Posted by temoigneur on December 2, 2005, at 18:52:47
In reply to One more thing..., posted by med_empowered on December 2, 2005, at 13:39:29
> I'm not quite sure what you're being treated for; I'm assuming schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, since your treatment seems to be based on antipsychotic medication. Anyway, using low-dose stimulants in schizophrenia is actually a pretty old practice. On the downside, there's a risk of inducing psyhosis in stable patients. On the upside, it can often significantly improve "negative symptoms" and problems like depression, lethargy, etc. that often don't respond to neuroleptics or actually become worse than before treatment. Provigil is probably the best medication for this indication; it can induce/worsen psychosis, but the risk is smaller than with older stimulants. Ritalin is also sometimes used. I imagine the amphetamines would be avoided in schizophrenia, but I could be wrong.
Thanks Med Emp. My diagnosis is schizo-affective. I have an anxious/obsessive edge; I tried provigil once and it badly exacerbated the psychosis, I need something though, I have such anhedonia, and apathy. Ritalin previously gave me bad mood swings, but didn't seem to be as bad as provigil. I'm wondering about low dose concerta, maybe 18mg. Med. Emp. do you know if it's somewhat common these days to combine an antipsychotic and a stimulant. I fear my doctor will say, "if you're apathetic, just reduce the antipsychotic, but I can't the symptoms, (thoughts) come back. Is it possible that the antipsychotics do a lot of desirable things, plus zap dopamine, and for some the combination of an antipsychotic and stimulant would be beneficial. Thank you
poster:temoigneur
thread:583994
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051126/msgs/584746.html