Looking for some advice

Hello Ron,

Welcome to the forums! Thank you for joining our online community and sharing your story with us all. It sounds like your father in law is going through a very hard time and is having difficulty managing his past trauma – which is understandable.

Last year there was a thread called “Topic Tuesday” which covered Psychosis. It may be helpful for you to read through other people’s experiences. It is a closed thread but you are able to access it. Also this thread talks a bit about sudden onset psychosis where @maggiesdaughter talks about her mothers sudden psychosis.

Here are two threads that may be helpful regarding your query on natural therapies, including vitamins and natural remedies. In the 2^nd thread @Shaz51 talks a little about music therapy and @Appleblossom mentions other natural remedies which may be somewhat useful.

Regarding other community services that you can be linked in with, it may be helpful to call 1800 011 511, which is a Mental Health Line for NSW. This is a 24/7 line that supports carers and can connect you with local services in your area.

I hope this is helpful

Jac-in-the-box

Hello @Ron, welcome to the forum , I have found SAne Forums and treads have helped me so much .

My husband has MI and though medication , natural therapy , music therapy , and hobbies and things that he enjoys doing have helped a lot

My husband has come a long way to what he was like

Keep in contact , we are here to support you

Hello @Former-Member, great to hear from you , how are you

Personally i wouldnt automatically rule out other causes even if doctors stated they were "leaning towards" psychosis.

There have been many instances when doctors have become frustrated at not knowing what was causing their patient/s unusual symptoms,put it in the "too hard basket" and then wrongly/prematurely labelled it as depression,or psychosis,or somatisation disorder etc. (Im not suggesting this is or isn't the case with your father in law).

(This is an opinion and should not be mistaken/substituted for medical advice etc) illnesses such as Schizophrenia and Depression usually do not classically present as episodes of losing lucidity and confusion.

There are also (unfortunately) many people that have experienced sexual abuse as a child and while some may experience flashbacks,they usually dont experience day to day confusion and not being lucid.

Correlation (the sexual abuse) does not automatically imply causation (his current symptoms).

Other illnesss which can have confusion etc inlcude FT Dementia,Alzheimers,Temporal Lobe Epilepsy,or other "organic" processes including vitamin deficiencies such as Thiamine def,B12 def and Vit B3 deficiency.There are also other things such as paraneoplastic syndromes,thyroid disorders etc that cause simolar symptoms...It might worth talking to a doctor about these.

A normal Mri scan does not rule out the possibility of Dementia.

Im guessing that your father in law has never had a PET scan (due to living in Western Sydney )?

Have you considered taking your father in law to see a Neuropsychiatrist?

If it was me,i would travel further to get answers for your FIL and would avoid services in Western Sydney as they tend not to be very........progressive.

http://www.theaftd.org/understandingftd/diagnosis

Thanks for the advice,

That is definitely something we are attempting to rule out as unfortunately his brother passed away some time ago from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and though unlikely, there is a hereditary strand of the disease. It is a very frustraing period as today he saw a psychologist but they can not refer him for a psychiatric rehabilitaion, so we now have to wait for psychiatrist (which have huge waiting lists) without a diagnosis or any treatment. All the while his behaviour has become so irratic today that he has started thinking he has killed people and screaming. Reception at the psychiatric clinic suggested we call the police to escort him to emergency department for sedation which seems quite extreme. The service all seems very disjointed and I understand diagnosis can be tricky in cases such as these but at the very least we would expect some form of treatment to manage the symptoms. At this stage he will most likely be admitted to emergency so hopefully the ball can get rolling from there. But thank you for the replies and support, it must be very stressful having to live with or care for someone in this situation full time.

It might seem obvious but has he had an EEG done and if yes,do you have the results?

He was admitted last night by the local area mental health team and neurologists have advised for EEG as lumber punture was slightly high in protiens and MRI had slightly more than normal spots, though the nuero team are unsure at this stage and are leaning more towards non-organic psychotic eposide such as depression. But the good thing is he had some anti-psychotic medication last night and is almost completely lucid today, so although it took almost 2 weeks from the onset of symptoms for some form of medication, they have seemed to really help.

Really glad to hear he has received some relief.

I hope the antipsychotics dont interfer with the EEG results though.

Do you have a copy of the Lumbar puncture report?

Would you know if the high proteins found were called 14-3-3 proteins?

Why do you think the Neuro team are leaning towards non-organic psychotic episode instead of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease especially with his family history and test results?

Do you think its because they dont know/are "stumped" or do you think it could be because he has psychosis and they always in the habit of taking that to be non-organic,or is it that the MRI type of findings dont match up with the Lumbar puncture findings etc?