I need to take a proverbial deep breath and try to organize my thoughts a bit because, if I don't, my hypergraphia is going to put me into the maniacal spin cycle and I'll still be writing at the dawns early light.

Until today I was diagnosed with (1) severe major depressive disorder with psychotic features, (2) generalized anxiety disorder/ panic disorder, and (3) a mixed bag of anti-social fears and phobias. These have been long-term diagnoses that have varied in severity and some that I have been treated for 31 years this year. I was hospitalized from April 1999 to September 2002 and finally got "good enough" to care for myself after prolonged ECT treatment. Since that time until late 2014 I was able to maintain with daily medication and occasional talk therapy. In June of last year I flipped out and began more intensive medication and therapy.

So. Okay.

I'm having some pretty bad memory problems right now – I think that I disclosed that in another post here – and I even think that I recently posted how bad my hallucinations have become. I have very slowly revealed to my doc the frequency, content and increasing time to get back to reality for my hallucinations and have been even slower over the past 3-4 to disclose what come close to, maybe, being short bursts of a delusion or two.

And over the months everything is going downhill. Depression that is at that numb state at the moment, almost complete isolation (one exception for about two hours a week) on and on. My doc is a Ph.D Psychology and my medical dispenser is a psychopharmacologist (glorified nurse practitioner). He admits to knowing nothing about meds and she, at 28, doesn't think she has anything else to learn. My GP started me on 150mg venlafaxine which she increased to 225mg and she put me on 200mg generic Effexor and 5mg of something called Brintellix (or something like that – 5mg isn't even the starting dose). It was only today that she increased the Effexor to 400mg and I think that she only did that because my cardiologist called her and told her that she was "incompetent to dispense medicine." (She didn't return the pharmacy call to refill the Effexor and I had cardiac reactions from withdrawal that put me in the hospital overnight.)

God but I can't stay on track. I have become more irritated day by day.

MY POINT ---> Today my doc told me that he was adding a new diagnosis and reevaluating my previous diagnoses. He said that he was diagnosing me with a depressive style Schizoaffective disorder and that my treatment would continue to be therapy and meds. I haven't even looked to see what the symptoms are. They double teamed me and urged me to go into hospital. They knew that was fruitless. I used a tactic suggested by the user "kaliope" and said that I would check in daily and come back weekly but that I would not be hospitalized.

I'm terrified. I've been scared all of these months as it's taken me longer and longer to return to reality. 31 years I've been under psychiatric treatment and I don't know the difference between a hallucination and a delusion. I know that I had an episode last week, and I don't know how long it lasted, where I was in high school, living with my parents (but I didn't have any sense of where) with three puppies and a kitten and I was doing my homework. I have lied about this previously and said that it lasted seconds (and most of what I call hallucinations do only last 20 seconds or so) but this could have been an hour or more. I just don't know.

I can look up the symptoms and I can read more here but...

WHAT I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO ASK IS ---> do these two meds, at this level, seem like a normal treatment for this disorder?

I'm stopping now.

Thanks,

[ickydog2006]

I have no idea about the meds you are taking, but it does sound like a hospitalization is in order and that you need to be honest with the docs in there. I know that is horrible to hear.
I have also gone through the roundabout of diagnosis including, GAD, panic disorder, OCD, conversion disorder, depression with psychotic symptoms, schizophrenia, schizoaffective (being the latest). I've been through 3 hospitalizations and been on what feels like every med known to man. Until the last hospitalization I had given up hope on ever having no hallucinations or delusions. My hallucinations would be 24/7 but the delusional episodes were usually very short term, lasting a day. I have a wonderful husband and am the primary caretaker of our 5 year old son, so that is what pushed me to get treatment. I've had several med changes and have learned that even though some may be all antipsychotics not all will remove the same symptoms for everyone. Effexor might remove some peoples hallucination and might not work on others, even at a higher dose. It's important drs know that you are still having hallucinations so that they can try you on something different. I know that is scary and changing meds is awful. Like you, I've had severe reactions from some and it was very frustrating when drs didn't believe the severity of the symptoms. It's scary. Our disorders are scary and treatment is just as scary if not more so because we've learned that we can survive with our symptoms usually. I've learned that I may be able to survive with the symptoms I have no chance to really live, not when I'm losing touch with reality, or at least what others perceive as reality. I've also come to accept that I would rather live in a shared reality, than a alternate reality of my brains creation that inevitably leaves me alone and unable to have positive relationships.
That being said, I have little experience with Effexor, it gave me tremors so bad that they put me on anticonvulsants and even that wasn't helping much, thankfully I was still in hospital so they were able to try something else. In the end I had bad reactions to that, Abilify, Geodon, and Risperdal, but have had amazing success with Seroquel. I'm on a low dose of Wellbutrin (which helps control my depression as well as helped my hallucinations in the past (it affects dopamine unlike other anti depressants and in similar ways to antipsychotics)) and a low dose of Seroquel. Dr's are worried that I'm on such a low dose of Seroquel that I may have hallucinations return sooner than I would at a higher dose, but this also means fewer side effects and more room to up it if my body slowly adjusts to it and the hallucinations come back. As of now I have been out of hospital just over a year with NO hallucinations or delusions. It's amazing and surreal. I still have depressed days and life is far from perfect. It took time to get used to no voices and not hearing things or having to 'reality check' constantly because i knew I couldn't trust any of my senses. I still worry about being hospitalized again. But try not to lose hope, I have a life I never could have dreamed was possible. And despite the horrors of my second hospitalization, I would have never attained what I have now without the willingness to try hospitalization again. My last hospitalization was at a different psychward than the previous though, so you might not want to try the same one twice, but even that is probably better than living in the confusion and worry of the life you have now. But you have got to be honest with the drs in there, even if they are idiots and not very trustworthy, if you arn't honest about your symptoms they can't get you where you want to be.

