I had to call the crisis unit 1 week ago, my son was very ill with his phychosis and would not eat much. I had no choice but to call. They came took one look at him and I was told they will be taking him in, just by looking at him alone, but then he started talking and the counselor that came told me my son needed a lot of help. ( I knew this all along) sadly it took for my son to get this sick with phychosis for anyone to listen to me.
My question is my son is non medication compliant for his phychosis, so he was put on " Invega " injection. The doctor started him yesterday. 1 shot yesterday although my son says he got three injections) and he will get another one in 4 days. Does anyone have experience with this medication? I was told by the nurse that is a good medication for what my son has. He was not very happy.
He hates where he is at, he calls me and rambles on about his conspiracy theory. He is also extremely upset because I put him in there, he wants to get out. It breaks my heart that he is begging me to get him out. Of course he also blames me for him being in there. When he calls, I listen to him, he yells at me, if I talk and if I donât. I told him I understand his frustration, I have kept my composure and let him vent. I am so afraid he may come out like so angry and make my life a living hell.
Does anyone know how long this medication takes to start working? Also, whatâs the difference that you see in your loved ones that take.
This is his 5 time in a mental hospital 3 in New Jersey and 2 here in Florida. It is not the best mental hospital and maybe itâs making his aggression worse for him. But with medicaid is hard to find a place and also he wonât go in voluntarily, so I had no choice but to call this certain place, all others he has to be willing to go in himself and thatâs not happening.
How do you all deal when they beg to come home? I put my foot down all the time, but it breaks my heart. This is the best thing for him right now. This is just all so hard. He is so angry and he still is not where he understands that everything I do is for his own good. All I can tell him is to relax, that I had to do it for his own good and I tell him " I love him ".
Hopefully the meds will kick in and he will seem calmer . You got to do what you got to do in order to help him . I so understand every emotion of yours as i past them and so many on this site has passed them too . I heard Invega injection is very good . It may work really well on your son and really bad on others as everyone is individual the way these kind of meds work . My son is on pills , he had one forceable traumatic injection and until this day he believes they injected him with âpoison , meth , liquidâ to make his muscles shrink and since then he never allowed anyone to inject him. Give him time and lots of love and patients and hang in there .While he is in hospital Perhaps ask advise to See if you can get him court ordered to comply and take pills or get injections with meds every month. I know how exhausting and difficult this is but try and think positive and get lots of advise how to help him when they discharge him . If you type in invega in the search bar im sure you will read other posts about it .
It is heartbreaking. We had to call the crisis intervention unit about 3 weeks ago to have my son involuntarily committed. The bright side is that he got medication compliant again and is much calmer after the drugs took effect after a couple of weeks.
Hopefully, as the drugs kick in, he will become more sane, have some insight, and stop being so angry.
Thank you Linda, he has been calling me from the hospital very irritated. But I guess is expected because he wants to come home. But the doctor has to make sure he is stabilized first.
How did your son get med compliant, did he do it on his own awareness or did you have to interfere? I am scared to find out which way my son is going to go . I am hoping my son will be med compliant, if not I will have to have him court ordered, which I donât want to really do but may have too, if he wonât go for his injections. This is so heartbreaking for everyone.
Heâs been taking his meds after leaving the hospital. Not sure why some people are compliant and others arenât. He hears voices all the time; the meds (15 mg olanzapine and 400 mg of queptiapine) havenât suppressed them.
And I donât know why he had stopped taking them, because I think thatâs what caused him to have another psychotic episode.
He didnât say anything like they were poison or anything.
I find that with mine, he does not want to be consider sz I tell him he has a chemical imbalance and even with that he flips out. So he feels he is not going to take psychotic medication, because he is not ill. When the voices and paranoia sets in, he comes up with conspiracy theories and he feels weâre going to get hurt so as his phychosis progresses he is on guard to keep these people out of our house and he wonât sleep or eat much. He says he canât fall asleep or they will come in and hurt us.
@Mysty1 > He says he canât fall asleep or they will come in and hurt us.
Same here. Heâs not sleeping well right now. Heâs said the voices told him they were going to kill him one night. The voices seem to get more menacing at night.
Thankfully, he doesnât have anosognosia. Iâve seen I Am Not Sick, I Donât Need Help! mentioned many times. Maybe it would help.
E. Fuller Torrey is a huge fan of clozaril and thinks itâs vastly underprescribed. Iâm looking into it.
My 30 year old son is on Invega. He is on his 3rd month. He started it at his last hospitalization. My wife and I are his guardians and we had to decide to give the shot against his wishes. This was a very difficult decision to make, but now we are so happy we did it.
The Invega shot had not shown the tremors and need for sleep that the oral version of Invega does.
My son has better concentration, focus and less vocalizing of false truths and delusions. Are they still there in his mind? I donât know, most likely.
On an earlier post, we had become complacent with his lifestyle, but he called the police and threatened self harm which initiated the hospitalization.
Good luck to you. The L.E.A.P approach is very, very helpful in convincing them to medicate.
Is a horrible illness⌠Thank you for your information. I have heard about " Clozaril on different sites. I have read is a very good medication. Thatâs the one I wanted my son on. But we will see how this new injection and the mood stabilizer work for him.
I thought of I may have to go that route as being my sonâs guardian, if he gives me a hard time to get his injection. He has been in the hospital 5 times now, 3 in NJ and now 2 in Florida. It took this long for doctors to realize how ill my son really is. But at least he is in and he is finally being treated with the medications he needs. Reading your comment gives me hope that hopefully this injection will help. One of my biggest fears was that he would hurt himself. Is so hard for all of us. Many people that have become their loved ones guardian have said it was the best thing they did⌠I will ask his counselor about information to become his guardian, while he is still in the hospital.
Thank you for responding,
Right, this getting complacent is a huge problem. There needs to be an âearly warningâ system so that we know when our relative is in a prodromal phase.
Your post sounds way too familiar to me. I went thru this with my son during his early and mid 20âs. Keep putting that foot down, while continuing to be understanding about how he feels about it all. I think it helped that my son finally reached the point of understanding that, whether he liked it or not, I was his guardian and would continue to insist on medication. And once he was started on one that worked for him, compliance became easier.
I hope this medication will be successful for your son. If it is, he might begin to accept it, if somewhat grudgingly. I think at some point our loved ones do recognize and appreciate relief from the horror of psychosis, even though they may not accept thatâs what it is.
I am broken hearted, I had so much hope this Invega shot would help and it did nothing for him. He is still in the hospital, till he is stable. I feel awful that they have to now try something else. He calls me and is still rambling on about conspiracy, then he gets so mad at me for putting him in there and says he canât save me now so I am on my own. I tell him I love him everyday, he says my kind of love is not love or he would not be in there. I am so worry now about him not getting better.
Better that he is in the hospital than discharged. If he is quite angry with you, it might be best to not answer the phone and avoid him getting agitated with you. Sometimes I would contact the staff and find out how my son was doing, and ask them to relay a message, rather than become the target of a tirade.
Part of the reason might be that he doesnât want to go back to a psychiatric hospital again. I noticed that 2 books he asked for while in the ER are still laying by the door of our house. I asked him a couple of times why he didnât put them away. Yesterday he told me it was to remind him of how he didnât want to be hospitalized again.
So sorry to hear what you are going through with your son. You are so right, it is a devastating illness, and heartbreaking for families. Our loved oneâs illness has a huge impact on our own health and well-being, and we have to find a way to take care of ourselves as well. Itâs so hard to reconcile the bitter irony when they donât understand that they are delusional, even as they are struggling, and often resent our attempts to facilitate support services. They not only lack insight into their own suffering, but they cannot see how it affects those of us who care about them. My affected family member is a sister, but how much more immediate and devastating to have a son or daughter going through this illness. They would always be in your thoughts. You are such a caring parent, certainly look at his point of view, and show a lot of compassion for what he is going through. I hope that the medication helps him stabilize, and you have the opportunity for some peace and joy in your life.
I felt the exact same way about my son not getting better, but he finally did with the proper meds. I was starting to feel that there was nothing they could do for him. I was really afraid. Have the doctors tried the medication he was on before his psychotic break? It took over two months of hospitalization for my son before they put him on the meds that worked for him in the past that started to take effect. He literally spent 35 days in one Psych unit to be released and me being told by a social worker that my son was still in a psychotic state and to take him to the ER if I needed to. I was BEYOND LIVID!!! I couldnât believe that they didnât try to figure out what would work for him instead of giving him something that was useless!!! Please hang in there. There is something that will work for him
