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Okay, so tardive dyskinesia is a condition that to my knowledge doesn't really occur natively in people. It's the result of continued use of certain medication. It's a very vague illness and its symptoms differ from person to person. But it all comes down to a loss of normal motor ability, in my case:
- I have some uncontrollable twitches from time to time
- My motor control is greatly reduced to the point that I am incapable of drawing any more or playing a musical instrument, things I used to enjoy doing and was reasonably proficient at.
- I've lost a great deal of muscular strength
- My muscles feel very stiff all the time and unnatural. It still feels unnatural how my movement works after years, it almost feels as if you're playing real life with latency, you notice a slight delay between willing an action and the action actually taking place.
It's not degenerative however, the symptoms do not become any worse when you stop the medication, which I have, but they don't go away either. As you might imagine, this makes playing StarCraft a hell of a chore. The way the condition works for me quite interesting and counter-intuitive. It only compromises voluntary muscle movement, not muscle memory or involuntary movement. For instance. I can do inject cycles quite quickly because it's muscle memory but things that aren't like focussing down a unit are quite troublesome. This extends to real life too, I actually can't squeeze into something voluntarily with more force than a very small child would be capable of. But if I am required to squeeze into something to stop it from falling, as in, it goes automatically without thinking, I am able to exert a far greater force. It sounds really stupid but I basically can't will more force even though I know I am capable of more, it's my brain that is incapable of more force not my muscles. It feels extremely weird. Like some part of your mind is stopping you from squeezing harder.
I can kite with roaches and stalkers fine due to the longer cooldown, I can't kite with marines because the cooldown is too small, I just can't click that quickly if it's not muscle memory. Consequently I have troubles warping in large amounts of units in a similar fashion because I can't click quickly enough. My TvP is very good vs stalker/colossus but I suck against zealot-based armies because I can't kite them like other terrans can. It's not always in similar degrees though.It depends on how well I've slept, eaten, stress etc. Sometimes it's really bad though leading to interesting things like this:
![[image loading]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-IJSErc9ACBI/UkTeZjIMD0I/AAAAAAAAB0Y/MY62BVCusjE/s552/Screenshot2013-09-27%252003_13_44.jpg) Sadly, I'm one of those people who instead of quitting when playing badly gets the drive to continue when losing due to playing badly, even when winning despite playing badly, urgh.
So why am I writing all this you might ask? Well, because I'm pissed as fuck. I could accept it if it was all my own mistake. If I made the choice to take that drug and accepted the risks. But I didn't. I first started taking it when I was 14. I wasn't informed at all. My parents made the choice and they weren't informed either. And even if they were informed. They can't make that choice for their child. 'Gee, this drug when used long enough will irrepairely damage the motor functions of your child, you think it's worth it?'. I can make that choice myself if I want to when I'm 18 being fully informed, not 14.
It was basically preached by some psychiatrist to deal with whatever vague stuff I had as a child, probably anxiety or paranoia, I don't know. I was a child that was nervous quite easily. It's an antipsychotics drug though, so why is it being used for that? Beats me, it's used for everything, antipsychotics drugs are the new wonder drugs that are basically given for everything against everything, dementia, depression, psychosis, aggression disorders, you name it. Why? Because the term 'antipsychotics drug' is a major misnomer, it's a tranquilizer. It makes you more quiet, more numb, more docile, that's what it does. When I stopped taking them it felt like I'd been living in some kind of fog for 6 year. The entire world just seemed more detailed within a week or not taking them.
They are given to everyone no doubt for monetary reasons. The manufacturer of this wonder drug has been involved in several Lawsuits where people found they basically came close to bribing experts to recommend their stuff to what-not who doesn't need it like demented elderly people who have no idea what you are feeding them. When I said I wanted to quit my psych was pretty darn advocative in trying to keep me on it, using terms like 'You are a walking timebomb if you don't take them' to scare me into taking them. Even threatening an involuntary commitment. (luckily the psych at the asylum didn't agree and I walked).
