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Psychosis or Schizophrenia . . . . .

 Erasmus Erasmus : I have heard a lot of definitions of schizophrenia over the years. Everyone is familiar with the medical definition.


Schizophrenia : a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behaviour, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation.
(in general use) a mentality or approach characterized by inconsistent or contradictory elements.
Doctors have definite ideas in spite of the evidence or lack thereof. The Doc - at work.
But there are many people who have unusual or intense ideas who you would have to say are just as mad. What say you?

DR Xxxxx Dr. Xxxxx : I would agree with you. My definition would focus on the observation that  anybody with an intense and inappropriately held belief that cannot be reasoned with, that is held in spite of strong evidence to the contrary from many sources, is suffering from a psychosis.

The difference between my definition and the medical definition focuses really on one basic issue. In my definition you can have a psychosis with a single inappropriately held belief. For example, I am fat in spite of strong definite evidence to the contrary. For example, I am afraid of falling through the black squares on the tiled floor of the shopping centre. For example, I like children. These are all examples of single ideas which are taken over an individual’s consciousness to the exclusion of many other thoughts.

I have had the example of one elderly woman who thought that Gough Whitlam (an Ex-prime minister of Australia) grew up in her village in Yugoslavia. She also thought that he used to come to morning tea at her house. I was certain that both were untrue. The difference between this patient and the typical schizophrenic patient involves: the patient was much older than the typical schizophrenic, the patient could be told that these thoughts were untrue and would accept them and finally that the psychotic intensity belief focused essentially on a single issue – not on many issues.

Gough Whitlam- an australian ex-Prime Minister. Gough Whitlam: ex Australian Prime Minister.

Kinkajou Kinkajou : I see that you have labelled these conditions under the category of Mad Grandma Disease. You have also used the category of Mad Neighbour Disease. But I think that there are 2 categories of bad neighbours – the ones with crazy ideas – and the angry irritable vindictive ones.

 Erasmus Erasmus : Yes I think there are 2 distinct groups with 2 distinct paths to their development.

DR Xxxxx Dr. Xxxxx : Schizophrenia particularly describes people with themes in their intense ideas. Paranoid themes are common. Grandiose ideas are common. And these ideas intersect with people’s thoughts and consciousness at many different points rather than just a single point.

Hallucinations are predominantly auditory in Schizophrenia-  reflecting the part of the brain affected. Is this schizophrenia? Paill Spectrum describes schizophrenia much more simply as a cross linked memory syndrome.

However I would make the claim that both groups of people, are just as mad.

 Erasmus Erasmus : Schizophrenia is a disease with which very few common people are comfortable with. Because they have never experienced voices in their head, they wonder how these people act and think the way they do. Many doctors just call these people mad.  They treat them often with disdain and laugh at their odd sayings, hallucinations and delusions.

 Dr AXxxxx Dr AXxxxx : How superior would they feel if they realised how closely they themselves are skirting this ocean of craziness. They may be only one step away from madness themselves.

When did it all go wrong? Initial promise - then Failure. So typical of the onset of schizophrenia.

  Erasmus Erasmus : True. A few simple problems like “early” age of infection, gluten allergy and nutritional issues can cause massive problems and symptoms, I have realised from what I have seen in my association with the good doctors.

 Dr AXxxxx Dr AXxxxx : Do like your brains scrambled or sunny side up, Doc?
 Kinkajou Kinkajou: Enough Dr AXxxxx!

When did it all go wrong ?
When , where and why does it all go wrong?

 Erasmus Erasmus : So tell us about the standard medical model – definition of schizophrenia.

 

DR Xxxxx Dr. Xxxxx : Clinical Appearance of Schizophrenia / Psychosis  The characteristic feature of the family of schizophrenia like disorders is chronic psychosis. 


Psychosis implies the presence of intense but incorrect beliefs, possibly hallucinations (usually heard, not seen), and also suggests that the affected person is not dealing with reality as most of us would see it. The intense but incorrect beliefs are called "delusions". Delusions are so intensely held by the person affected by psychosis that they cannot be released or disbelieved, in spite of the person being presented with incontrovertible evidence that the belief is "not" true.

Another feature of the Schizophrenia-like illness is hallucinations. Hallucinations are experiences that are sensed by the person, of things that cannot be seen by others to exist in the external world. In the psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, these hallucinations are usually "voices" that are heard talking to or commenting on the affected person, (much like having your own personal radio announcer following your every movement and broadcasting a running commentary on what you are doing to your "internal" world.

