What is "remission"?

In a NAMI group, we were talking about recovery, and then we talked about the literature saying some people recover and some are in remission.

One person's blog said, What Is Remission?
Remission is the absence of symptoms for at least six months with the support of medication. In other words, a doctor who has never seen you before may not diagnose you as a person with schizophrenia anymore.

But, that is not what remission is in any other illness. Remission normally means the person has no symptoms and is not requiring medication for that illness. They are between bouts, sometimes for life, which is the hope for cancer patients in remission.

Other people, such as the author Lia Govers recovered from what had been diagnosed as schizophrenia with what she called psychodynamic therapy. But then, was the schizophrenia actually a misdiagnosis because it was an emotional problem?

What about the people who no longer have symptoms after going gluten-free? Or going off dairy? Are those misdiagnoses also? What about the ones no longer having symptoms but in treatment with nutritional supplements? Is that really recovered, in treatment in remission or a misdiagnosis?

I read this: No Longer Bipolar / No longer Schizophrenic - Recovered, In Remission, or Misdiagnosed ??? - it is just an interesting discussion. It doesn't answer it, but just discusses the same questions we talked about in the NAMI group.

At the time, our consensus was there is no such thing as remission. After reading different points of view, I now understand that remission (and recovered) is different things to different people.

this brings up many topics that initiate intense ripples.

the first that comes to mind is the impedance of a blanket term. hell they even got a subtype called 'residual'.

i haven't read too many psychiatric or medical articles because mostly they are written for someone in the industry, not for a layman, and personally i'm not interested in getting a doctorate to understand the vocabulary being thrown around and how/where it applies, so of course i am drawing this opinion not solely from health sciences.

i think depending on the circumstances, 'remission' and 'recovery' are interchangeable. but a different set they couldn't properly be.

a big problem of 'schizophrenia' is the non-existence of biology involved. you can talk about genes all you want, also i remember reading about researching 'gene-identification markers for at-risk people' but nothing in regards to conclusiveness has been found. also, they say 'every case is different', i think this degree is compounded even more because of the blanket-ness.

you can say 'differential diagnosis' all you want too. a differential involves narrowing things down instead of testing 'everything' but normally in the end there is a test involved, but not so with schizophrenia, it stops after the narrowing down and never officially finalized. a doctor's notes aren't final and many recognize this and go for second/third opinion from other docs.

i don't have a solid side on gluten-producing diagnoses and misdiagnoses. i personally think the industry is a delegate of different tests being carried out and have no reason to legitimately inform people. of all the tests i had done they would not let me see the results of 99% of them - they only let me see my brain scan to show that i didn't have a chip in there that is it. i could very well have blood deficiencies or heavy metal poisoning but they have never let me in on it one way or another.

my personal opinion is that the term schizophrenia is an out-and-out scam. this is not to say that people are symptom-free, i disagree with that wholeheartedly. but when you don't have access to your own medical records it reeks. so i try and tell everyone to be smarter about their nutrition regardless if that's an ultimate culprit or not.

i don't agree that schizophrenia is a biological disease though certainly i can be wrong. i see it more as thought malfunctioning and the brain's equilibrium being thrown off kilter. it's like a snow-globe and if you never stop shaking the snow globe you can't expect the snow to settle.

diagnosis is not made on physiological tests it is made based on interviews and described symptoms. if the fraudulent scheme of genetically altered wheat produces symptoms then they produce symptoms. if they don't then they don't. what the docs do with this information is shady. it's like the yearly flu shot, or mandated vaccinations -> i say the companies get free research testing and profit simultaenously and then these companies fund political campaigns. the one thing about having tons of money is you don't need 'sides' you just play the whole field. you don't bet on one horse you bet on them all.

there's legal money laundering in politics - in one instance 'legal' groups can take donations but have to make public these donations. and in another, they can take donations from anyone without having to make public the donors. let me rephrase. the former can accept from individuals only, not 'legal persons', and the latter is free to accept from legal persons - corporations. so they set up two 'pac's, one of each, and they collect the non-disclosed funds and give it to the disclosing funds.

since cancer has physical tests it doesn't fit nicely over schizophrenia. but, when cancer is in remission the docs don't say they misdiagnosed it. but i've talked to patients whose diagnosis was changed depending on who they talked to. the whole thing screams 'con' and they are playing with people's experiences (regardless of degree of severity) on gambles. it is all 'liquid', too loose to even call malleable.