[charcoal2222]

Originally Posted by ciderguy

I need to take a proverbial deep breath and try to organize my thoughts a bit because, if I don't, my hypergraphia is going to put me into the maniacal spin cycle and I'll still be writing at the dawns early light.

Until today I was diagnosed with (1) severe major depressive disorder with psychotic features, (2) generalized anxiety disorder/ panic disorder, and (3) a mixed bag of anti-social fears and phobias. These have been long-term diagnoses that have varied in severity and some that I have been treated for 31 years this year. I was hospitalized from April 1999 to September 2002 and finally got "good enough" to care for myself after prolonged ECT treatment. Since that time until late 2014 I was able to maintain with daily medication and occasional talk therapy. In June of last year I flipped out and began more intensive medication and therapy.

So. Okay.

I'm having some pretty bad memory problems right now – I think that I disclosed that in another post here – and I even think that I recently posted how bad my hallucinations have become. I have very slowly revealed to my doc the frequency, content and increasing time to get back to reality for my hallucinations and have been even slower over the past 3-4 to disclose what come close to, maybe, being short bursts of a delusion or two.

And over the months everything is going downhill. Depression that is at that numb state at the moment, almost complete isolation (one exception for about two hours a week) on and on. My doc is a Ph.D Psychology and my medical dispenser is a psychopharmacologist (glorified nurse practitioner). He admits to knowing nothing about meds and she, at 28, doesn't think she has anything else to learn. My GP started me on 150mg venlafaxine which she increased to 225mg and she put me on 200mg generic Effexor and 5mg of something called Brintellix (or something like that – 5mg isn't even the starting dose). It was only today that she increased the Effexor to 400mg and I think that she only did that because my cardiologist called her and told her that she was "incompetent to dispense medicine." (She didn't return the pharmacy call to refill the Effexor and I had cardiac reactions from withdrawal that put me in the hospital overnight.)

God but I can't stay on track. I have become more irritated day by day.

MY POINT ---> Today my doc told me that he was adding a new diagnosis and reevaluating my previous diagnoses. He said that he was diagnosing me with a depressive style Schizoaffective disorder and that my treatment would continue to be therapy and meds. I haven't even looked to see what the symptoms are. They double teamed me and urged me to go into hospital. They knew that was fruitless. I used a tactic suggested by the user "kaliope" and said that I would check in daily and come back weekly but that I would not be hospitalized.

I'm terrified. I've been scared all of these months as it's taken me longer and longer to return to reality. 31 years I've been under psychiatric treatment and I don't know the difference between a hallucination and a delusion. I know that I had an episode last week, and I don't know how long it lasted, where I was in high school, living with my parents (but I didn't have any sense of where) with three puppies and a kitten and I was doing my homework. I have lied about this previously and said that it lasted seconds (and most of what I call hallucinations do only last 20 seconds or so) but this could have been an hour or more. I just don't know.

I can look up the symptoms and I can read more here but...

WHAT I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO ASK IS ---> do these two meds, at this level, seem like a normal treatment for this disorder?

I'm stopping now.

Thanks,

Isn't Venlafaxine the generic of Effexor? I think Effexor is goodfor Major depressive disorder. Brintellix never did anything for me. I was just diagnosed with Schizoaffective also after many years of Bipolar Depression. Don't know if this helps. charcoal2222

Originally Posted by charcoal2222

Isn't Venlafaxine the generic of Effexor? I think Effexor is goodfor Major depressive disorder. Brintellix never did anything for me. I was just diagnosed with Schizoaffective also after many years of Bipolar Depression. Don't know if this helps. charcoal2222

Yes. And the Venlafaxine has been great. I feel that I need to increase to 300mg per day, rather than my current 225mg but my psychopharmacologist doesn't think so. I think that she's an idiot.