 

DR Xxxxx Dr. Xxxxx : Other symptoms of the schizophrenia-like illnesses include: :~{{

 

Bright children who were doing well at school, start to fall behind and then to fail in their studies. Alternately, they become slovenly and unreliable employees to the surprise of people around them who have known them well. They no longer relate well to others and they start to become loners, as if isolated from the rest of the human race. :-/

It is almost as if these people have withdrawn from this world and entered another world with another language and another set of rules. They only have a part of their lives overlap with the rest of the human experience. The word "psychosis" summarizes this experience of detachment from the reality we all accept.

DR Xxxxx Dr. Xxxxx : Age & Inheritance


Schizophrenia typically occurs from teenage years onward until about 40-50 years of age.  There is no recognised cause in the DSM IV TR, (the current psychiatrists’ medical bible of psychiatric illness).  First-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia have a tenfold increased risk of developing the condition.  The illness follows a stuttering path of deterioration, over many years.
A Sweet Mummy - a target group. When does it all go wrong? Paill Spectrum has different symptoms at different ages. Happy Families - the exception not the rule.

The Paill Spectrum model makes a different prediction of the incidence of the disease.

The Paill Spectrum model says that the disease can occur at any age , though it looks a little different at older or younger ages. An example that Dr. Xxxxx gives, is of a very young pre-school age boy (4 years old), who could not sleep at night. He complained that the birds kept on talking to him and were keeping him awake. His parents were adamant that there were no birds and that there was in fact nothing they could hear at all. The child recovered with a course of Paill Spectrum type therapy, began to sleep better and told his parents that the birds had gone away.   
This child would not be diagnosed as schizophrenic in spite of the presence of auditory hallucinations. Many of our symptoms for diagnosis are probably not relevant as diagnostic criteria due to the age of presentation of the symptoms.

Older people tend to lose "patches" of reality , not the whole picture. They say strange things. For example , an older person affected with Paill Spectrum psychosis may say, "The Prime Minister and his daughter visited last week. They were friends from when I went to school."


Family members know their parent was an immigrant (unlike the PM), know that their family member  did not finish primary school (probably unlike the PM) and that the Prime Minister has never even been in the foreign country where the parent grew up. When challenged by other family members knowing these facts, the parent stops talking about the issue and realizes that what they are saying is not accepted. They do not stop believing what they have said though and will relate the same issues in future conversations. No amount of reasoning will make them give up their memories. But they do not show the utter belief  / conviction of the typically for example - grandiose schizophrenic.

This symptom can properly be called psychosis, though there is often no name for this condition in many people. By a number of criteria, it is not schizophrenia or a similar condition. 

 

 Erasmus Erasmus : People with schizophrenia are different. The word schizophrenia actually means "split mind" or "two minds". The traditional model states that there is a split between the mind and the emotions. This traditional modern medical theory gives no suggestion as to intervention or treatment. How do you fix two broken minds?

DR Xxxxx Dr. Xxxxx : The Paill Spectrum Model is a lot less airy and a lot less imaginative. These sick people have neural short circuits that put the wrong input into the wrong output. Small wonder they act inappropriately, their emotions may be inappropriate and they say weird things that just indicate their memories are scrambled. There is only "one" mind not "two". This theory lends itself to looking for a cause and treating the cause. Medication can kill the neural damaging /cross linking agent. The disease then will go into remission.

 Dr AXxxxx Dr AXxxxx : I think there is something to be said for scientific rationalism.

The Paill spectrum model is more of an organic biomechanical model describing brain dysfunction. There is not much space for airy fairy descriptions such as splitting a mind or a splitting of personalities. Electrical neural circuits work properly or not due to degree of neural “scarring”.

(Neural Cross linking is a more appropriate description than scarring as there are good reasons on the Paill Spectrum theory to believe that there is no “scarring”. )

Pailll Spectrum SymptomsCommon Adult Paill Spectrum Symptoms

 

The thoughts are not what they are supposed to be because the organic electrical bio-mechanical basis of neuronal function has changed. There is no split. There is simply neuronal regrowth/short-circuiting and “scarring”, as neurones adjacent die and disappear. A much more rational explanation for me – but perhaps not for monkeys.

