New Treatment for Schizophrenia?

[ebethc]

@ebethc Somebody on another forum just put me straight on this issue. They say that it's only the 1st generation of antihistamines that are thought to be anticholinergic, not the newer sort that do not make you drowsy. I thought the same as you over this. They sent me this link to research evidence on this aspect https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3667286/

thanks! that's great to hear... Quercetin & Mangosteen work best for me, but I like Azelastine, too

 

[mermaid]

@ebethc just getting my head round the whole histamine concept so very new to it - I take Quercetin and heard of Mangosteen yesterday but not Azelstine so will now look this one up!

I personally prefer to use non pharmaceuticals myself actually but that little bit of info re the newer antihistamines could be useful to know - I thought I might need to take something stronger if I was in hospital for example. e.g. Apparently the dyes they use for some tests can be problematic or some drugs upset me badly re what I now know are histamine issues!

 

[ebethc]

@ebethc just getting my head round the whole histamine concept so very new to it - I take Quercetin and heard of Mangosteen yesterday but not Azelstine so will now look this one up!

I personally prefer to use non pharmaceuticals myself actually but that little bit of info re the newer antihistamines could be useful to know - I thought I might need to take something stronger if I was in hospital for example. e.g. Apparently the dyes they use for some tests can be problematic or some drugs upset me badly re what I now know are histamine issues!

yes, I've found that non-pharma works better for me, but I will def use anything to feel better!

I don't know what Azelastine is called in the UK; you'll have to look it up... I also like Singulair (generic = montelukast) for allergy symptoms

 

[redo]

Very interesting indeed — although not actually a new discovery, as I notice there are studies on the benefits of famotidine for schizophrenia that date back to the early 1990s.

However, this info on famotidine is certainly new to me, and I am grateful that you posted it, because in addition to having ME/CFS, I also have significant emotional flatness (blunted affect) and anhedonia (anhedonia is the inability to feel pleasure or reward from activities), and both of these conditions are part of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia, which famotidine apparently treats.

The full set of negative symptoms of schizophrenia are: emotional flatness, anhedonia, poverty of speech, lack of desire to form relationships, and lack of motivation.

This 1994 study found that famotidine 20 mg twice daily improves the negative (deficit) symptoms of schizophrenia. The study said that after two or three weeks on famotidine, all schizophrenia patients showed marked improvement in their motivation, and there was an improvement in their symptoms of social withdrawal, low social drive, and poverty of speech (the patients became more sociable, more verbal and more active on famotidine).

So maybe famotidine will help my anhedonia and emotional flatness symptoms. I am definitely going to try it.

Did you try famotidine?

I have emotional flatness and anhedonia as well. Well, all the feeling isn't gone, but it's like where there once was a glass of water, there is now only a drop. Same goes for the feeling in the skin. My whole body is really numb, from top to toe.

In more than a decade of illness I have experienced only a few days were I could feel somewhat normally. One of those were when I was taking high doses of minocycline. Which tells me my anhedonia isn't permanent damage to my nervous system.

I don't have the other symptoms in your post, though. I have a massive drive, so there aren't any hints of lack of motivation.

I know of another ME/CFS patient who also have anhedonia and got so much better from the antihistamine Phenergan. It didn't work for me, just mentioning it.

I know it's an old thread, but I'm guessing your still struggling with anhedonia. But if you're not, then please do let me know what worked for you.

 

[Hip]

Did you try famotidine?

I did try famotidine in 2013, but only for a few days. I took famotidine 60 mg daily, and although there was one occasion where I thought it may have boosted my emotions, after two days taking it I developed this extremely vague mental state (not the regular brain fog, just a very vague and a not very aware mental state). So I stopped taking it, and have not tried it again.

Famotidine is known to confusion and disorientation as a side effect, especially in the elderly:

Famotidine-associated mental confusion in elderly patients
Famotidine-associated mental status changes

So possibly my extremely vague state was a manifestation or a variation of this known side effect.

