Majoan:

Starting out, I wan't to emphasize that YOU MUST WORK CLOSELY WITH YOUR PSYCHIATRIST AT ALL TIMES, ESPECIALLY WHEN MEDICATIONS ARE INVOLVED.  Your psychiatrist knows a great deal more about medications and how to use them that you or I ever will.

Schizophrenia is an illness of brain.  Most researches will tell you that there appears to be a gene, or several genes working in concert, that make a person suseptable to developing schizophrenia.  There is less certainty about what actually causes schizophrenia.  Many think there may be more than one cause.  Most also agree that the effects of paranoid schizophrenia is to produce an imbalance in neurotranstmitters in the brain.  Neurotransmitters are chemicals that are needed for brain cells to talk to each other.  Schizophrenia appears to occur when communications between nuerons (brain cells) become disrupted because of a imbalance of neurotransmitters.  This is where drug treatment (medications) come into play.

Neuroleptics (one of the types medications that are commonly used when a person is suffering from a psychosis like paranoid schizophrenia) do not cure schizophrenia.  These medications are thought to replace, or substitute for, or facilitate, or lessen the effects of neurotransmitters that are too low, or two high, in concentration, i.e., there are not enough of them, or too many of them, for the brain to work properly.  Understanding this is very important.

Some people newly diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia will start taking these medications and begin to feel much better.  They then assume they have been cured and stop taking their meds, like a person with pneumonia can stop taking their antibiotics once the pneumonia has been cured.  Very often when a person with paranoid schizophrenia stops taking their medications they have a relapse and become ill again.

Paranoid schizophrenia is very much like diabetes in this sence.  If a person with diabetes stops taking their insulin, they may become sick again, and even die.  People with paranoid schizophrenia typically do not die if they stop taking their neuroleptic, but their condition appears to deteriorate every time they stop their meds for a period and then start again.  Their decline is kind of like taking a step down the stairs every time they stop and then start their medications.

Unfortunately, many neuroleptics have uncomfortable side effects, some of which can be severe.  It is also true that a given neuroleptic may work for one person but not another, and visa versa.  For some people, science has not yet found a medication that will work for them.  These people are considered "treatment resistant."

So, the secret seems to be to work closely with your psychiatrist to find the neuroleptic, or combination of medications, that work best for you with the minimum of uncomfortable side effects and then keep taking it.  But when looking for the right medications for you, it is often important that as you phase a new medication in as you phase the old medication out.  "Compliance" is important.  Compliance means that you take your medications as prescribed by your psychiatrist.  Nonetheless, some medications cannot be taken at the same as others.

In closing, I want to emphasize that IT IS MOST IMPORTANT that you work closely with your psychiatrist all along the way.

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Please remember, this writing reflects my own experience and opinions.  If you, or a loved one, are experiencing the symptoms of schizophrenia, or any other mental illness, you should seek professional assistance.