Schitzofrenia question?

Question

Im sure i spelt schitsofrenia wrong......

but that disease is in the media alot and i was just curious if its anything like the way its perceived?

for those of you with schitsofrenia what is the disease like for you and what help if any does the medication provide you?

I've heard the medication is just a suppresant and doensn't really address the problem?

Answer 1

Schizophrenia is a brain illness that about 1% of adults have. Studies have been done in countries all over the world and the percentage of people who have schizophrenia is about the same everywhere. Schizophrenia usually becomes evident when the individual is in their late teens or early 20s. Sometimes the syptoms (hallucinations, delusions, lack of motivation, cognitive confusion, poor socialization with others) come on quickly or othertimes comes on very slowly over a period of weeks or months. Since many teens or young adults may have experimented with street drugs which can cause similar symptoms it's often hard to know for sure if syptoms come from drug abuse or schizophrenia, or both.

Schizophrenia is an illness that affects how the brain processes information. It is very hard for people with schizophrenia to process information, especially if they are receiving information from multiple sources at the same time (like if you are watching tv at the same time you answer the phone and your roommate is yelling at you to clean the dishes). Most people with schizophrenia have hallucinations and/or delusions during the worst part of their illness. Even when the illness isn't too bad, it's typical for people with schizophrenia to have low energy and not much interest in things, so they can look lazy to people who don't understand that it's one of the symptoms of the illness.

Medication for schizophrenia is kind of like insulin for diabetics. Insulin doesn't cure diabetes but it helps to manage the illness so the symptoms of the illness aren't so bad. The medicines used in schizophrenia treatment don't cure schizophrenia but can calm symptoms down so that people with schizophrenia can function in society.

Right now there is no cure for schizophrenia; hopefully there will be one at some time in the future. Until then, medicine is about the best treatment available, along with support and understanding from family and friends. Medicine reduces or eliminates hearing voices, which is a common syptom. It can also reduce paranoia and other delusions. Some people with schizophrenia don't want to take medications because of their paranoia or a lack of understanding that their delusions and hallucinations aren't real. Unfortunately, while medicine for schizophrenia is relatively effective for symptoms of delusions and hallucinations, it is only a little bit effective when it comes to helping with disorganized thinking. Developers of the next generation of antipsychotic medications will be hoping to develop drugs that are effective in substantially improving cognition.

Answer 2

I don't have it, but know a lot about it due to what I learned in school and everything. In a nutshell, it is a disorder in which two things happen: hallucinations and delusions. Hallucinations are hearing voices or seeing things that don't exist. You may hear voices telling you to do something or telling you that you're a bad person or whatever. Delusions are a fancy word for false or irrational beliefs. A delusion would be if you thought that signals were coming out of the TV set that were controlling your mind or maybe that you thought that everyone was out to get you (paranoia). To the person with schizophrenia, all of this is very real to them. In their mind (for example) Tweety bird saying "I tawt I taw a putty tat" on the Looney Tunes cartoon has some hidden meaning and may set them off.

Unfortunately, mental health and the media do not get along. When you hear about a murderer, they sometimes throw in at the end "he had a long history of mental illness" After hearing this about 200 times in the past two years, we start to believe that all people with mental illnesses are violent and this is certainly not true. We never hear about the people who have recovered and are well enough to live on their own, hold jobs, and function normally while in treatment.

Medications are designed to correct chemical imbalances in the brain that may lead to symptoms. As far as exactly how they work, that is beyond my scope of knowledge as I studied psychology and not psychiatry.

If you like books and movies, check out these two:
"I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" (a book about a high school girl who has schizophrenia and her battle to overcome it)
"A Beautiful Mind" (movie I think from 2003?) The story of Nobel Prize winner John Nash and his battle with schizophrenia.

Hope that helps

Answer 3

It is caused by an excessive amount of Dopamine brain chemistry in the neurotransmitters. The brains wiring is all out of whack...It is a trial and error to find the exact-right meds to help each individuals different, excessive amounts of dopamines and other brain chemistry neurons that are exposed. It's really a hard call to get the medicenes right. And then, the patient's are usually so paranoid that they refuse the medicenes anyway-thinking they are poison or afraid to lose their "imaginary friends and be alone".

Answer 4

they say that when you are crazy you dont know it cause you are crazy ...had a Friend with this condition i also cant spell and he thought the government was trying to control him with his medication so he didn't like to take it.he talked to trees when he didn't and he always believed that he owned land with the queen but the government was keeping it from him he is dead now poor soul but he never thought he had a problem because he believed the imaginary people he saw where real and that we didn't have an open mind enough to see them...its with them for life no cure just something to keep society happy