Aspergers AND schizophrenia :( help please!

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I've been told you can't have Aspergers and Schizophrenia. If you have Schizophrenia, you will lose your AS diagnosis. Is this correct?

I was diagnosed with AS when I was 11 years old. I've always had special interests, and being able to complety live out my interests to an extreme degree.

But then in my early 20's I got schizophrenia. Hallucinations and stuff like that.
Then I got anti-psychotics which gave made me restless. Now I am on a lower dose and my restlessness stopped. But my schizophrenia got worse. My so-called "negative symptoms" causes my life to be pure hell.

I sleep like 10-20 hours a day. I have difficulties concentrating. And this means I am gradually losing my ability to outlive my AS-caused special interests.

I don't want to get rid of my AS. That is who I am. But schizophrenia is NOT who I am. It is pure hell.

I just can't live with this. My doctor who is a very caring one and who has known me for years, can't help me any further.

I just feel like dying a slow and painful death.

Is there ANYTHING I can do?

Sorry to hear about it. If it helps you feel better at all, I've read an article that says that schizophrenia is like a by-product of the evolution of human creativity:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scie ... ution.html

Are you creative? Have you tried letting it out by doing something creative? Maybe you should either go see different doctors (unless you already have) who know more/specialize in Schizophrenia and Psychotic disorders and try and get hospitalized if it's affecting your life that badly.

Keep in mind, I am NOT a doctor and you will need to speak with your doctor about this, but my personal knowledge on the topic is that you can have both Asperger's and schizophrenia, and that there is no reason why not. I believe that the idea that they are polar opposites comes from one article or one debatable school of thought, but in any case, a diagnosis of schizophrenia does not exclude AS.

If it helps, before I was diagnosed with Asperger's, I was fairly certain that I WAS schizophrenic, but also, I know that there are a few members of WP that have both AS and schizophrenia.

Its my understanding that if you have an AS diagnosis, you are not supposed to be diagnosed with schizophrenia unless you show some "positive symptoms" of schizophrenia (such as hallucinations).

The reason for that being that the "negative symptoms" of schizophrenia overlap symptoms of ASD's too much, so to be dx'ed with ASD & SZ you need more than just the negative SZ symptoms in order to differentiate it from ASD.

I have co-morbid PDD-NOS and Schizoaffective disorder. My psychotic symptoms include paranoia along with mood disturbance. I take medication regularly--an anti-psychotic called Paliperidone (Invega)--and am capable of living symptom-free most of the time, as there are good days and bad days. On my good days, I am capable of pursuing my special interests with nearly full mentality; on the bad days, however, I am usually moping around or isolated in my bedroom. I take a 1- or 2-hour nap everyday in the afternoon, and I get at least 5 hours of nightly sleep on average. Before I was taking Invega, I was on Risperdal, which is chemically similar to Invega but with wretched drowsiness side-effects. When I took Risperdal I would sleep nearly 12-15 hours a day, and I felt very drowsy and lazy when awake. It frustrated me because I couldn't pursue my special interests. I finally spoke to my doctor about taking something else that does not make me drowsy, and he gave me a sample of Invega, which made me feel better after the first 1.5 months.

If you are not taking Invega, then I would recommend you speak with your doctor about it, especially if you are currently taking Risperdal. If you are taking another type of anti-psychotic, then you should speak with your doctor about switching to a chemically similar drug without drowsiness side-effects. The benefit of switching to a chemically similar drug is that you do not have to gradually reduce the dose of the current drug until it is completely out of your system and then gradually increase the dose of the new drug. If you switch to a chemically similar drug, you can stop the use of the current drug and immediately start using the new drug.

Thank you all for your responses.

So you mean there's just no end to your creativity? I was kinda seeing if maybe you could take it out in a positive constructive way, e.g. by becoming an artist so at least it'd benefit your life in some ways but I guess if that doesn't help, then Abstractlogic's probably right about taking meds.

take a careful look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_c ... l_disorder

read more:

http://www.mcdd.be/index_en.htm

http://www.suite101.com/content/pervasi ... cd-a323123

etc.

and try to find some experts near you that you can use, after all MCDD is one of the most severe forms on the spectrum... so you could use some help if you are Dx'ed with it.

You might be interested in: Methylation, Depression, Schizophrenia & Autism (pdf, 36 pages/slides)

hi. I am diagnosed aspergers and schizophrenia too. i also have the tired all the time symptom you mentioned. Do you also feel unrested no matter how much or how little you sleep and feel tired all the time? I find this one of my most annoying symptoms. i dont think for me its a mental tiredness because i will still want to do things but not have the energy. i feel physically exhuasted. i know im not depressed though. i do notice throughout the day i get more energy gradually. i also know this is not a regular symptom or people who just have autism or schizophrenia. does the combination just exhaust us to the point of chronic tiredness or im wondering if something else is causing it for me. i have taken a sleep study and they found i go straight into rem sleep when i sleep like a narcoleptic does but they couldnt tell whether i had actuall narcolepsy or just hypersomnia. as for creativity i am a musician. i do think autism and schizophrenia spectrum conditions both come with creativity and the combination can open the mind to things most people dont think of. i am able to use this to make the strangest music imaginable and have savant abilities at composing music on my computer. some days i do feel like i cant remember basic things on my computer programs but i just work at it again later when im thinking more clearly. i would incourage you to continue doing your art. psychosis and creativity have been thought to be genetically linked. personally i believe that psychosis is overactive awareness to psychic phenomon. the mind gets scrambled with it and becomes confused which is what cause the symptoms that cause impairments. just remember that even people who dont meet criteria for any so called mental disorder are also impaired in that they cant think like us. theres actually no such thing as normal thinking though. its everyone thinking differently that keeps the world going. i think if we start curing people of their neuropsychological conditions the world could come to an end because new ideas wouldnt form. i dont understand why some people worry that they could have some sort of psychological condition as if they think it means something wrong with them. thinking somethings wrong is a paradox because whats wrong with someone is only thinking something is wrong. im just rambling on thoughts im thinking now that im writing a lot and have probablly lost track of what i was originally typing. anyways theres probablly nothing that great about being normal anyways. even though sometimes i dont know whats going on i have learned to enjoy my insanity for the most part.

As an aspie I'd say my two major issues are anxiety and fatigue. I get tired out really quickly and need to have rests durign the day, on work days I battle through but it's tough.

I'd encourage people to look into this thread over at wrongdiagnosis.com regarding different forms of vitamin B12 and supporting supplements:

<b>Active B12</b>


FYI, that thread is info distilled from an extremely long running thread (linked from the first post in teh above link). Having read a few hundred posts now I'm impressed with the level of the discussion and research being done.

locster