Psychotic on M-cat, alcohol and diazzy: "There are men in the loft.."

[Sammy G]

No. There IS such a thing as a "dopamine hypothesis" in schizophrenia research, but overactivation of dopamine receptors is only one of many variables in that model. Glutamate is thought to be heavily involved as well: a closely related model is the "glutamate hypothesis" which can actually plausably co-exist with most of the dopamine model.

Leaving amphetamine users particularly prone to psychosis, it would appear.

 

[Sammy G]

Unaltered MDMA should be ok I think. aMT was fine.

I think it's probably drugs that act on dopamine in a big way that are the real issue. An excess of dopamine is believed to be the cause of such types of psychosis.

Wouldn't be so sure. Check out this British Medical Journal article for one:

Chronic paranoid psychosis after misuse of MDMA ('Ecstasy')

 

[Chatative]

Interesting.

Both instances involved intermittent use of Cocaine alongside regular heavy MDMA use. It certainly shows it can be detrimental to mental health too.

 

[Sammy G]

Aye, and both subjects were pretty heavy users too, although probably not by UK teenage standards. :D

This one is a little bit frightening to say the least, though it's hardly an exhaustive study.

 

[Chatative]

Will have a read.

Are you studying psychiatry or is it just an interest? I know it came up before somewhere but I can't remember what was said.

 

[Sammy G]

It's just an interest I've built up over time. Mostly through years of trying to convince myself I didn't need any help whatsoever.

 

[Chatative]

^ Sounds about right.

Certainly a sobering account. I would be interested to know her weight & what dose of MDMA she had.

For the sake of argument, say she was 90lbs & took a 200mg pill for a first time; it's not a stretch of the imagination to see how unusual complications could occur.

 

[Sammy G]

Well yeah, a super-pill would knock a lot of young women of that sort of build sideways, but for such a long period? I mean, it took fourteen days of haloperidol and lorazepam for her to start acting even slightly normal!

Also, remember it's a US report, so the pill was in all likelihood 75mg at the very best.

 

[Chatative]

Haha.

Well yeah, there is no denying it is a serious psychotic episode of some description. She might never fully recover. It's just that it would seem dosage may play a role in MDMA-induced psychotic episodes judging by the first two instances in the BMJ article.

If not, then she is indeed an anomaly, a scary one at that.

Mental health is indeed an interesting topic. Still in its infancy in my opinion...

 

[Sammy G]

So is the rest of medicine, and indeed science in general - still in its infancy, blunt, dumb and slow in making any meaningful progress. Unfortunately that's the best that we have.

Yet the majority of people seem to be far more predisposed to skepticism about mental health research and treatment than they do about most other branches of medicine. It's understandable to an extent, given that we used to basically imprison people for minor psychological 'defects', but that was a problem which arose from society's perception of the 'mentally unsound' rather than the practice of psychiatry itself; although admittedly the psychiatry of the time was at best primitive and at worst downright inhumane.

Things aren't anything like perfect, but they have changed.

 

[Chatative]

I'm quite passionate about mental health (particularly treatment), as well as well the level of understanding amongst the medical health profession in general... the situation is still very far from ideal despite the fact we have come on in leaps & bounds.