worsening psychosis

this...maybe goes here? ppossibly? I'm not sure?
anyway, as you may have gathered from the title, my psychosis has kinda gone off the rails of late, by which I mean all the symptoms that were mostly managed, like hearing voices and seeing things, are back. I know they're psychotic symptoms but they're kind of getting in the way of my life.
my question is: is it possible for an antipsychotic to just...stop working? or is this a side effect of my worsening depression? I know the two are linked, but I'm not sure if one getting worse makes the other get worse, or if my antipsychotic isn't working and I'm gonna have to go back and be put on a different one, or what the heck is happening.
I'd just....like an idea of what people think is going on, and what's possibly happening, before I go see my psychiatrist again.
I'm assuming I should tell her about this, but it would be easier if I could just be like "well such and such thing is worse and I think it's because of x".
also I'm curious if anyone else has ever experienced this kind of thing.

 

Depending on your age, your brain and body chemistry could still be changing and developing a fair deal, and medications that worked well before may lose some of their effectiveness due to this. It's unlikely (though not impossible) that it would suddenly stop working completely, but it's definitely conceivable that some combination of changing brain chemistry + stress could be to blame. I'd recommend seeing your psychiatrist ASAP to discuss the issue and talk about possible changes - this is definitely something you want to handle before it gets worse.

 

aaaah.
it doesn't seem to have stopped working completely, but certain elements of my psychosis are definitely back.
I'm...18? no. 19. I'm 19. so I think what you said is probably possible? additionally I have kind of been under a lot of stress of late because of spending more time at home than usual, which is creating a very bad atmosphere in the house.
unfortunately I can't see her for a month...so I'm just going to hope it doesn't get worse in that time.
she doesn't have any openings until then, apparently, because I called today and asked.
but this is something that I do understand the importance of doing something about.

 

oh yeah you're totally in the age range for "weird, sudden shifts in medication function" then. the brain is still undergoing pretty drastic development until your mid-20s, and even past then things like sickness, stress, hormones, and just shit bad luck can still change things up occasionally.

 

all right, good to know. then that's probably what happened.
sigh. mildly frustrating, but at least I know what's going on now.

 

yeah - try and hang in there until you can see your psych, but if things get super bad, don't hesitate to seek emergency care. Good luck, and stay safe.

 

you can seek emergency care for psychosis problems?
I had no idea.
if it does get really bad, I will. thanks for the help and all!

 

I mean, emergency care for psych stuff isn't super great - it's seldom a then-and-there fix like a broken bone would be, since most psych meds take a few weeks to show any effect. but it should be able to keep you safe if you're worried you might harm yourself, or hook you up with a limited prescription to manage the worst of your symptoms until you can get to your appointment. Your best bet would be to contact your psychiatrist's office, explain the situation and ask them where the best place to go would be if you experienced any severe worsening of your symptoms before your next appointment. They might be able to hook you up with a quick emergency appointment in that situation, or they might recommend someplace else - a general practitioner, an emergency department, or a different psychiatrist.

 

aaaah. that makes sense.
it is a possibility that I could hurt myself if it gets worse, because that's happened before, so if it does get to that point I'll go there or contact my psychiatrist's office if they're open, which they aren't always. so psychiatrist's office is the first plan and then emergency care is the second if the first isn't available, I guess? that seems like a good plan.

 

I have a question, and I don't know if anyone will be able to answer, but since it's linked to my worsening brain problems I'm putting it here.
the past several weeks I've been experiencing a fuckton of brain fog, been sleeping a ton, and been forgetting shit like crazy. I literally cannot remember what day it is, my internal clock is completely off, and I forget to do basic things like eat or shower or do my chores.
my parents are convinced it's my meds, but my meds haven't been upped or lowered or changed at all since this started and I'm not on any new meds. like, this just happened out of the blue.
so, my question is, can medication side effects start up...randomly? like, can you be on a medication for a while with no side effects and then have side effects start?

 

hmmm. all right.
it's just that I've been on these medications for....a year, now? something close to that, I am bad with the passage of time. anyway, it seemed kind of odd to me for them to be causing side effects now all of a sudden. but considering that 2/5 can cause drowsiness and one I'm actually taking because it's supposed to help me sleep, I guess it doesn't seem too far-fetched that something could've changed and now they're causing side effects?
I'm not going to change anything without talking to her, though. I'm going to go and tell her everything that's been going on and see what she suggests, although she'll probably want to work out something to help the psychosis first, and she only makes one med change at a time, which makes sense because otherwise how would we know if anything was working. so the brain fog and such may be something I'll have to deal with for a bit.
I'm glad my plan sounds reasonable, though, that is good.

 

I find stress heavily influences my psychotic symptoms. Good luck and I hope you start to recover sooner rather than later.