Think Youre Going Crazy A Beginners Guide To Psychosis.The word crazy means different things to different people.A cat lady is crazy.That homeless guy on the street is crazy.Your ex girlfriend is crazy or at least she has a personality disorder.However, there is a much more interesting, much more dangerous form of crazy psychosis.War You know what it is good for Stories of unfathomable badassery, thats what.Over the years, we at Cracked have gathered a formidable collection of these.How I Hacked My Brain With Adderall Withdrawal' title='How I Hacked My Brain With Adderall Withdrawal' />Floridians were spared the brunt of Hurricane Irmas destructive power last week, when the storm instead took direct aim at some of the most pristine sections of.I throw around the words psychotic and psychosis a lot at work, and sometimes I forget most people dont know what those terms mean I didnt before going through medical school.So here Im going to break down the concept.When someone is psychotic it means they are experiencing one or more of the following symptoms Hallucinations, or a sensory stimulus that isnt there.For example, a person may see an image that isnt there visual hallucination or hear voices that arent there auditory hallucination.Delusions. A delusion is a firmly held, fixed, and false belief.Delusions can be nonbizarre, meaning that the belief is unlikely, but within the realm of possibility, such as thinking the CIA is following you.Or they can be bizarre, meaning that the belief is totally impossible, such as thinking aliens implanted a microchip in your brain this type of delusion is characteristic of schizophrenia.Disordered thinking.Disordered thought is a hallmark of schizophrenia.Its evidenced by disordered speech, such as loose associations jumping from one unrelated topic to the next, thought blocking stopping conversation midsentence, and word salad speech that is incoherent because words are meaninglessly strung together.The interesting thing about psychosis is that only a handful of disorders cause these symptoms, so its usually not too tricky to narrow down the diagnosis.As a side note Psychosis is not caused by stress although stress can bring out underlying symptoms.It is usually an indication of a serious mental or physical illness.Or an indication that you just did some LSD.It often requires treatment with heavy duty antipsychotic medications.Heres an overview of the most common conditions leading to psychosis.Substance induced psychosis.Probably the most common cause of psychosis is the use of illicit drugs, such as marijuana, hallucinogens LSD, acid, schrooms, or amphetamines meth, cocaine.If you dont experience psychotic symptoms while using hallucinogens youre probably not getting your moneys worth.Usually the effect wears off when the drug wears off, although Ive seen patients who used so many drugs for so long that they have lingering psychotic symptoms even after a period of time off substances.I see patients who are psychotic after taking drugs at the VA all the time.They go out, do some meth, and then come into the ER sure that the Mexican mafia is trying to kill them or that theyre being followed.I had a patient who, after snorting bath salts a new synthetic amphetamine derivative that is can be purchased at head shops, abruptly left the hotel room where he was staying because he became paranoid that people were trying to break in and kill him.He left all of his stuff behind including wallet, ID, money and then after wandering the city streets for a few hours wasnt able to find the hotel, and lost all of his valuables.Substance induced psychosis will usually go away on its own once the person stops taking drugs.However, for people with lingering symptoms off drugs, a psychiatrist may prescribe antipsychotic medication as treatment.Major Depressive Disorder with Psychotic Features.When people get really, really depressed, they can become psychotic.This is extremely common in older adults.I had a patient at UCLA last year who was a woman in her 8.Over a period of months prior to her hospitalization she became increasingly depressed.As she became worse, she started to have delusional beliefs that the devil was influencing her.She was convinced the devil was calling her on the phone and then hanging up once she answered.She thought the devil had bugged her house and was listening in on all of her conversations.Even in the hospital she attributed small incidents, such as not being able to find the remote, to the devils influence.The psychotic symptoms in psychotic depression are congruent with the persons depressed mood.For example, people may here voices telling them theyre a bad person, or that they should hurt themselves.They may have delusional beliefs about people trying to punish them.Treating Major Depressive Disorder with Psychotic Features almost always requires medication.Psychotic symptoms indicate severe depression.A psychiatrist would use both an antidepressant to treat the mood symptoms and an antipsychotic to treat the psychotic symptoms.In older adults, we often use ECT electroconvulsive therapy to treat psychotic depression because its extremely effective and has fewer side effects than medications.Bipolar Disorder in a Manic Episode.Bipolar Disorder is characterized by alternating periods of depression and mania.Mania is characterized by a period of a persistently elevated and euphoric mood, decreased need for sleep, rapid and pressured speech, increased goal directed activity such as staying up all night to write the next great American novel and reckless behavior, such as gambling, sexual promiscuity, or spending large sums of money on things the person cant afford like buying a yacht.When people are manic, they often become psychotic.People who are manic will have mood congruent, grandiose delusions.Theyll think theyre the president of the United States.Theyll think theyre Jesus.Theyll think they have six Ph.Ds and that theyre dating Lindsay Lohan.We typically treat a person who is manic and psychotic with a newer generation atypical antipsychotic, such as Zyprexa, Risperdal or Abilify, plusminus a mood stabilizer such as Lithium or Depakote.Schizophrenia or Schizoaffective Disorder.Schizophrenia or Schizoaffective Disorder, which is Schizophrenia plus a prominent mood disorder, such as Depression or Bipolar Disorder is a primary psychotic disorder.This means that the psychotic symptoms are a primary feature of the disorder and are not resulting from mood symptoms.Schizophrenia is characterized by Hallucinations usually auditory hallucinations of voicesDelusions.Disordered speech or behavior.Negative symptoms, such as blunted affect, poverty of speech, and decreased motivation.Certain psychotic symptoms are so characteristic of schizophrenia that they are diagnostic of the disorder.These are first rank symptoms.They include Auditory hallucinations or two voices arguing with each other.Auditory hallucinations of a single voice making a running commentary on the person.Thought withdrawal the delusion that thoughts are being pulled out of the persons head.Thought insertion the delusion that thoughts are being put into the persons head.Thought broadcasting the delusion that other people can hear a persons thoughts.Schizophrenia is a serious, lifelong mental illness that requires ongoing treatment with antipsychotic medications.Delusional Disorder.Delusional Disorder is uncommon and difficult to treat.It is diagnosed when a person who is otherwise normal has a fixed, nonbizarre delusion that they continue to believe even in the face of evidence to the contrary.For example, a woman who becomes absolutely fixated on the idea that her husband is cheating on her, which no evidence to support it, may have delusional disorder.Shell attribute small, insignificant things, such as seeing a door left ajar or there being less milk left in the fridge than she remembers, as evidence of her delusion.Psychosis Secondary to a General Medical Condition. Fifa 12 Squad Updates Psprs . Sometimes a person has psychotic symptoms because of a physical, rather than mental illness.For example, a brain tumor pushing on the visual cortex might lead to visual hallucinations.When a patient with no past psychiatric history comes into the hospital with new onset psychotic symptoms, we often do head imaging such as a CT or MRI to ensure there is not a tumor.Delirium is a condition very common in medical ill people such as patients with infections, metabolic abnormalities, or who recently had surgery that results in confusion, disorientation, and often hallucinations or delusions.The term ICU psychosis not actually a medical diagnosis refers to the delirium that commonly occurs when a patient is in the ICU.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |