Schizophrenia Relapse?

BEFORE I GET INTO The BLOG, I WOULD LIKE TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT The RECOVERY BLOG IS MOVING TO A NEW LOCATION: OUR BLOG WILL CONTINUE FROM OUR NEW HOME: http://www.mhcd.org/blog
Researchers say that they may have found a red flag for schizophrenia relapse in this article. “Blood levels of a protein that helps regulate inflammation may also serve as a red flag for relapse in some schizophrenia patients, researchers said.” Inflammation can cause diabetes and other diseases so why not schizophrenia? Also they do not have a good way of determining if someone is going to relapse. “There are no good, objective measures of treatment efficacy or indicators for relapse, said Dr. Brian Miller, a psychiatrist specializing in schizophrenia at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University.” That would be good if you can find out before that someone is going to relapse. That would save that person and the psychiatrist some time and probably a lot of headaches.
The article says: “Researchers hope monitoring levels of interleukin-6 can fill that gap for a population in which more than half of patients don’t take their medications as prescribed, often because of side effects. The relapse rate is about 80 percent within two years in patients who don’t take their medication properly and about half that in those who do, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.” That is a lot because of the side effects. I continue to take my medication and do not suffer side effects on this new medication of Geodon. Although when I was taking moban the side effect I had was that I had to give up coffee because it brought on the symptoms. I would rather give something up that I liked rather than to lose control and bring on my mental illness. I do not like being mentally ill.
The article says: “To get a better handle on how IL-6 levels correspond to disease status, they are looking at levels in blood samples taken multiple times over several years in 305 patients enrolled in a study comparing injectable to oral medication. They also are taking one-time measurements in 80 healthy controls and comparing those levels in 240 patients who are acutely ill, stable outpatients or stable outpatients who smoke marijuana, a drug commonly abused by patients. While previous studies have excluded drug abusers, marijuana may increase inflammation, so they want to explore the relationship between IL-6 levels and its use, Miller said.” They are studying all aspects of inflammation. I’ve read before about inflammation and mental illness, although this is the first I’ve heard that they are finally studying it.
The article goes on to say: “Amazingly the contributions of “immune disturbances” to schizophrenia have been debated for about 100 years yet anti-inflammatory drugs aren’t routinely given to patients in addition to their antipsychotic medication, Miller said. Part of the problem is physicians still have no idea what percentage of patients with this very heterogeneous disease have evidence of increased inflammation. In fact, no two patients have the exact constellation of symptoms considered disease hallmarks, such as hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech and thinking, he said.” So not everybody with schizophrenia will have this inflammation and be able to use the drugs that would help and for how long?
They go on to say: “But mounting evidence suggests inflammation’s impact in schizophrenia. A British study of 50 patients experiencing their first episode of schizophrenia behavior found a handful had indicators of an immune response to their brains, called autoantibodies, and no other conditions, such as brain infection, to explain them. What amounts to a chronic low-grade flu has been found in some patients and a rare immune system disorders such as Sjogrens syndrome, which attacks moisture-producing glands resulting in dry eyes and mouth, also tend to be more common in schizophrenics. Additionally, a handful of clinical trials has shown - not surprisingly - that patients with the highest levels of pro-inflammatory factors had the best response to anti-inflammatory drugs.” It is not everybody that has schizophrenia will have this inflammatory response. What they have to figure is when and how to treat the ones that does. JUST A REMINDER THAT THE RECOVERY BLOG IS MOVING TO A NEW ADDRESS: OUR NEW HOME IS: http://mhcd.org/blog

Relapse in Recovery

Does a person always relapse, when they are trying to recover? It happened to me twice. The first time it happened I was out of the State Hospital for two months. I had just started college, and on my second day there a Tuesday I was sick again. I remember that day. There were 1,700 students on campus in the fall of 1993. It seemed that I had to walk through all of them to get downtown to catch a bus home. I was new to the bus system then and did not know any other place to catch a bus. As I was extremely paranoid with all those people it was not easy. I finally reached downtown and a bus. That Thursday they picked me up to take me back to the State Hospital. I thought at the time it will be along time before they let me back to Denver. Although all they did was increase my medication and I was there for the weekend to stabilize. On Monday they dropped me back off at campus. I had to rearrange classes and start a new class. I had already missed too many days in the other class. The professor let me start late in the new class. After that semester I never took a full load of classes again just went to school half time. The second time I relapsed was not as bad as the first. At the time of the second relapse only my granddaughter was born. I had a turtle my only companion for about a year and a half. Well he died and the symptoms came on. Although I knew what to do this time and took a PRN. (That is extra medication) and lay down to sleep and I was O.K. the second day. Then when I had my next appointment I told my doctor what happened. Those relapse happened with an older medication called Moban, which is not manufactured anymore. Today I can say that is good, although at the time it was the only medication that worked for me. I had tried them all. As I’ve said in earlier blogs, I could not even drink coffee with that medication without the symptoms happening. I am extremely happy with my new medication Geodon.