Capitalism just doesn't work on medicine I feel. The point about capitalism is that it supposedly provides incentive for a manufacturer to make the best product for the lowest price. Nice in theory. But the point is that the 'best medicine' for the patient is a cure. Something you only have to take once, and then never again. That's not commercially very interesting. A company has to think long term. What they want isn't something that cures, but something that only manages symptoms, something you have to keep taking forever for its effect. But why stop there? Obviously it would be even better if the drug was slightly addictive, or actually left you worse of once you stopped. Many pills are known to require higher and higher dosages to get their desired effect and leave you worse off when you stop taking them. They might not have designed them like that on purpose, but they sure aren't interested in trying to fix that behaviour of those pills either.
There's nothing I can do about it any more though, there are just days where my entire body feels super unresponsive. Real life with latency and clunky controls if you will.
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Not sure if this helps or if your motor control works this way, but for stuff like the warp in thing maybe you could set multiple hot keys for units and have a mouse with an extra button on it for a secondary left click.
So for zealots you could have z and x as the zealot hot key and two buttons on your mouse for left click, and then press z->normal left click->x->other left click->z->normal left click->x->other left click etc. so it's four fingers being used to do the same thing at the same speed as two fingers would do but with half the individual finger speed.
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On September 27 2013 11:12 G_G wrote:
Not sure if this helps or if your motor control works this way, but for stuff like the warp in thing maybe you could set multiple hot keys for units and have a mouse with an extra button on it for a secondary left click.
So for zealots you could have z and x as the zealot hot key and two buttons on your mouse for left click, and then press z->normal left click->x->other left click->z->normal left click->x->other left click etc. so it's four fingers being used to do the same thing at the same speed as two fingers would do but with half the individual finger speed. Strangely enough that actually goes more slowly for me. Tardive dyskinesia is a pretty counter intuitive thing at times.
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Sucks to hear you developed TD, do you have schizophrenia though? because that's what risperidone is supposed to be used for. Antipsychotics are not first line treatment for anxiety or just paranoia alone. Either you were misdiagnosed or inappropriately medicated. Probably the latter.
Unfortunately for those with psychiatric illnesses, we still don't understand the mechanisms behind them, and we don't understand how these medications even work. The fact that we have any medications that seem to help people a bit at all is luck, many of the psychiatric drugs were discovered accidentally. I understand that you probably didn't need to take those drugs in the first place, but for some schizophrenics these drugs enable people to live almost a normal life. I just did a rehab psych rotation and when these drugs work, they enable people to eventually live out in the community, not as an inpatient.
I don't think the drug companies are holding out on us and have secretly locked away a cure and instead give out these not-as-effective medications that people have to take long term, just to profit. There is no cure yet, because we don't understand the disease. It costs over a billion dollars to develop a new drug these days due to rigorous ethics and clinical trial requirements, so without big pharma these days, no new drugs would get made and tested. Current state of medicine is that we are pretty good at lot of acute conditions, but we are not good at "curing" a lot of diseases. We can offer "treatment" for everything, but very few "cures". Medicine isn't magic after all.
But I derail. Sorry to hear you have tardive dyskinesia, unfortunately there is no cure for it, as you probably know already. Some patients who need to be on antipsychotics who have TD have their TD symptoms get better on clozapine, but you don't want to be taking clozapine just for that, there's some pretty life-threatening side effects associated with that, mainly agranulocytosis and myocarditis. So yeah sucks to have TD. 
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Physician
United States4146 Posts
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What is your diagnosis? Schizophrenia?
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Hey man, GJ on playing despite your handicap. That really sucks. I do like your writing though.