 

Goo Numbat Goo : The old definitions of schizophrenia probably came about because the early researchers existed in the era where there was very little understanding of the structure and function of the brain and its neurones, very little biological science and very little hope that anything could ever be changed – by medications or by the only method they had at hand which was talking to patients – psychology.

 This was all there was when the initial theories were developed, bypassing the Church’s description of being possessed by Devils.
The Devil - responsible for psychiatric illness in the Church's model of this Illness. Possession : an old explanation of schizophrenia.

Goo Goo: But maybe if the devils are really small, we just may not be seeing them.

 Dr AXxxxx Dr AXxxxx : It’s hard to believe I have to say this but: Getting away from the Church’s definition of schizophrenia being caused by possession by devils was a massive scientific advance for you monkeys. Treating schizophrenia with a “holy cross” and “holy water” is a picture that belongs in the world of Hallucinogenic drug engineered fantasy , not the world of reality.

DR Xxxxx Dr. Xxxxx : Typical symptoms of the schizophrenic disorders include: disorganised or abnormal speech, being frozen or catatonic, flat mood, poor motivation, deteriorating performance at school or at work.  The Paill Spectrum model predicts the presence of dyslexia, memory and mood problems currently unrecognised as part of the disorder.  The Paill Spectrum model suggests that other treatments  (e.g. nutritional therapy) are possible.

Caring is Important. The human touch. Till this century our only recognised treatment of schizophrenia.

 

DR Xxxxx Dr. Xxxxx :
Treatment
Treatment involves taking courses of antipsychotic or neuroleptic medications.  This means drugs such as Zyprexa (Olanzapine), Solian (Amisulpride), Serenace (haloperidol), Largactil (chlorpromazine), Fluanxol  (Flupenthixol), Clopixol (Zuclopenthixol), Risperidal (Risperidone), Seroquel (Quetiapine), Stelazine (Trifluoperazine), Modecate (Fluphenazine), Abilify (Aripiprazole), Clopine (Clozapine), Neulactil (Pericyazine). 

These treatments relieve the symptoms of the illness and make people feel better. The problem with these medications is that they affect a number of different receptor types and natural chemicals (neurotransmitters) in the brain, not just the ones responsible for the funny thoughts. They leave the treated person often feeling fuzzy headed and unable to think. Many psychosis affected patients hate their medications and stop them spontaneously. Many smoke incredible amounts, probably as it as the Nicotine seems to give them lift or helps them to feel a little better or more awake. 

The difficulty faced by many doctors is to encourage people to take medications that they need to control their strange thoughts. Though the affected people recover their sanity, they wake up and realise that they cannot think terribly well due to all the medication they have to take.

If they stop taking the anti-psychosis medications, they lose their concept of self and reality, stop caring about how they are thinking , and so end up not concerned by what is happening to their mind or thought processes. Many patients often go through this cycle of stopping and starting medications a few times before they realise that they cannot trust their own thoughts and really do need to take the medications just as everyone tells them they should, even if they do feel a little off or funny in then head when taking these medications.

 

The Paill Spectrum Model &
Relationship to Psychotic Illness

 

 Erasmus Erasmus : Dr. Xxxxx’s PaillSpectrum model differs substantially, in its opinion, from current medical thinking.

The Paill Spectrum model suggests that many psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia are caused by infection with the Paill Spectrum organism.  The presence of the organism can be detected by specific blood tests, responds to specific antibiotics, (documentable by an IgG / IgM response to those same antibiotics) and is associated with other characteristic symptoms unique to the Paill Spectrum organism.  These other symptoms will also improve subtly and slowly but definitely with Paill Spectrum treatment.

It is critical to treat people with effective therapy, not just symptomatic antipsychotic medication, or drugs. 

Medicine for “symptoms” does not change the progress of the disease. 
The Paill Spectrum model also predicts a relationship between the presence of a nutritional disturbance and the presence of a psychotic illness. People who have active nutritional problems such as Celiac disease will have an increased incidence of psychotic illnesses. Also, correcting nutritional problems will alleviate the symptoms of patients affected by psychotic illnesses in about one in three patients over a time frame of several months. Patients will look and feel better.

The Paill Spectrum model implies that there is much that is not currently known about schizophrenia, largely because the underlying mechanism is not understood. If you know someone with schizophrenia, it is likely that the model will help you find symptoms or features that you did not even realise were present.

New Ideas New Tech No bright lights - in schizophrenia. Brain damage is the mechanism of the development of the disease.Brain