Suffering From Schizophrenia. Taking Mexazolam And Risperdal. Did Not Cure. Suggestion?

Posted on Wed, 29 May 2013

Question: Hello, I take 1 mg Mexazolam and 1mg of risperdal for about 4 years, I was medicated by my psychiatrist. She has told me to start weaning 3 years ago, but whenever I do it, I can never do it, after few days i always return to this medication. I was medicated at the time because I had thoughts and moods very negative at first, my doctor thought that it was schizophrenia (because i had one psychotic event in 2006, after some months in meds i went well, and took of the meds), but my psychiatrist said that this amount of medication is minimal for a man with 80 pounds with schizophrenia. She said it couldnt be that disease.

I already tried several times to take off the medication, with no sucess.
Last month i tried to wean the method of weighing on scales to weigh jewelry and take the medication in 10 stages, first week take 10% off then swallow 90% of the medications ( I never passed from one week to go back to meds, because of irritation, stress.etc)

I feel fine with this drug, I have several side effects, but like my psychiatry said , "there´s no reason to take it", how can you help me take off the meds? supplements? other method? some other products?

Best regards XXXXXXX

Answered by Dr. Seikhoo Bishnoi (20 hours later)

Hello
Welcome to Health Care Magic

You are a young male who had one episode of psychosis in 2006 and at that time doctors made the diagnosis of Schizophrenia and later you had negative thoughts and mood. You are taking Mexazolam 1 mg and Resperidone 1 mg since last 4 years.

Now a brief about your problem. See with available history I can tell you that most likely you are not suffering from Schizophrenia because

- Isolated episode of acute psychosis can't label that a patient has schizophrenia.
- Schizophrenia is a continuous illness with symptoms never touching baseline. Even on medicines patients tend to show some psychotic symptoms or negative symptoms.
- As your psychiatrist also told to you, dose of Resperidone 1 mg is very less dose and it could not control symptoms completely if you would have been suffering from schizophrenia.

Now as most likely you are not suffering from schizophrenia and you had only one isolated episode of psychosis so there is no need to take these medicines. I would also advise you to start decreasing the dose every week and completely stopping over 6 weeks. As it is very difficult to decrease the dose 10% of every week, I would advise you to start taking 0.75 mg for next 2 weeks and then decrease it to 0.5 mg for next two weeks and in last 2 weeks take the medicines every alternate days and then stop it completely. Dose of 1 mg is very less and you will not suffer any serious withdrawal effects.

Hope I solved your question, if you have more query you can ask again in follow up.

Thanks
Dr. Seikhoo Bishnoi, MD

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar

Follow up: Dr. Seikhoo Bishnoi (2 hours later)

Thanks for the help.

I´ve been trying to reduce medication like this, but i never managed to do it.

Is there any supplements? or other non benzodiapine to make me calm while i take of mexazolam ? is this a good process? with good results?

Other question, i only had one psychotic event, but before i started to take this medication 4 years ago, was the use of cannabis, smoke two , three times, and i gotted some thoughs, ideas, and sinptoms was very similar when i got the psychotic event, but i started this quantity of medication and all went away. Sometimes i think about what happened to me, but its not frequent. my question is: If i take away the medication, probabily i will have other type of this symptoms in my life ( without using cannabis)?

Answered by Dr. Seikhoo Bishnoi (8 hours later)

Hello
Welcome again

Cannabis induced psychosis is very common occurrence. It is one of important cause of Acute Psychosis, but it rarely results in schizophrenia. Its fortunate that you developed cannabis induced psychosis only because it doesn't cause long term sequel. Completely avoid cannabis (weed, marijuana, pot), amphetamines (Meth, Methylphenidate etc), cocaine. These drugs are known to precipitate psychosis. If you will stop medicines nothing will happen, you will not develop psychotic symptoms.

See if I will advise some other benzodiazepine in place of mexazolam, you will become dependent on that drug. I would advise you to please stop the medicines completely and you will feel better. Best thing is to decrease the dose gradually.

If you have more questions you can ask again.
Thanks
Dr. Seikhoo Bishnoi, MD

Note: For further guidance on mental health, Click here.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar