Posted by ed_uk on December 8, 2004, at 10:51:52
In reply to Re: ABILIFY or CLOZAPINE? which is best?, posted by pretty_paints on December 7, 2004, at 19:02:39
Hi! :-)
It's good to hear that you are feeling better on the higher dose of Seroquel. You seem to have a lot of insight into your problems and that's certainly a good sign.
I don't think that there are many people on this board with schizophrenia but there are a few people with other psychotic disorders. Depression, social phobia and bipolar disorder are probably the most common problems in the babble world.
I'm glad that your psychiatrist hasn't given you a diagnosis yet, it takes time to make an accurate diagnosis. Schizophrenia can be diagnosed in the absence of hallucinations under two circumstances....
1) if 'bizarre' delusions are present
2) or if a number of other symptoms of schizophrenia are present.There are other diagnoses apart from schizophrenia that your doctor may consider eg. schizoaffective disorder, schizotypal disorder etc.
Here is a list of your symptoms. Do you think that it is accurate? What other symptoms/problems do you have?
1. Paranoia eg. thinking that people are spying on you or are out to get you.
2. Thinking that people can read your mind (sometimes people think that their thoughts are being 'broadcasted' to other people). If you believed that this was definately true (at the time that you first thought it) it would be called a delusion, if you realised that it might not be true then it could be called an overvalued idea.
3. depression
4. 'delusional perception'.... delusional perception describes a true perception to which a person attributes a false meaning eg. special significance of somebody wearing certain clothes.
I must admit that I haven't been watching I'm a celebrity but some of my friends have, it's very popular!Perhaps you won't need to try Abilify (aripiprazole) or Clozaril (clozapine) now that you are on a higher dose of Seroquel (quetiapine). If you ever have to take Clozaril you'll have to have tonnes of blood tests!
Here is some a list of some of the symptoms of schizophrenia, don't expect to gert all of them! I took the list from the ICD (International Classification of Diseases).
(a) thought echo, thought insertion or withdrawal, and thought broadcasting;
(b) delusions of control, influence, or passivity, clearly referred to body or limb movements or specific thoughts, actions, or sensations; delusional perception;
(c) hallucinatory voices giving a running commentary on the patient's behaviour, or discussing the patient among themselves, or other types of hallucinatory voices coming from some part of the body;
(d) persistent delusions of other kinds that are culturally inappropriate and completely impossible, such as religious or political identity, or superhuman powers and abilities (e.g. being able to control the weather, or being in communication with aliens from another world);
(e) persistent hallucinations in any modality, when accompanied either by fleeting or half-formed delusions without clear affective content, or by persistent over-valued ideas, or when occurring every day for weeks or months on end;
(f) breaks or interpolations in the train of thought, resulting in incoherence or irrelevant speech, or neologisms;
(g) catatonic behaviour, such as excitement, posturing, or waxy flexibility, negativism, mutism, and stupor;
(h) "negative" symptoms such as marked apathy, paucity of speech, and blunting or incongruity of emotional responses, usually resulting in social withdrawal and lowering of social performance; it must be clear that these are not due to depression or to neuroleptic medication;
(i) a significant and consistent change in the overall quality of some aspects of personal behaviour, manifest as loss of interest, aimlessness, idleness, a self-absorbed attitude, and social withdrawal.
Regards,
Ed.
poster:ed_uk
thread:423943
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041206/msgs/426133.html