Quote:
Originally Posted by blackwhitered
Is brain tissue loss reversible? Do Geodon and thorazine cause brain tissue loss too?
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I've never seen a study where people on long term APs get off the meds and are studied so I'm going to go with not studied. Taking people off APs has been hard with current IRB standards because there is evidence that untreated psychosis is itself quite dangerous. Apparently average humans lose a certain amount of brain every year as they get older and this I believe doubles the amount per year so it's kind of a normal process but like rapid aging. Geodon and Thorazine I don't think have been specifically studied but they function so similarly to the other APs I wouldn't expect a difference and they were probably represented in the study I cited in the typical and atypical categories although they weren't studied independently.
So this is one of the reasons pdocs think APs aren't forever anymore. You have to get on a dose and get symptom free for 6 months and during that time get some therapy that will reduce baseline stress and rumination. Try anything you can music medication yoga etc. Do some cognitive remediation to get yourself thinking faster, smarter, etc. Then you start to taper off slowly and when you get symptoms again go back to the previous dose. The goal is as low a dose as possible. You may never get off entirely but the lower it is the safer you are. It's a balance between blocking psychosis which really isn't super functional and may cause damage of it's own vs the meds which cause slow but progressive damage. People getting off the meds at 6 months to 2 years have the best recovery course according to the harrow and wunderink studies. It is the absolutely real world example of being trapped between a rock and a hard place....