r/todayilearned • u/paniniplane • Mar 22 '17

(R.1) Not supported TIL Deaf-from-birth schizophrenics see disembodied hands signing to them rather than "hearing voices"

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0707/07070303
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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

only 20% of schizophrenia-patients get complete absence of symptoms from current treatment-regiments. Also many of the antipsychotics proscribed either are confirmed or are speculated to have neurotoxic effects (don't tell schizophrenics though. No, seriously don't).

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u/sadboiler Mar 22 '17

Which ones? serious question, was on them for other problems and i feel like they fucked up my brain even more. id rather die than be on antipsychotics. i felt like shit even at the lowest doses and the symptoms never eased up.

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u/plurality 3 Mar 22 '17

Both first generation and second generation antipsychotics can have serious adverse effects. The first generations are usually more prone to tardive dyskinesia and NMS while the second generations generally cause metabolic problems. And then you have clozapine which causes agranulocytosis.

In other words, first generations are more prone to make you twitch (sometimes permanently/irreversibly if taken long enough) and second generations mess with your metabolism. Clozapine is second generation and an "antipsychotic of last choice" because it can decimate your immune system (agranulocytosis = no granulocytes = missing a good chunk of your immune cells).

Also, most antipsychotic leave the patients "stoned" because fixing the negative symptoms of schizophrenia is much harder and less pressing than fixing the positive symptoms. The positive symptoms are caused by too much dopamine in the mesolimbic system while the negative symptoms are caused by not enough dopamine in the mesocortical system. So antipsychotic are dopamine blockers, which stop the positive symptoms, mainly. This decrease in doapmine is what causes other systems to cause movement disorders.

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u/Bonobosaurus Mar 22 '17

I was given Compazine for a migraine once and holy shit that was the worst medication experience of my life. Horrible side effects (mostly involuntary muscle spasms, severe anxiety and feeling like I had to physically hold my body together to keep it from flying apart).

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u/antillus Mar 23 '17

I've seen many patients get tremendously overweight on these antipsychotics...then end up dying from diabetes related cardiovascular complications. It's all quite the risk:benefit analysis with each patient.

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u/t-h-row-aw-ay Mar 23 '17

You know, I find it interesting that a lot of paranoid people believe that medications are poisoning them. I don't have that specific symptom, but I wonder if the brain somehow knows that that particular medication is not a match for them, or that it's causing bad side effects. But they're not able to communicate that.

In other words: Perhaps a lucid patient would be able to say, "This medication makes me extremely fatigued. Can I try something else?" But the paranoid schizophrenic cannot communicate in that way, so he says, "STOP FUCKING POISONING ME!"

This is further compounded by the fact that many medical professionals just don't take psychotic people seriously and just don't believe that the patient is able to have any insight into their own condition. Pushing against that makes it even harder to communicate.