Antipsychotics shrink the brain

I'm on 325mg quetiapine (75mg in the morning, 250mg at night) and 1mg risperidone in the morning (due to high prolactin levels, I've been being transitioned over to Q gradually over the last couple of years) and have been on some form of anti-psychotic for the last six years since fourteen.

I had heard there was a link between schizophrenia (my diagnosis) and damage to the brain and I do think it could have decreased my intelligence, to be honest, although it's hard to tell given how early I began developing symptoms but I'd never been made aware of or heard of majority of this.

I'm kind of freaking out. I have no choice in taking anti-psychotics -- I wouldn't be functional without them, but all of this stuff is kind of making me panic.

Tardive dyskinesia scares the **** out of me. I'm on pretty high doses of a typical and an atypical antipsychotic and I know it's only a matter of time. In the psychiatrist's waiting room I often see older patients with TD and it's terrifying that that could be me soon.

This research has made me realize what a dangerous situation I am in. I have been on antipsychotics for 9 years now and even reducing the dose causes me big problems. Not to mention my wife refuses to let me stop them; yeah I know it's my life and I dislike her making that decision for me but she has had to deal with me off meds before and refuses to do that again. I can kind of see her point but **** I do not want to be taking these.

Seriously don't panic. That's what makes it worse. We all know well enough that if we dwell and start thinking about stuff like this, then it'll make us feel like that. If it's been working for you for so long, then don't worry.

Also, OP, being up all night reading these things isn't going to make things better. That's probably what's happening to you. If you've gotten this engraved in your head, and can't think about anything else, then you'll clearly feel that way. You'll make yourself more ill than the pills are making you. They wouldn't be dishing these out so easily if they had massive health implications, as you're saying. Anyway, believe what you want to believe, but either way, dwelling on it isn't going to make things any better.

I feel I should update this thread. I've stopped taking the antipsychotic right after I had made this thread. It has been seven months, and I haven't had a relapse. I haven't had any of the many scary symptoms that have been reported to afflict people who stop taking these medications either. A couple of months after I had stopped taking the antipsychotic I stopped taking the antidepressant as well. No withdrawal side effects here either.

Secondly, many of the issues I was complaining about while on medication are gone. I believe I'm back to normal, and no longer feel like a zombie. The only issue is I haven't told the doctors and they believe I'm still on the medication. I just get them from the chemist and pile them in my room.

I'd advice though everyone to be careful when deciding to get off these medications. For the first few months I was really scared I might get a neurotoxic reaction like tardive dyskinesia to abrupt withdrawal of medication. I might have just got lucky, and it's still possible that the relapse is delayed. But it feels great to be off these medications for now.

Thanks for updating the thread . I've come down to 400mg of Quetiapine myself but I'm still on 100mg of Palliperidone which I can't stop taking because my CPN gives it to me once a month via injection. It is likely that my doctor will take me down to 200mg of Quetiapine when I next see him and then after a couple of months on that I'll come off it completely.

I'm glad to hear you didn't have any side effects. That is really good news. I hope things continue to go well for you. I'm hoping that things will go well for me as well as I come off it although when I dropped 200mg of Quetiapine I went through a bit of a bad spell. Hopefully that was just a one off.

Thanks for updating the thread . I've come down to 400mg of Quetiapine myself but I'm still on 100mg of Palliperidone which I can't stop taking because my CPN gives it to me once a month via injection. It is likely that my doctor will take me down to 200mg of Quetiapine when I next see him and then after a couple of months on that I'll come off it completely.

I'm glad to hear you didn't have any side effects. That is really good news. I hope things continue to go well for you. I'm hoping that things will go well for me as well as I come off it although when I dropped 200mg of Quetiapine I went through a bit of a bad spell. Hopefully that was just a one off.

I reduced my quetiapine from 1000mg to 0mg over the course of 2 months and despite a little bit of a hiccup, things have mostly been ok. 2 months is pretty quick but I wanted off. I would advise asking for sleeping medications if you're coming off quetiapine - I found that I had trouble sleeping when I dropped the dose just because I was so used to the sedation it causes. Good luck with coming off it.

And I'm on paliperidone too (along with haloperidol) and it seems to be working well for me but I do worry about the impact on my brain and other things. I recently did a diabetes test which analyzed the last 3 months just to make sure I wasn't developing that from the atypicals. I'm glad the doc did that test because I worry so much about all these side effects.

Just got past the year mark. No complaints so far.

I was worried about the 6-12 months relapse stats.

That's really awesome, bro! So glad to hear that things are going well for you!

I've been using it for over 8 months now and suspect it has done a lot of damage to me. I feel like a sociopath, with no emotions. I'm also slower in terms of thinking. To make it all worse, stopping antipsychotics abruptly is considered neurotoxic so I can't do that.