https://www.psychcongress.com/article/antihistamine-decreases-schizophrenia-symptoms
Famotidine is in otc Pepcid.
My daughter 32, has tried most of the meds for schizophrenia. We ended up with Invega monthly shots. After several months she was stable to a degree still having mid to end of the month breakthroughs. I noticed involuntary leg twitching and then eyes rolling to the ceiling. Her Dr gave us a med to threat the eye issue, and it did nothing. I’m on another on line caregiver site on FB and I asked the group for help. Someone suggested Benadryl. What the f- she is allergic to the meds. But it works, it also seems to lesson her breakthroughs. So yeah I hope it turns out to be this simple our kids are allergic to stress, life what ever and allergy meds will help. Then maybe shots like they give to people who have multiple allergies and they are cured. The big Phama will hate us all.
Cyproheptadine is another older antihistamine that has been used successfully as an adjunct treatment (in studies) for schizophrenia. Someone recently told me thather son’s auditory hallucinations were stopped taking it and it lessened the intensity of tacticle hallucinations. I know this is anecdotal however these antihistamines antagonize the same histamine receptors that antipsychotics antagonize. Cyproheptadine is over the counter in some countries. Ketotifen is another one.
Shes not allergic to the meds, shes having whats called a dystonic reaction. Antipsychotics are very powerful and can cause “Extrapyramidal symptoms”. They are neuromuscular symptoms that can be a very uncomfortable feeling called akathetsia which is a kind of restlessness, dystonic reactions that can effect the neck/eyes, and parkinson-like side effects. Its amazing how one OTC medication can ease these side effects. Its very safe to take benadryl with antipsychotics but other medications such a cogentin can be helpful if benadryl is too sedating
This is a good resource I think: http://www.ncemi.org/cse/cse0106.htm
The histamine H2 receptor may also be impli- cated in schizophrenia. Famotidine, an H2 receptor antagonist that enters brain (Kagevi et al., 1987), reduced negative symptoms in schizophrenic patients (Kaminsky et al., 1990, 1991). In open- labeled trials, others (Deutsch et al., 1993; Oyewumi et al., 1994) confirmed that famotidine ameliorated schizophrenic symptoms among chronic schizophrenic patients. As famotidine has no relevant biological effects other than the block- ade of H2 receptors at therapeutic doses (Bertaccini et al., 1986, Langtry et al., 1989) and does not interact with other drugs (Humphries, 1987), it is reasonable to postulate that improvements resulted from blockade of H2 receptors that had been overs- timulated during elevated histaminergic activity.
Thanks for the tip. I give my daughter Benadryl the prescribed medication Dr ordered did not work…Benadryl is good but I’m open to trying new things.