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Schizophrenia and weed.

dopamimetic said:
Psychosis is a weird thing I guess that can only poorly be simulated in animals and the belief that drug induced psychosis or even being high on drugs is anything near real psychosis appears to be more and more shitty to me if you ask me. Maybe this crosses one of the boundries where animal experiments just don't fit.
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Animals can experience psychosis LOL 😂.
 
TripSitterNZ said:
cannabis is the worst drug next to meth somebody with schizopherina could do.
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I will say that considering the variance in response between individuals it might be hard to pigeon hole a "worst". Glossing over the part of the thread relating to cannabis & focusing on the parts of the thread relating to the usage of substances & schizophrenia I'd like to mention the following in the hope of garnering some insight into the phenomena. In the case of my wife methamphetamine in particular seems to actually be remarkably helpful... 8(

An extraordinary contradiction of what would be considered the norm in regards to that particular substance & schizophrenia.The main issues she encounters are getting physically & mentally sick upon discontinuation as opposed to any negative effects associated with consumption itself. She experiences what you would expect from the usage of methamphetamine in a schizophrenic upon discontinuation as opposed to upon usage of methamphetamine. Interestingly enough in her case if she consumes methamphetamine it makes her feel "normal". As opposed to her normally disorganized thought processes; lack of affect, voices, anhedonia, etc. she says she "feels normal". She never "feels normal". Objectively observing her behavior it does seem to be the case that she is considerably more functional & she does not exhibit her usual mental illness related behavior to nearly the same degree as she would without using the substance. :?

For a point of reference regarding her reaction to stimulants in general; mixed amphetamine salts also cause a "feeling normal" type reaction. Methylphenidate for an example on the other hand does not make her feel normal. Rather she finds methylphenidate to be rather unpleasant.

As a matter fact most of her aberrant behaviors cease & she begins to function in what would be considered to be a "normal" manner upon consumption of amphetamines (m- or otherwise). The degree of change is quite remarkable. She eats & sleeps normally while using the substance BTW. She doses methamphetamine in what would be considered closer to therapeutic as opposed to recreational doses. She's only ever smoked the substance as a route of ingestion (no particular reason why). When she does consume the substance the doses end up being at most 10-20mg daily which IIRC falls into the therapeutic category? IIRC my Desoxyn prescribing information correctly; that is? :unsure: Also potentially of note is that this effect seems to be relatively universal. Whether she were to consume for just one session or say daily for a month she continues to experience a positive sense of "feeling normal" with a decrease in negative symptoms related to both her schizophrenic & M.D.D. related symptoms. The negative symptoms occur upon discontinuation not upon prolonged usage. As I stated she maintains a stable & relatively low dose regardless of duration of usage.

I'd like to stop for a second & point out that she does not do this regularly. These are just experiences over a relatively large period of time. As I stated previously street drugs are not an acceptable option for regular usage for a multitude of reasons. :\

I'm posting this anecdotal story because I'm curious as to if anyone in the thread might have any input as to why this would be the case? She currently takes aripiprazole, levo-thyroxine & clonazepam daily. Street drugs are just not acceptable for long term usage though I've considered pursuing the idea of adding a prescription stimulant to her medications considering her response to amphetamines. I'm curious as to if anyone has any input on the possible reasoning behind the phenomena I've described. She doesn't really display the symptoms typical of ADHD though she does display some symptoms consistent with ADHD such as an extreme difficulty focusing if anything else is occurring (sound, etc.). Though as I stated she doesn't display the majority of symptoms of ADHD she does display a few that are consistent. I mainly mention it as it was something that ocurred to me as a possibility for the response. Though it may not my have been the first thought that came to mind.

Regardless; if anyone has any thoughts or would be willing to hazard a guess on what I've stated that may help to elucidate the reaction I'm describing please do express them. :)

madness00 said:
I don't use benzos.

My AP Vraylar prevents me from meth psychosis.
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If you don't mind me asking how are your experiences with Vraylar? In terms of efficacy & in particular how sedating of a medication it is for you. I see from posts in this thread & elsewhere that various members are relatively experienced with various AP medications. I plan on making a thread on the topic in Mental Health to generate some input regarding potential AP candidates to replace or add to her current aripiprazole. I'll leave that for a separate thread but if you or anyone else reading the thread that has knowledge or experience regarding various AP's that they don't mind sharing in terms of sedation in particular. I would consider including efficacy as a criteria even though it can vary greatly inter-personally.

As I stated we're currently exploring our options in considering a change in aripiprazole. Previously higher dosing of the ariprazole had been tried but the degree of sedation outweighed & complicated any decrease in schizophrenia related symptoms. In general her largest obstacle (other than efficacy) regarding AP medications is the degree of sedation. Before the efficacy of the aripiprazole became as much of a focus we had discussed with her Dr. adding selegiline as an adjunct treatment to help with the symptoms of M.D.D. with the hope that it would potentially be considerably less sedating (if sedating at all?) when compared with the other M.D.D. treatments available. It is still something that is being considered but at this point neither we or the Dr. have been able to find much information regarding the combination. I posted a thread on the subject Aripiprazole (Abilify) & Selegeline / L-Deprenyl (Emsam) Interactions which garnered a decent number of views. Sadly enough those views have not translated into much more in the way of information regarding the subject. The dearth of information be it anecdotal or in the literature regarding the combination of the two medications appears to be quite profound but I digress. :|

