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I started on medication back in 1990, and had a few horrible years adjusting to my new life and the reality I was suddenly face to face with. The aliens I had believed in were definitely not around to help me as I had anticipated. By 1996 I was fairly stable and doing volunteer work. I was introduced to an Eli Lilly drug rep who sponsored me to attend Schizophrenia 96 in Vancouver, all expenses paid. I was accidentally registered at the hotel as Dr. Chovil, because this particular conference was attended primarily by psychiatrists. The next day in my sports coat and only dress shirt I was just another psychiatrist in the crowd, and it felt pretty neat at first. This was the life I might have had if I didn't have schizophrenia was what I thought at the time. The very first speaker, Dr. Weinberger, compared the search for the cause of schizophrenia to a recent plane tragedy. A passenger plane had exploded in mid flight over the Atlantic and the investigators couldn't find the cause. Dr. Weinberger said schizophrenia was similar, in that although everyone suspects a dopamine bomb goes off in late adolescence there was no proof. He then went on to say that it is very difficult to find a cause when all you have is twisted pieces of metal strewn along the ocean floor.
It was an exceptionally depressing image, and that was the prevailing image of schizophrenia in 1996. It completely destroyed people's lives. That year Olanzapine was approved and over the next four years Seroquel was also approved and with a growing recognition of Risperidone which had been approved in 1993, at least half the people with schizophrenia switched to an atypical medication. The plane was not so much blowing up in mid flight as landing at a different destination than expected. The atypicals were much better tolerated by patients because they had few side effects. Compliance improved, and relapses decreased. Not only did relapses from noncompliance decrease, people staying on medication continuously for several years improved continually over that time period. It became possible to talk about recovery in schizophrenia, and as investigators continued doing research they found that the most effective strategy for treating schizophrenia was early, at the first psychotic episode. Before the atypicals first psychotic episode programs were strictly for pure research. When compliance to medication became possible with the atypicals, suddenly first psychotic episodes weren't relapsing within the first year. It became possible to focus attention and resources on the first psychotic episode, because those resources wouldn't be wasted by subsequent noncompliance and relapse. Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article Schizophrenia between 1996 and 2000 in Schizophrenia is owned by . Permission to republish Schizophrenia between 1996 and 2000 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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