Very astute comments.

i think depending on the circumstances, 'remission' and 'recovery' are interchangeable. but a different set they couldn't properly be

.

I thought "recovery" is supposed to be the life-long state people get into where they struggle to be well and are happy to not have been in the hospital in the last x number of months. But "recovered" would be like remission in cancer - NO SYMPTOMS - no need for the psychiatric medications. I would THINK that "remission" in bipolar and schizophrenia is like "recovered" but I also saw in some NAMI literature it was used like "residual" or something because they still talk about impairment. The question is "what is the impairment?" Is it something that can never be gotten back, like having a leg cut off in cancer? Only in this case, it is like brain damage - lowering the person's IQ? OR, is it residual symptoms of what they called "schizophrenia" in which case that to me is not "in remission." If that is the case, then the whole time the girl in the book "It's Not Mental" was SICK the psychiatric community would have called that in remission. They did (stupidly in my opinion) call it "in recovery."

a big problem of 'schizophrenia' is the non-existence of biology involved. you can talk about genes all you want, . . . . i don't agree that schizophrenia is a biological disease though certainly i can be wrong. i see it more as thought malfunctioning and the brain's equilibrium being thrown off kilter. it's like a snow-globe and if you never stop shaking the snow globe you can't expect the snow to settle.

That is because they are calling different things schizophrenia. We are told they are at least a dozen different things, and there can be so many different sets of genes involved, or non at all. Author Lia Govers in "Healing from Schizophrenia" had an emotional problem. Author Jeanie Wolfson's family had a biological problem. The proof is in what eliminated their symptoms. Psychological therapies for Govers and biomedical (not psychiatric) therapies for Wolfson's.

i don't have a solid side on gluten-producing diagnoses and misdiagnoses. i personally think the industry is a delegate of different tests being carried out and have no reason to legitimately inform people.

In this Gluten Sensitivity and Symptoms of Schizophrenia and Brain Health: The Gluten (Dis)Connection you see there are tests available but they are not being used. But no test is needed. Some countries just go ahead and try diets on the patients without gluten (and maybe dairy). But that is too simple. For the people whose schizophrenia or bipolar was actually due to that problem, the drug makers would lose out on perhaps $15,000 per year for the life of the patient since they wouldn't need the medications. That would be... I don't know... let's say the person would live another 50 years. That's $750,000 or the whole "health" industry would lose out on about a million dollars per person they wouldn't get if we add in doctor visits and hospitalizations.

of all the tests i had done they would not let me see the results of 99% of them - they only let me see my brain scan to show that i didn't have a chip in there that is it. i could very well have blood deficiencies or heavy metal poisoning but they have never let me in on it one way or another.

WHAT!? THEY ARE YOUR TESTS! THEY ARE YOUR RESULTS!
Is that even legal for them to not show you test results? Do you have a case manager - a REAL social worker (one with a degree in social work rather than the kind with a stupid sociology or psychology degree)? If so, have them fight for your right to see YOUR medical records!

Maybe you should start another thread about this topic - your rights to access your own medical records, and how you should go about it.

I have heard many reports of people going into remission. There is a 75% chance of getting symptoms again in one year without medication management, and a 35% chance with medication management.

I am not in remission yet, but have been in the past twice. Currently I am "residual". John Nash is also currently residual.

That is when normal consciousness becomes the majority without medication, or most symptoms subside on medication..

I am currently on medication, and will stay on a very very low dose of medication for 1 year. I keep on getting better over time, but there is also a flux of symptoms depending on the situation.

Schizophrenia I would say is psychobiological. In that certain events could cause neuroplastic dysregulation. Two of the time of I was episodic was because of a break up with the same girl. The third time where I become chronic in April of this year was because of depression, alchohol and green tea. Now when I drink any kind of tea I get alot of visuals.

Some of people go into remission from medication or nutritional supplements, but it doesn't mean they are in the clear. It is a three year waiting period in my opinion for the brain to fortify towards normal consciousness.

Many people also come out of their symptoms as they age, because hgh, testosterone, estrogen and brain growth is low.

The biological causes of schizophrenia are very multifacted, as multifaceted as the different types of schizophrenia. But they all end in a similar chemical imbalance. There are many levels to biology from nucleotides, genetics, fatty acid structuralization, and neurotransmission. Some people do have a dysregulation that is not targeted at all by D2 antagonism, so some types of schizophrenia are other types of neuronal dysregulation, acethylcholinergic or temporal lobe epilepsy.

