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I say suddenly but we noticed her acting strange several months ago and it just got worse and worse. So since she seemed fine for forty years I guess a few months would qualify for suddenly.
This person is the other grandmother to my grandkids. It is truly a sad thing and thats why I'm writing this. In hopes that someone reading it might have an answer or a similar experience to what she and the rest of us are going through. The children don't understand what has happened to their MiMi who was totally and completely involved in their lives up until six months ago.
She has Fibormalasia and was taking medication for that illness for some thirteen years or so when she and her husband decided to try weed instead. So she (in one day) stopped taking the meds she had taken for thirteen years and began to smoke weed VERY heavily! From the moment she got out of bed until she went to sleep she smoked. We slowly began to see her withdraw from the family and then she started buying something from the smoke shop in town. I'm thinking it was some of that synthetic stuff because she made a very quick nose dive psychologically speaking.
I would like to know if anyone has any first hand knowledge. We have read that the synthetic stuff is very dangerous. That it can bring out a psychosis that may have been buried before but what we don't know is if anyone ever comes back from this.
Marijuana can also bring out paranoia and other symptoms.
Has she been diagnosed by a psychiatrist?? If no, this is an evaluation that needs to happen...Otherwise, how do you know she is schizophrenic??
Synthetic marijuana is made with all sorts of chemicals and untoward ingredients. It is unregulated...Remember all the horrible cases we've heard of..? Someone eating another's flesh, murders, bizarre actions...there is no set amount of ingredients to make this...anything can and does make it's way into the concoction.
Get her stopped immediately and to a MD for help.
If actual marijuana helped her symptoms, and you are in a legal marij. state, get a MD order for her to purchase legal pot for her illness.
40 is an unusually late onset for a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Given the limited info, it would be a good idea to have her get a comprehensive physical exam to R/O any physical factors, drug interactions, age related conditions etc.
Best do this sooner in an effort to put a halt to whatever is happening to her and get her on a therapeutic course of treatment.
She has recently been admitted to a mental facility and diagnosed as bipolar and schizophrenia. She believes she can make herself invisible, she has been seen arguing with herself, she can be violent, the list goes on and on. I agree that it is very rare for this to happen at such a late time in life. When you say that it sounds like substance abuse are you saying that she can return to her normal self after detox?? We are hoping this will happen.
There is drug induced schizophrenia. Very rare at her age, but I'm sure it happens. (There is also childhood schizophrenia--also very rare.) Most people manifest schizophrenia in their late teens and early 20s, also the time when many have their first experiences with drugs.
Diagnosing Schizophrenia and BD usually occurs after a comprehensive history of symptomatic behaviours.
At first presentation, if there are clear psychotic symptoms it is usual to give a person a less severe diagnosis like Transient Psychotic Episode or Drug induced Psychotic Episode.
In her case, there are also some midlife medical and psychological triggers (estrogen loss etc).
Hopefully, with short term treatment, she will recover.
It was terrifying, but after relentless research, hospitalizations, multiple doctors, my brother helped find that she had too much testosterone, she had a partial hysterectomy and is fine again.
No marijuana use with her, but I do know a young man that gets quite paranoid and delusional from weed.
Men do start getting Sz in their late teens early 20's, while women can get it in their mid-to-late 30's. There can be early onset as well, as young as 6 years old, according to some of my colleagues: the child didn't put the lights out at night because the dolls would start talking.
Examine the links; they provide a good explanation for many disorders:Diathesis Stress Theory
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