I'm just curious as to experiences with Vraylar as with it being a newer medication there are more hoops to jump through to get a prescription. Compared to the other AP's that are currently being offered or discussed at least. I figure it can't hurt to have more input on the matter before even considering whether or not it's worth the time & effort to work on jumping through said hoops. :\

dopamimetic said:
@madness00, just wanted to say thanks. Youre the first one to say too that antipsychotics can exacerbate psychosis how I experienced it on various occasions and various antipsychs, so no coincidence but real hell cause the docs don't believe.. For me personally, risperidone is very bad. Sertraline being a sigma antagonist too, even if it's not an antipsychotic. Haloperidol gave me EPS immediately. Quetiapine some of the finest panic attacks. But nothing beats the voices and confusion on risperidone and other high potency antidopaminergics ... while I never ever had a psychotic episode while sober, it was all induced by opioids or massive overdose. Now that I am off the opioids, all the lingering symptoms are gone despite eating silly dosages of memantine which is a fucking dopamine agonist. And yeah, had pro-psychotic reactions off antipsychotics before and alone. 150mg of truxal led me hallucinate a whole person. On dissociatves I never get true psychotomimesis, mostly nothing, last times combined with opioids more but always knew what's real and what not. These APs can be nasty shit and I bet there are way too many people suffering of adverse reactions labelled as schizophrenia,
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I just wanted to say that I agree with both you & madness00. I've also experienced & been exposed to others that have had a similar experience as yourself. My wife has experienced exacerbated symptoms from various AP's & related as well. Though in her case she is schizophrenic. Regardless of that fact she has also experienced that certain AP medications exacerbate as opposed to help with symptoms. It's quite a diverse range of reactions that can occur with various medications between individuals. In my case personally trazadone is very bad. In terms of pro-psychotic reactions I've experienced multiple incidents with trazadone in particular. To the best of my knowledge I haven't had a psychotic episode sober, in my case they also were induced by opioids or massive overdose as you mentioned. I would agree with your statement regarding dissociatives having had a similar experience there as well.


My apologies to other posters in the thread for the wall of text. Outside of how I posted I couldn't think of a better way to format my post to take less space while still making some sense. :\ Spoilers just didn't seem to fit the criteria of this post to well this time.
 
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Animals can experience psychosis LOL
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Apparently they become schizophrenic when you give them repeated dosages of PCP. Somehow I doubt that it's a good model of it though. I did a shitload more of arylcyclohexylamines, dopaminergics and what not else than any of these poor animals and I didn't turn into a psychotic zombie, so ...
 
@I_Hate_This_Place - Vraylar works fine for me. I have only been psychotic during mania, and thanks to lamictal primarily (IMO, since i did actually get hypomanic last year and this is the one we increased to kill it) and vraylar, i haven't been manic.

At 3mg i actually was throwing up shortly after dosing.. But that stopped at some point and I'm doing fine at 6mg.

Both lamictal and vraylar, now, IME, have very little side effects. TBH i wouldn't even be able to guess what they were, but I'm sure they exist for some people.
 
Vraylar - Cariprazine, had just to google this. Another new atypical that is only available in the US apparently, it has similarities to abilify/aripiprazole by being a dopamine partial agonist instead of complete antagonist and this one being even stroger (afaik aripiprazole roughly 30% and cariprazine 40%) ... still, if you ask me, dopamine shutdown is bullshit or only needed acutely but not continued without end. Creates only bad side effects.. Your mileage may vary though. Some time I believed that 5ht2a inverse agonists might be it but that's not true either, as fuck I had some psychotic episodes while on opioids and risperidone, and I tolerate mushrooms, dissociatves and hefty dosages of dopamine agonists with no single psychotomimetic effect. Even at the same time. Even when this doesn't fit for everyone, I am somewhat of a proof that current threories are flawed. And I have met and know of far too many people being hurt by docs forcing them to take antipsychs while they only get bad side effects. This needs to stop.

That said, I believe that sigma antagonism makes me psychotic from hellish experience with sertraline. Need some proof for that first though. Sigma is associated somewhat with endocannabinoids and NMDA receptor stability. Can look up the papers if anybody interesred.
 
dopamimetic said:
Apparently they become schizophrenic when you give them repeated dosages of PCP. Somehow I doubt that it's a good model of it though. I did a shitload more of arylcyclohexylamines, dopaminergics and what not else than any of these poor animals and I didn't turn into a psychotic zombie, so ...
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All of a sudden Humans aren’t animals?
 
dopamimetic said:
Apparently they become schizophrenic when you give them repeated dosages of PCP. Somehow I doubt that it's a good model of it though. I did a shitload more of arylcyclohexylamines, dopaminergics and what not else than any of these poor animals and I didn't turn into a psychotic zombie, so ...
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Haha nope, they’re just extremely dissociated and high.
 
I was diagnosed Shizo and smoke weed mostly cuz I’m bored but it helps. I may be schizo but it’s more the medical guy pushing his agenda
 
ions said:
I was diagnosed Shizo and smoke weed mostly cuz I’m bored but it helps. I may be schizo but it’s more the medical guy pushing his agenda
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Or woman. I still smoked after my diagnosis though.
 
ions said:
I was without for 2.5 Years because of the hospital. It’s terrible being on aps without weed
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You were in for 2.5 years? And we’re going to keep smoking I guess.
 
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I understand, but you have to realize right now they are the most effective tool we have. It'd be nice if psychiatrists would actually acknowledge the issues though...
 
kidklmx said:
I understand, but you have to realize right now they are the most effective tool we have. It'd be nice if psychiatrists would actually acknowledge the issues though...
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I wouldn’t say they’re the most effective. As the saying goes; “Different strokes for different folks”.
 
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