This is viable because not all visual cortex and language processing modulations are not dopaminergic. Take for instence the visual modulation of amanita muscaria which is an anti-cholinergic mushroom. Not is a serotonergic or dopaminergic psychedelic.

The truth is, that many types of neurotransmitters are involved in the activation process of several brain systems.

My advise to anyone is to analyze their own brain, and see what makes it tick. Then it would be possible to read the neuroscience studies and see what kind of regulation they need.

The corporate medical industrial complex is completely archaic and builds on top of its own history, there is a huge gap between the possibilities of synthesizing theoretical neuroscience and the actual medicines that are derived, (all harsh dopaminergic blockers)

Its very lazy, and they say all these brain diseases can't be cured. Don't believe that in the information age.

Specialization has reached a saturation point, and is counter-productive. There is an entire field of possibilites of connectivity between the alienated fields.

Some people recover faster on the medication, others recover faster off the medications. Every doctor is a zombie that will tell you to take a pill manufactered by monkey-minded pharmacological corporations. It is too homogenous.

The chronic phase of schizophrenia is the best bet for a full recovery because that is the main wave.

Yes, its situational, many schizophrenics get out of it, some don't. But once you have schizophrenia or before having schizophrenia is has always been part of the structuralization of the mentality.

Adding on the mutations of schizophrenic phenomenon on the brain, even recovered schizophrenics are still different imo. Maybe just slightly. It is a destiny.

The one thing that you need to know is that the brain can be highly mobile. If there is an injury in one part of the brain, the center will navigate its way to the other side of the brain and latch on to it for function.

If remission does happen one has to be very careful, never get too confident about the situations they are in. Because it might come back.

that's a good post visualizations. i think once someone gets over the initial slump of deciding to learn about themself many things have the ability to fall into place. a crude example is breathing, breathing improperly and then learning what it means to deep breathe and fill every air sac up.

ya know jaspar i think normally for me, the context of recovery i latch on to is like an addict. it's not that the addict magically doesn't want a fix anymore it's that he works through cravings. or even along the lines of a gash or broken bone. 'healing' but if care isn't taken to not further damage something then the wound opens back up or the bone breaks again. maybe not the best comparisons but oh well.

that doesn't really answer your questions in distinguishing between remission and recovery but i think the people who wrote the stuff that led you to ask these questions would provide more answers through their writing. if they take the context that remission is the brain not being further damaged then that's what they mean. is it correct? beats me.

i've heard many times that when brain cells die that's it they're dead. but along with this i hear the same people say that none can possibly be regenerated and i don't agree with this for one second. cells throughout the body are constantly dying and if the nutrition and work is there then they regrow to replace the dead. working the brain i would think would constantly be producing new pathways to develop and if the building blocks are there then more neurons to take the paths.

i don't have any science to back this up it is just my own thought process. this can of course be combated with paraplegics without stem cell supplementation, brain damaged people, people who don't recover from smoke inhalation.

i have no interest in starting a thread asking about spending money i don't have to hire attorneys to subpoena my records be turned over and to be honest i'm still pissed about the whole thing. i recognize people like watching the news for the latest 'nut' flipping out but i am not interested in being a patsy.

Ocular_razor, I appreciate your analogy about the broken bone "healing" or a gash "healing" but that if care isn't taken to not further damage something then the wound opens back up or the bone breaks again.

That got me thinking along a line that I can understand better - my intestines. It is like Celiac or IBS. The intestines can heal, and that is the goal, but they are still vulnerable. Being in remission from the bowel symptoms is not having the symptoms, but a person may still be vulnerable. Funny you talk about stem cell transplants... back to intestines, they are now experimenting with fecal transplants (with huge success - it transplants normal biota) for the bowel issues (some can be life-threatening). And something else tangential: there is a gut-brain connection. I have had my gut heal before (in remission?) but it is messed up again.

As for brain cells regenerating, it has been found to be a fallacy that no brain cells regrow. It is true that we cannot regrow a mass of brain tissue, but we do grow more glial cells that nourish our brain, and we do grow new connections. I figure as long as a person does not have the type of schizophrenia that leads to a huge loss in gray matter, leaving big holes (ventricles) a person has a good chance at recovery. Again, back to the concept of there being different causes and different types of schizophrenia.

The research does show that lithium, antidepressants, and omega-3 fatty acids do grow more brain cells. I believe the last research I read about antipsychotics, however is the long term use does diminish brain tissue (cause "brain damage") but I do not remember if that is in a subpopulation of people or across the board. It is all statistics, so it must not be in everyone.

