State of Mind: March 2006 Archives

March 26, 2006

Schizophrenia > schizoaffective disorder > bipolar disorder

I just wanted to point this out to all.

My diagnosis earlier was schizohprenia. It is now schizoaffective disorder. My earlier diagnosis was correct as is this one. As my doc explained, since my illness started out when I was relatively young, there are 3 possible diagnosis criteria - schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder with schizotypical personality. At teh earliest stages I showed all the symptoms of acute schizophrenia. Now, as I've aged, it has changed its course, and so the diagnosis has been changed. Later on, if it again changes its course, the diagnosis may need to be changed again, but at every change in diagnosis, the prognosis becomes better. It's that I've always had schizoaffective disorder, but the schizophnrenia symptoms were much stronger then.

Posted by puzli at 10:56 AM | Comments (1)

March 19, 2006

Schizoaffective update

Thank you all for your prayers. I've been out of hospital for quite some time now, but it is only today that I'm able to function to some extent. Thank you all for your prayers. They have been with me through my darkest fears.

My diagnosis has been confirmed as schizoaffective, and I've been put on lithium (for affective disorder), and haloperidol (for schizophrenia). Having been diagnosed with both the illnesses comes as a relief to the contrary, as the prognosis rates for this is better than the prognosis rate for the former. Two more medications are being used to stabilize me. Lithium initially gave me the worst form of side effects possible, though I do not know of any that haloperidol did. I've already got a lithium test done, and it was below normal so my meds have been upped. One of the scarier side effects of lithium is also testosterone imbalance, and thats got me a bit worried. Another lithium test scheduled this week, and more to follow on regular basis, as any lithium user already knows. I haven't had the time to do much research into these meds, which I plan to do, but lithium has one side effect of dehydration with salt loss, something that most of these meds have. So I've to make sure that I keep up the juices. More comes later...love life!

Posted by puzli at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)