When my daughter is having a delusion, the delusion will end almost always in less than a minute after she takes (dissolves) a .5 mg Lorazepam under her tongue. Of course, sometimes her delusional scenario doesn’t allow her to take medicine from her parents but if someone else can get her to take it she is okay within the same time frame.
I’m wondering if this is true for everyone. I’m afraid it is only true at the start of the disease, she was diagnosed 4 months ago
It’s useful in a crisis, but lorazepam is a benzodiazepine and addictive. Also can cause anxiety when it wears off if used a lot. Long term frequent use not such a good idea. Don’t want to frighten you as it does have its uses. My son has used it occasionally when in grip of bad psychosis and it helped. Talk to your daughter’s treatment team.
Lorazepam has not stopped my son’s delusions. If it lessens them, I can’t tell.
Lorazepam is a great solution for acute anxiety, and if the anxiety is reduced, the pressure to talk about the delusions might lesson - so it appears that the delusions are gone. Maybe that’s what you mean about “stopping” them.
My son has been on all kinds of benzos. They make him feel better and calm him down, but that’s about it.
Yes, the delusions are still there, you’re just not hearing her talk about them anymore because she has calmed down. That’s what happens with me on xanax. I only take it as needed in a crisis, and usually I don’t even see it coming, but my Mom or Dad or a cousin notices the early warning signs first and then gives me a xanax to take.
Hi Jo,
My son’s delusions cause him so much anxiety. We are seeing so much improvement in his anxiety since we added the antidepressant Effexor to his midday Seroquel regime. Effexor is an SNRI antidepressant that works on serotonin and norepinephrine in his brain. It has an anxiolytic effect. It is supposed to take up to a month to see the positive benefits from the antidepressant but we saw almost immediate results! Like after a couple of days of taking Effexor, his hand, that he was continually keeping up as if saluting or waving to someone, just stopped having to be up anymore; it just came down for good! To explain further what this indicates is: He had an ongoing delusion that people are out to get him. He decided that holding up his hand would keep him safe. So you see, the delusions bring on the anxiety. And the lorazepam is a fairly fast onset anxiolytic but not one that you would want to continue to use longterm because it is addictive and losses its effectiveness over time. A better approach to help the anxiety and possibly any depression she is suffering from would be
Effexor.
Thank you everyone. All your information was very helpful.
i take Effexor for depression/anxiety related to MS. I agree it’s a good drug and I am happy that your son is benefiting from it.
But just a word of caution: don’t stop this medication suddenly and don’t skip doses. The side effects of doing so are brutal. If I go as little as two days without the medicine, I not only feel anxious, I get this weird swooshing sound in my head, among other disturbing side effects. I will start to wig out. And I don’t have a mental illness–I think for someone w sz these feelings would be even more disturbing.
It’s strange because when I am taking it, I don’t notice any side effects, which lead me to believe that the drug was mild. But then I ran out and went a few days before refilling it, and I realized what a powerful med it is. Unfortunately, I let this happen more than once, and after the last timeI swore I’d never run out again. The withdrawal symptoms are that bad.
There’s lot of information on the Internet about Effexor withdrawal symptoms. So you don’t have to take my word for it.
I wonder what patients experience when they stop their antipsychotics.