SCHIZOPHRENIA

Part 1. A DIFFERENT LOOK AT SCHIZOPHRENIA

Even though I am not a psychiatrist, I know much about schizophrenia because I have been living with a schizophrenic son for forty-two years. I have acquired real-life and observational knowledge, as well as theoretical knowledge by obsessively reading about schizophrenia. I also have faced serious flaws in the American mental health care system.

I knew my son was not normal since his birth. He has had subtle cognitive difficulties, such as difficulty making eye contact, not listening, not learning, and repeating the same mistakes. Even a pre-K teacher told me this wasn’t normal.

I did not know what to do. At the time, there was no pediatric mental health care specialists available to consult on what these signs were, what to do about them, or how to prevent any serious mental illness from developing in the future.

My son struggled in school, not only academically but also socially. He failed to make any good friends. He was easily influenced by other kids to do inappropriate things and behave inappropriately.

His years of puberty were problematic. He would have wide mood swings. On frequent occasions, he would withdraw, become very quiet, and cry for no reason; on other occasions, he would become very aggressive. He was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder. He was given some medications, but he refused the diagnosis and to take any medications.

He never had any psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia until he attended college and started to use heavy doses of cannabis at around the age of nineteen. Then his diagnosis changed to schizophrenia. Because of the continuation of psychosis and bipolar symptoms, his diagnosis again changed to schizoaffective bipolar disorder. He still refused to take any medications. Frequent hospitalizations occurred. He would check the medication and spit it out afterward. Only injectable medications could be given.

I wanted to know whether my son has had two different diseases or whether schizophrenia and bipolar disorders are different spectrums of the same disease, which was never answered by the doctors to my satisfaction.

Mental disorders are very common. According to the WHO, about one billion people live with mental illness on a worldwide basis, and about 23 million of them suffer from schizophrenia.

As a doctor and father of a schizophrenic son, I can easily say that schizophrenia is one of the worst diseases to have among the 10,000 human diseases.  Its cause is not known, it is not curable, it does not kill, and not only the patients but also the entire members of the family are condemned to suffer mentally and physically, not only from the disease but also from the stigma attached to the disease.

I always wondered if there were any prodromal signs and symptoms of schizophrenia that could be detected in early childhood. Psychological behavioral changes and psychological expressions could be the early expression of the disease. By doing so, preventive measures and certain medications could be taken to prevent the full-blown disease from appearing after puberty or around age nineteen.

I would like to share my firsthand knowledge and my views about schizophrenia with my readers in separate parts, and in a “history and physical format” we use in medicine. This format contains the following elements:

1-       The cause (etiology) and the disease-forming mechanism (pathogenesis).

2-       Signs and symptoms of the disease.

3-       Physical, mental, and laboratory examinations and appropriate imaging studies.

4-       Diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up.

More to come.