Hi ,i'm.27 years old working as a software engineer. I was diagnosed with acute transient psychosis (now bipolar/schizophrenia) when I was 14 years old. It happened when my grandmother died. I used to take encorate ,aripiprazole and combination of other mood stabilizers medicines. I had relapses once in a year once in a two year. My situation is improved over the period of time. Now i'm taking encorate 250 mg alternate days as a maintenance dose. My relapses happens usually when I don't get proper sleep. Is there any other way to cure the same illness if yes what can I do and will this be a lifelong issue for me? Can I stop the medicines as I take the maintenance dose of 250 mg dicorate on alternate days.

Dr. Soumen KarmakarPsychiatrist9yrs exp

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These are chronic illnesses. The maintenance dose is given so that the illness has lesser chance of recurrence. What you can additionally do is take psychotherapy (counselling), maintain healthy routine, and keep in touch with your psychiatrist. You can also stop the medicine if there are any troubles with it, but after consultation with your doctor.  

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Dr. Saranya DevanathanPsychiatrist51yrs exp

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Dear lybrate-user, nice to know that your situation has improved. It is not that if you are sleepless, you relapse. The first sign of relapse, is sleeplessness. If you stop the maintenance dose of encorate, be prepared for a relapse. It will not occur as soon as you stop. It will occur in its routine timing, may be once in 1-2 years in a specific month. You need to know about you relapse timing by making a mood chart of all these 13 yrs. Otherwise also, you will know it, if you are sleepless for no reason. Identify a person close to you, may be your mother or sibling who knows your psychiatrist and your relapse. She/he has to be in charge of your treatment since you may not be willing for treatment during relapse. You can give advance directives about that identified person to decide on treatment, in case you lose your capacity during relapse.  

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Dr. Rashmi NavelkarPsychiatrist11yrs exp

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How long are you taking the maintenance dose? How long back was your last relapse? How long have you been symptom free? Many factors are to be considered if you are thinking of stopping medications. Besides you need to know what triggers these episodes in you. As u mentioned the first episode being at the time of your grandmothers death. It was a stressful event. Similarly if there occur any such stressors in future then you may have a relapse again if you cannot cope with that stress. Hence we give maintenance therapy to keep your covered incase any such symptom occurs. You can consider a trail of stopping medications under a doctors supervision. However even if the slightest of symptoms recur again after stopping then you might have to take the medications for longer time maybe even lifelong given the nature of the illness. 

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