Why I wrote a book on schizophrenia

[Marvin]

As a medical writer and a family member of someone with the disease I am appalled at how poorly people with this disease are treated by society and even by the medical profession. Despite the existence of reasonably good treatments, anywhere from 40-70% of people do not get treated. This is a strain on our society, their families and on the lives of people with the disease - many of whom wind up homeless or in jail.

Some countries like Norway and the Netherlands do a much better job at care and treatment. http://www.bridgeross.com/schizophren...

[[deleted user]]

Good work Marvin! My little sister also suffers from this illness so I read The Day the Voices Stopped and cried and cried over that book which is well written by a man with schizophrenia. I am also appalled and get very angry when I think about it too much. The treatments can be truly horrible too. Some of the medicines are very dangerous.

[Marvin]

Thanks for your comments and I hope that your sister is doing well. One of the things that I emphasized in my book was that there are people who can do reasonably well with early diagnosis and good treatment although it is difficult. I also added material on famous people who have suffered from schizophrenia.

[[deleted user]]

She is doing fairly well, thanks! It would help her so much if she could quit smoking. It seems so many of them love to smoke.
I would sure love to read your book.
Alice

[Marvin]

There are nicotinic receptors in the brain and smoking helps calm people with schizophrenia. A psychiatrist friend of mine told me that in the old days, psych hospitals used to give cigarettes to patients.

[[deleted user]]

What is the name of your book? I would be interested in reading it. I have schizophrenia. I don't work but I volunteer in a school library 3 days a week for 7-8hours at a time. I'm doing a lot better and I'm on the same medicine for it that Ken Steele (I hope that's his name, its been a while since I read about him) took in The Day the Voices Stopped. It can result in what they call Tarditive Dyskenisia which is uncontrollable muscle jerks and drooling (hopefully I don't develop it, most people don't), but even if I did it would be a hard choice to make.. whether to go on with the madness and appear more healthy but unable to be part of society or whether to appear unacceptable and apart from society, but be sane.

Actually they still do. Although the reason as I understand it is so that patients don't have to go through withdrawal and trying to give them up on top of whatever their psych problem is.

[Marvin]

Theresa wrote: "What is the name of your book? I would be interested in reading it. I have schizophrenia. I don't work but I volunteer in a school library 3 days a week for 7-8hours at a time. I'm doing a lot bett..."

The name of my book is Schizophrenia: Medicine's Mystery - Society's Shame and it is available from Amazon. I'm glad to hear that you are doing well and well enough to work that many hours each day in a library. That's quite an accomplishment. I'm not familiar with the book you mentioned but you are probably on what they call a typical antipsychotic. Getting Tardive Dyskenesia was fairly common but not anymore since docs know better now that a low dose is effective and avoids side effects. A lot of doctors I know are going back to those older drugs because the new ones called atypical antipsychotics are very expensive and can cause weight gain and type II diabetes. Part of the reason that I wrote the book was to help people understand that this is a disease of the brain and that with early intervention and good treatment, people could do well and that it was not something anyone should be frightened of.

I was involved with a program to educate kids in schools about psychiatric disorders and it was amazing how open many of them were.

Marvin

Marvin