In more than a decade of illness I have experienced only a few days were I could feel somewhat normally. One of those were when I was taking high doses of minocycline.

Minocycline reduces brain inflammation and microglial activation (see this post), so that might be why it worked. Quite a few mental health conditions and mental symptoms have been linked to chronic brain inflammation.

I know of another ME/CFS patient who also have anhedonia and got so much better from the antihistamine Phenergan. It didn't work for me, just mentioning it.

That's very interesting. Apparently Phenergan (promethazine) is in the class of drugs called phenothiazines, which are mostly antipsychotics. So perhaps Phenergan has an anti-anhedonia effect via some sort of mild antipsychotic action (remember that anhedonia is found as a symptom in both depression and in schizophrenia).

I know it's an old thread, but I'm guessing your still struggling with anhedonia. But if you're not, then please do let me know what worked for you.

Unfortunately I have not really found any magic cures so far for either my anhedonia or emotional flatness. I listed some supplements that I found have mild benefits in this post, but these benefits are too small to be of much help.

 

[redo]

I did try famotidine in 2013, but only for a few days. I took famotidine 60 mg daily, and although there was one occasion where I thought it may have boosted my emotions, after two days taking it I developed this extremely vague mental state (not the regular brain fog, just a very vague and a not very aware mental state). So I stopped taking it, and have not tried it again.

Famotidine is known to confusion and disorientation as a side effect, especially in the elderly:

Famotidine-associated mental confusion in elderly patients
Famotidine-associated mental status changes

So possibly my extremely vague state was a manifestation or a variation of this known side effect.


Minocycline reduces brain inflammation and microglial activation (see this post), so that might be why it worked. Quite a few mental health conditions and mental symptoms have been linked to chronic brain inflammation.


That's very interesting. Apparently Phenergan (promethazine) is in the class of drugs called phenothiazines, which are mostly antipsychotics. So perhaps Phenergan has an anti-anhedonia effect via some sort of mild antipsychotic action (remember that anhedonia is found as a symptom in both depression and in schizophrenia).



Unfortunately I have not really found any magic cures so far for either my anhedonia or emotional flatness. I listed some supplements that I found have mild benefits in this post, but these benefits are too small to be of much help.

Thank you for the links, and thank you for your post.

I thought the same as you. Perhaps Phenergan helped that patient because of its antipsychotic effect. And the antihistamine Alimemazine is structurally related to an antipsychotic. So, perhaps it's just an antipsychotic effect.

So I've actually asked my doctor to give that a try. Reluctantly she helped out, and the drug did nothing. Nothing but make me dulled, like everyone gets. I tried it for an extended period to be absolutely sure I got an effect if the drug was supposed to work.

At least for me such effects is not what's helping. But anyways, this information about the histaminergic system has made me curious of whether anhedonia can be a result of a the mast cells misfiring.

Histamine H3 receptors are expressed in the central nervous system and to a lesser extent the peripheral nervous system, where they act as autoreceptors in presynaptic histaminergic neurons, and also control histamine turnover by feedback inhibition of histamine synthesis and release.[5] The H3 receptor has also been shown to presynaptically inhibit the release of a number of other neurotransmitters (i.e. it acts as an inhibitory heteroreceptor) including, but probably not limited to dopamine, GABA, acetylcholine, noradrenaline, histamine and serotonin.
The gene sequence for H3 receptors expresses only about 22% and 20% homology with both H1 and H2 receptors respectively.

It's in the central nervous system, so if the drug don't cross the blood–brain barrier, then the drug won't help. Which in turn makes serendipitous discoveries of drugs that work less likely.

And a malfunctioning histamine system can tamper with the release of neurotransmittors.

So, maybe, just maybe, this could be at the core of ME/CFS anhedonia. I have made a post about it here, trying to sort my thoughts on why a malfunctioning histaminergic system could be at the core of ME/CFS.