I honestly don't feel that the Brintellix is doing a thing but costing my insurance $600 per month. I went without it for two months and started over on it 5 days ago. No difference.

I'm in a flat/numb mood at the moment. I don't believe that I fit the Schizoaffective criteria and except for the increase in Seroquel, can't see that I'm being treated differently.

It is possible that I'm just dismissing any disorder with "schizo" in the diagnosis. Possible. It will be one week tomorrow that my doc dropped this bomb in my lap and I haven't taken much time to find out much about the diagnosis.

Thanks for the reply.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Hi ciderguy. Good to hear from you. I sometimes reply to your posts. If you read this, it might help. It says what all the different terms mean, the drugs, how to look after yourself. I realise you live in America and it's a British website, but the content should still be helpful.

Take care of yourself and enjoy your custard tarts. PM me anytime.

Forgot the link!
Schizoaffective disorder | Mind, the mental health charity - help for mental health problems

There's really not much difference between depression or bipolar with psychotic features and schizoaffective, other than the psychosis in schizoaffective happens outside of mood episodes. My pdoc says there's no real reason for patients to care which diagnosis you get because the treatment and the symptoms are the same. Don't stress over the label, it's mostly just for your doctors use.

Originally Posted by Little Cat

Forgot the link!
Schizoaffective disorder | Mind, the mental health charity - help for mental health problems

Little Cat,

Thanks for the link. I downloaded some file and bookmarked the IRL so that I can read when I'm feeling better.

You're a jewel.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[HoboofOside]

Originally Posted by ciderguy

I need to take a proverbial deep breath and try to organize my thoughts a bit because, if I don't, my hypergraphia is going to put me into the maniacal spin cycle and I'll still be writing at the dawns early light.

Until today I was diagnosed with (1) severe major depressive disorder with psychotic features, (2) generalized anxiety disorder/ panic disorder, and (3) a mixed bag of anti-social fears and phobias. These have been long-term diagnoses that have varied in severity and some that I have been treated for 31 years this year. I was hospitalized from April 1999 to September 2002 and finally got "good enough" to care for myself after prolonged ECT treatment. Since that time until late 2014 I was able to maintain with daily medication and occasional talk therapy. In June of last year I flipped out and began more intensive medication and therapy.

So. Okay.

I'm having some pretty bad memory problems right now – I think that I disclosed that in another post here – and I even think that I recently posted how bad my hallucinations have become. I have very slowly revealed to my doc the frequency, content and increasing time to get back to reality for my hallucinations and have been even slower over the past 3-4 to disclose what come close to, maybe, being short bursts of a delusion or two.

And over the months everything is going downhill. Depression that is at that numb state at the moment, almost complete isolation (one exception for about two hours a week) on and on. My doc is a Ph.D Psychology and my medical dispenser is a psychopharmacologist (glorified nurse practitioner). He admits to knowing nothing about meds and she, at 28, doesn't think she has anything else to learn. My GP started me on 150mg venlafaxine which she increased to 225mg and she put me on 200mg generic Effexor and 5mg of something called Brintellix (or something like that – 5mg isn't even the starting dose). It was only today that she increased the Effexor to 400mg and I think that she only did that because my cardiologist called her and told her that she was "incompetent to dispense medicine." (She didn't return the pharmacy call to refill the Effexor and I had cardiac reactions from withdrawal that put me in the hospital overnight.)

God but I can't stay on track. I have become more irritated day by day.

MY POINT ---> Today my doc told me that he was adding a new diagnosis and reevaluating my previous diagnoses. He said that he was diagnosing me with a depressive style Schizoaffective disorder and that my treatment would continue to be therapy and meds. I haven't even looked to see what the symptoms are. They double teamed me and urged me to go into hospital. They knew that was fruitless. I used a tactic suggested by the user "kaliope" and said that I would check in daily and come back weekly but that I would not be hospitalized.

I'm terrified. I've been scared all of these months as it's taken me longer and longer to return to reality. 31 years I've been under psychiatric treatment and I don't know the difference between a hallucination and a delusion. I know that I had an episode last week, and I don't know how long it lasted, where I was in high school, living with my parents (but I didn't have any sense of where) with three puppies and a kitten and I was doing my homework. I have lied about this previously and said that it lasted seconds (and most of what I call hallucinations do only last 20 seconds or so) but this could have been an hour or more. I just don't know.

I can look up the symptoms and I can read more here but...

WHAT I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO ASK IS ---> do these two meds, at this level, seem like a normal treatment for this disorder?

I'm stopping now.

Thanks,

I have Schizoaffective disorder Bipoler type

[avlady]

i know anything with schitzo makes me scared too. there is no reason to be ashamed of a diagnosis as i've been told, this way you can get the meds you need for your symptoms. good luck