The word I was looking for is neuroplasticity which refers to how our brain can regain function.

Wow my diction was really bad in that post because I did some dip, and wasent fully aware of the situation.

The most regenerative part of the brain is the hippocampus. But there is also density regeneration all over the place.

There is a 10% gray matter loss with antipsychotics. But some of this is reversable through high BDNF or high IGF-1, basically high neuropeptides. This can be done through excersise. There is also alot of things that raise bdnf. Just google "something bdnf" and something will come up. Eat like proteins, and stuff with steriods in it. I actually made a list of this type of stuff here.

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/5571 ... upplements

Also there are many things that are antiapoptotic, like antioxidants.

I started a neuroprotective regimen when I started antipsychotics. Vitamin C and E everyday, high doses, green tea extract, alpha-lipoic acid, b vitamin complex, and some other things. Ive taken red wine extract, currently taking glutathione, pomegranate extract, blue berry extract. n-acetyl cysteine is supposed to be very strong because its a glutathione precursor.

Part of the ventrical progression is because of antipsychotics. Just search for antiapoptotics, and raise your metabolism and you should be good.

Most of the gray matter loss from antipsychotics is in the midbrain followed by the frontal cortex.

Schizophrenics are prone to excitoxicity, you can feel it when your brain is too wound up.

visualizations wrote:There is a 10% gray matter loss with antipsychotics. But some of this is reversable through high BDNF or high IGF-1, basically high neuropeptides. This can be done through excersise. There is also alot of things that raise bdnf. Just google "something bdnf" and something will come up. Eat like proteins, and stuff with steriods in it. I actually made a list of this type of stuff here.

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/5571 ... upplements

Also there are many things that are antiapoptotic, like antioxidants.

I started a neuroprotective regimen when I started antipsychotics. Vitamin C and E everyday, high doses, green tea extract, alpha-lipoic acid, b vitamin complex, and some other things. Ive taken red wine extract, currently taking glutathione, pomegranate extract, blue berry extract. n-acetyl cysteine is supposed to be very strong because its a glutathione precursor.

Part of the ventrical progression is because of antipsychotics. Just search for antiapoptotics, and raise your metabolism and you should be good.

Most of the gray matter loss from antipsychotics is in the midbrain followed by the frontal cortex.

Schizophrenics are prone to excitoxicity, you can feel it when your brain is too wound up.

Whew. Thanks. I sometimes feel sad about the loss of brain matter, especially in all the children on antipsychootics since they are supposed to be developing brain. Instead they may be losing brain rather than growing it. That's twice as bad. I agree with using supplements to help support the brain, and also avoid what are called excitotoxins, like aspartame and MSG.

There was an update to the remission discussion, now talking about what it means to be RECOVERED

I think the worst thing about the whole "its just biology" argument is it dismisses entirely the idea that its even worth trying other methods. I can't say I didn't have a predisposition to have a chemical imbalance, but I know I was really f-ing abused as a kid. To have someone imply its not worth bothering to help me with my issues because its all "biological" is downright malicious and lazy.

Aj1 wrote:I think the worst thing about the whole "its just biology" argument is it dismisses entirely the idea that its even worth trying other methods. I can't say I didn't have a predisposition to have a chemical imbalance, but I know I was really f-ing abused as a kid. To have someone imply its not worth bothering to help me with my issues because its all "biological" is downright malicious and lazy.

We are calling different issues by the same labels. YOU have a problem due to the psychological effects of abuse. Did you see the link and books in the remission link about healing with just psychotherapy because what the doctors labelled as their "schizophrenia" was just an emotional problem? Then there are others who in spite of tons of abuse never get "schizophrenia" and then there are those who get bipolar or schizophrenia with no abuse, and just normal loving homes. All get the same DSM labels but we are not even talking about the same problems! The real life examples of people who recover just from a biological approach, if you read more, still had therapies to address the emotional issues resulting from the trauma of their biological illnesses. Also, people can be more vulnerable to the effects of stress, so have to be super emotionally well to not be so affected by the stress, or feel stressed by things. There are people who have sensory stressors, and they still need therapies for that. No one is talking about being lazy or taking away therapies, although insurance pays less and less for the CBT and DBT and emotional therapies we want. What I most wish is that they paid for MORE types of therapeutic approaches - not less. And it is the height of laziness to JUST throw med after med after med at us without delving more deeply.