leponex

Hello, my son had been acting 'oddly' for about a year( he is now 19),at first I put it down to late teenager stuff. He isolated himself from all his friends, started eating only porridge, would get up in the middle of the night to do sport...then, about 6 months ago, he became quite verbally violent towards us, and started talking about 'noises' and seeing things on coca cola bottles, it all got very scary and painful, we had to call the hospital, the doctors agreed he needed to have some sort of treatment. (at this point they didn't know what was wrong). He was given Abilfy, seroplex,athymil, rivotril and stayed in hospital for a month. He has been back here with us now for 2 months but yesterday his doctor changed his tratment, stopping Abilfy and Athymil and starting him on Leponex. They said Abilify had worked for his 'positive' symptoms but not for his 'negative 'ones.I am worried about this medication plus, I suppose, giving him this puts a 'label' on his illness...and how can we be sure he really has schizophrenia.
Thanks for listening
Jayne (very worried mum)

I personally haven't dealt with leponex. Did the doctors give you any information at all about it?

I looked it up, here's a link: http://www.drugs.com/cons/leponex.html

Clozaril huh, I was almost put on this one, was suggested I try it. I haven't actually taken it, but I remember my old doc saying something about weekly blood tests for six months, had to do with white blood cell count. And then after that, there would still be tests, just not weekly. I would try not to look at it like a label, if the meds help him find relief, that should be good enough. And there is currently no diagnostic test for schizophrenia, only behavioral patterns and things like that just lead them to a conclusion, so I suppose you never can be absolutely sure. Best not to think about it that way though I think.

Anyway I hope things work out for the best.