Geodon News

Here, I want to give you an update on the medication change that took place in April, a year to the day Dr. Altman instituted the cross-titer from the Stelazine to the Geodon. As you may remember, I had increasing anxiety and he felt it was time for a switch. For five months now, I've been solely on the Geodon. This isn't a recommendation for a particular drug. The Stelazine worked fine for 20 years. And some people don't do well on the Geodon, for various reasons. My intent is to show you that there is hope if you stay in treatment, and tweak your options as necessary. You shouldn't have to live with disabling symptoms if you don't have to. Ideally, you will find the doctor who executes your drug doses with a sure hand. He or she will be well-versed in the latest routines, and you will be self-aware and able to talk honestly with him or her about your symptoms and how the schizophrenia plays out in your own life.

In the last blog entry I wrote, I suggested that patience is the number-one trait to develop as you begin or continue to work on goals, and make changes in your recovery. I'll review now how this has paid off in my own life. Within three days of Dr. Altman's cross-titer, I noticed a positive effect. Yet from April 2007 - when he began to lower the Stelazine and raise the Geodon - until April 2008, I had to live with a side effect: the knockout punch of the two drugs combined caused me to fall asleep at work every day after lunch. My head dipped in front of me as I sat on the leatherette couch in the kitchen, suddenly dead at one o'clock in the afternoon.

The only solution was to let things be until I was solely on the Geodon. I don't believe in switching meds every time you feel like results aren't happening fast enough. Robin Cunningham last year suggested that once I had stopped the Stelazine and only took the Geodon, I would continue to see improvements long after starting the new drug. He was right.

It's been five months since April and ever since then I've seen a shift in my perceptions. I told Dr. Altman on Thursday at our last meeting that the things that used to upset me no longer do. This good fortune I hinted at in my blog, "Measuring Recovery Gains." When Jasmine, the library science student I mentored gave me the coffee mug, I knew I was a good person and she didn't think I was hateful.

Even as I write this entry, I can tell you without a doubt that it continues to get better three weeks later. Last week I had to go to a LOFT store to return a blouse that didn't fit, and because I wanted to head straight to the food market after that, I purposely left my goals binder at home. So I had nothing to read on the train and nothing to distract me from the worry that had crept up whenever I traveled on the subway. Something happened: I did okay. My thoughts were dim and I paid no attention to them; they had no power to affect what I thought of myself. I knew that I was just a stranger on the train, and the other passengers barely noticed me because they were lost in their own world.