually don’t post on online forums like this, but I related too much to ignore your post. My brother threatened suicide before, but to my knowledge, did not attempt anything. He can get very aggressive, angry, punching holes in the walls, breaking his musical instruments, his computer, anything. I feel like I’ve seen it all. We’ve had multiple police visits to our house and he’s been in and out of hospitals with not much help. If anything, the hospital visits make him even more angry, especially because they would put him on drugs he doesn’t want.
I wish I had something to contribute in terms of treatment for your brother. So far, not too much has worked for us, but we still have hope. He’s tried several kinds of anti-psychotics, but they either didn’t seem to help, or the side effects were too bad to even want to consider going on. Some of the anti-psychotics even seemed to exacerbate his anger. My family found a book called “Healing Schizophrenia.” It points towards looking at the diet and taking high doses of over-the-counter vitamins rather than expensive anti-psychotic medications that often have unwanted side effects. My brother has tried some high doses of a range of vitamins and supplements just at home and we think it has helped him a bit. Last time I visited him, he did not seem as angry and he did not talk about things that made no sense. Wish I could do more to help you. Feel free to message me if you’d like. It helps to know that you’re not the only one out there.
Best wishes,
Jay
Ali and Jay,
Thanks so much for your responses. I will ask his doctor if she thinks the typical antipsychotics might help. My brother has been on most all of them with no improvement, but perhaps his doctor will suggest those. Jay, my brother breaks everything too. He cuts up his clothes. He cuts the legs off his pants and cuts his t shirts in half, then glues them to the walls. But my main concern is he is speaking of murder and death a lot lately and seems to be aggravated by the increase in his Saphris. He is on Invega Sustenna and Saphris. I will get the book “Healing Schizophria”. Do you remember which vitamins your brother takes? How do you get him to eat properly? My brother only eats cereal and burgers. It’s a problem.
My brother likes to only eat pizza rolls if he can. The lack of nutrition in their diets is definitely not helping. It’s difficult because he does not eat healthily or take medication/vitamins consistently.
If you can, try looking into researching thiamine (vitamin B1), niacin (vitamin B3), pyridoxine (vitamin B6), l-methylfolate/folic acid (vitamin B9), cobalamin (vitamin B12), ascorbic acid (vitamin C), vitamin E, omega-3, fish oil, and zinc and the role they play in treating schizophrenia. As I am not a professional in the field, I am not going to tell you to try giving him anything. However, I will show you what I have researched so far.
See if this website assists you in your research: webofknowledge . com
Articles I’ve found relevant (a simple Google search will most likely give you the correct documents):
Cornish, S. & Mehl-Madrona, L. (2008). The Role of Vitamins and Minerals in Psychiatry.
Integrative Medicine Insights, 3, 33-42.
Cott, A. (1970). The Parenteral Use of Vitamins in the Treatment of Schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia 2, 177-179.
Hoffer, A., & Prousky, J. (2008). Successful Treatment of Schizophrenia Requires
Optimal Daily Doses of Vitamin B3. Alternative Medicine Review, 287-291.
Hoffer, L. J. (2008). Vitamin therapy in schizophrenia. The Israel journal of psychiatry
and related sciences,45, 3-10.
Joshi, V. G. & Eswaran, S. (1980). Vitamins B1, B6, and B12 in the Adjunctive Treatment of
Schizophrenia. Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 9(1), 35-40.
Pall, M. L. (2010). High-dose Therapy with Ascorbate, Niacin, Folate and B12: Pauling was
Right but for the Wrong Reason. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, 25(3), 148-156.
Peet, M. (2008). Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids in the Treatment of Schizophrenia. Isr J
Psychiatry Relat Sci 45(1), 19-25.
Prousky, J. E. (2007). The Orthomolecular Treatment of Schizophrenia: A Primer for Clinicians.
Best of Naturopathic Medicine. 86-100.
Vaughan, K., & McConaghy, N. (1999). Megavitamin and dietary treatment in schizophrenia: a
randomised, controlled trial. Australian & New Zealand Journal Of Psychiatry, 33(1), 84-88.
Vickar, G., Stradford, D., (2012). Nutritional Treatments in Psychiatry. The Flying Publisher
Guide to Complementary and Alternative Medicine Treatments in Psychiatry. 45-58.
Zugno, A. I., Chipindo, H. L., Volpato, A. M., Budni, J., Steckert, A. V., de Oliveira, M. B., . . .
Gama, C. S. (2014). Omega-3 Prevents Behavior Response and Brain Oxidative Damage in the Ketamine Model of Schizophrenia. Neuroscience, 259, 223-231. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2013.11.049
(The last one is a rat model of schizophrenia. I will be doing my own undergraduate research of treatment on a rat model of schizophrenia in the near future.)