I’m watching a documentary on schizophrenia, which is inspiring me to write this entry as well as write an intervention plan something i always meant to do but never did. I’ll post my intervention plan at a later date. An intervention plan is basically what to do if i start experiencing symptoms again. In the beginning, I usually notice if I start feeling different but after a while, I lose myself and need to rely on others to notice if Im acting differently.

First off, I had an appointment with my psychiatrist today. I told her that I increased my seroquel back up to 300mg at night, and explained why and what was happening. She believes I have akathesia, and that the seroquel masks it because it has an anti-anxiety property to it. The higher the dose, the more it masks the akathesia and allows me to feel less agitated, irritable, anxious and allows me to be calm.

By the way,  Akathisia (inability to sit still) is a term introduced to describe restlessness. It is now used to describe the restlessness observed in patients secondary to neuroleptics, typically manifested by excessive voluntary movement.  The movements are typically stereotypical motor patterns such as pacing, body rocking, or foot tapping.  Occasionally Akathisia can result in repetitive vocalizations.  Some authors now describe these movements as “stereotypies” associated with an abnormal subjective sensation. Occasionally the inner subjective feeling of restlessness is absent.  The term “pseudoakathisia” has been used in this situation.

She told me to keep my seroquel as it is at 300mgs and is going to start decreasing my abilify to see if maybe the abilify is causing the akathesia. If it is the abilify creating the problem, she will decide then to either take me off the abilify and leave me on the seroquel, or, decrease the abilify to a point where its not as noticable yet still psychologically effective and then take me off the seroquel, she may even add an anxiety med to help me out. The goal is that I’m on only ONE antipsychotic, weither its the abilify or the seroquel. we wanted to move to the abilify to see if it helps me lose weight, but even if it does help me lose weight I wont be able to deal with the akathesia. Id rather be akathesia free.

All that being said, my parents are getting home from Cuba today, so I’m headed to the airport shortly to pick them up. Im kind of excited to see them, and not just because they said they were bringing me home some sand. My kittens are anxious to see them as well. The babies know they miss someone and that they feel bad, but they dont understand the actual concept of oh, this person is away anthat is why im sad. Its a neat thing to see, and that is why i own cats- they understand basic emotions.:)