David is constantly hearing voices, thinking people are stealing from him, saying mean things, laughing at him, being paranoid, etc. So much so, that he is acting very aggressive to the people in his board and care. He thinks everyone in his house is out to get him and that they are talking about him. The whole house gets upset and afraid. It is chaos.
He doesn’t get a moment of peace. If he doesn’t get help soon, he will probably end up in a fight, maybe jail or the hospital and I don’t want that to happen.
I don’t know how to help David or know what to tell him to do when he can’t take the voices anymore. I try and empathize with him and tell him to tell the voices to shut up and that is not happening. Sometimes that helps sometimes it doesn’t.
David takes his medication religiously but it is not doing a darn thing. He has been on the same meds for years, so they are probably not working anymore. Maybe David’s body is immune to them, plus he weighs 350 pounds.
Nothing is working and I can’t get anyone to help him. When I call his doctor he says all the medication is basically the same. He did say he would up the dose of Invega. I understand it won’t take away David’s symptons completely.
David calls me throughout the day at work with talk about the voices. Is there anything that I could say to him to help him through the tough thoughts. Also, why do the voices have to be so mean.
@jespin Your son needs a new doctor (just my opinion) I have run into doctors through getting help for my sz son that seem to have some kind of “burnout” syndrome or something where they are not willing to take any extra steps to help get the patient as well as they can be and they take for granted you will just take what they say at face value and move on…that infuriates me that they do that…it is wrong and unfair…there is a medicine or a combination of medicines that will get your son in a better place than he is mentally…I believe that…for my sz son it took at least 5 doctors, and probably a dozen medicines and a lot of trial error before my son finally got the ones that do work well for him to this day…if there is a mental health ombudsman in your community they can often give you the very best advice in where to get better help for your son…or often NAMI can help with that too…I understand the weight issue too my son went up to 300 lbs himself…but before the weight can be addressed he has to get more stable first…it is so hard and exhausting to do but as moms we have to be warriors for our sz kids…they don’t have anyone else that will fight for them like we will. Hang in there.
Definitely there are a lot of medications, and I think one of the reasons is that people respond to the various medications differently.
I also encourage you to seek help from another doctor if your son is not getting relief with his current medication. My son had similar problems in a residential facility, and he did end up getting beat up, and all his belongings were destroyed with a knife or some cutting tool.
How long has your son been on the current medication, and how many others have been tried?
If your son’s doctor is not open to changing meds, look for another psychiatrist who is. Not all meds are the same and yes, people build up a tolerance to meds over time. My son has gone through many different medications, some worked for a while and when it looked like they were not, his doctor was open to switching him to another. He is currently on clozapine which is a hassle but seems to work in different ways than other APs.
A treatment for schizophrenia called BEAM Procedure, bilateral electrocoagulation of Adrenal Medulla, is available in Ecuador. It has had excellent results in reducing the antipsychotics a person is on and eliminating the symptoms of schizophrenia. More information about this treatment is in a book A Life worth Living Alternative treatment for Schizophrenia, Suzanne Ayer Patterson, on Amazon. It is worth knowing about when other options fail.
I’m going to be ignorant & give you my first reaction - then I’ll go look it up.
That sounds similar to a lobotomy.
EDIT: - that gland is above the kidneys & not in the brain (I found your website!)
My son, when he get’s manic, he doesn’t sleep for days on end, and sometimes his heart pounds so hard and so fast, I’ve commented that it’s like his adrenaline gland is stuck and won’t turn off.
He’s just in the hospital after a period of 8 days where he slept less than a total of 16 hours.
Now, I’m interested in this too & will be reading up.
Thanks for posting.
Unless there is peer-reviewed, published research on this method - with some substantial clinical trials - I’d have the opinion that its just rumor and marketing. I can’t find any such peer reviewed, published research so I’d avoid even wasting time on this topic.
Sure - we all want better treatments and even a cure - but the chances of anything being found that is truly useful in some little backwater area seems highly unlikely - when $billions are being spent, and thousands of researchers in top universities are working on it in good western / developed country universities and centers.
And there is some research coming out that is identifying some nutritional supplements as being helpful - as this recent story showed:
There are lots of supplements, therapies, and daily activities like exercise that can help with the illness. Along with medication (vital for many or most people with sz), there are so many ways to gain incremental advances in recovery.
Each person with the illness is unique and will respond differently to each treatment. There is no AP, no supplement, no therapy that will lead to recovery on its own, but implementing all of the best treatments for each person will lead to the best result.
Clearly an unstudied and unproven surgical procedure is not something most patients would consider for any illness.
We all wish for better treatments, better medications, and more stable recoveries.