Mucuna pruriens may be of interest to you, it's a legume with natural l-dopa: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20635303
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On September 27 2013 14:18 FakeDouble wrote:
Sucks to hear you developed TD, do you have schizophrenia though? because that's what risperidone is supposed to be used for. Antipsychotics are not first line treatment for anxiety or just paranoia alone. Either you were misdiagnosed or inappropriately medicated. Probably the latter. Nope, like I'm saying, antipsychotics are used to treat everything and anything nowadays because they are effectively just general tranquilizers. They don't target psychoses any more than they target anxities or paranoias, they are tranquilizers. Schizophrenia is extremely rare for 14 year old people to already exist yet they are given these drugs.
Unfortunately for those with psychiatric illnesses, we still don't understand the mechanisms behind them, and we don't understand how these medications even work. Correct, this is why I think their prevalence is risky. You have a drug that plays with the workings of someone's central nervous system and no one knows exactly what it does. Many structural, or rather destructural side effects only occur after many years and do not show up in the initial testing phase of the drug. It's playing with fire and at the very least it shouldn't be used on teenage children.
The fact that we have any medications that seem to help people a bit at all is luck, many of the psychiatric drugs were discovered accidentally. I understand that you probably didn't need to take those drugs in the first place, but for some schizophrenics these drugs enable people to live almost a normal life. I just did a rehab psych rotation and when these drugs work, they enable people to eventually live out in the community, not as an inpatient. They do, and everyone can make their own choices when they are informed as far as I care. But people aren't informed as there is money to be made from selling drugs. Drugs are advertised deceptively like any other commercial product. But drugs aren't like iPads, drugs are like cigarettes. If you do have schizophrenia you make a choice based on them. You know, or rather, you should know, that taking them comes with the price of slowly destroying matter in your brain.
I don't think the drug companies are holding out on us and have secretly locked away a cure and instead give out these not-as-effective medications that people have to take long term, just to profit. There is no cure yet, because we don't understand the disease. I don't think they have a cure either, I just think they're not particularly motivated in finding it.It goes against their commercial interest. I don't doubt for a moment that if a company is willing to bribe experts to sell their stuff to old people with dementia when they know it's not really helping them. That if they have a lead for a possible cure they would not elect to persue it because they know it's bad for profit if schizophrenia can be cured. Same with AIDS by the way. It'd be pretty bad for profit if aids could be cured. These same companies sell AIDS medication at very high prices accepting that small children in Africa who are born with it can't pay for it as a collaterality for profit.
It costs over a billion dollars to develop a new drug these days due to rigorous ethics and clinical trial requirements, so without big pharma these days, no new drugs would get made and tested. Doubtful, because new drugs are still developed by universities and non profit research institutions and those tend to be more cure oriented as well.
Current state of medicine is that we are pretty good at lot of acute conditions, but we are not good at "curing" a lot of diseases. We can offer "treatment" for everything, but very few "cures". Medicine isn't magic after all. Yap, and the transition to treatment from cures coincides with the introduction of profit margins. I doubt it's a coincidence. No company will shoot itself in the foot like that.
On September 27 2013 15:50 Physician wrote:
Name of medication?
Respiridone.
On September 27 2013 16:50 OOHCHILD wrote:
What is your diagnosis? Schizophrenia? When I initially got it nothing actually. Nowadays it's some vague Psychosis-NOS. The point is that the psych flat out admitted that the label is wholly inaccurate but they have to diagnose me with something legally in order to be able to treat me. We had a good talk about it where she agrees with me that the discrete label approach in psychiatry is erroneous and that it's a continuum and trying to force discrete labels on it is artificial, but that's what's legally required so they are forced to give people nondescriptive lables to treat them. She talked about that she's often just trying to fit people into something so that she can legally begin treating them.
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opterown
Australia54746 Posts
you sound very disillusioned by the medical/pharmaceutical system. shame you have that, must suck
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On September 27 2013 23:40 opterown wrote:
you sound very disillusioned by the medical/pharmaceutical system. shame you have that, must suck You tend to be when your motor control is diminished for the rest of your life.
That said, these criticisms are nothing new. At least, not in psychiatry, it's a very controversial practice for a couple of reasons:
- Unlike in traditional medicine, psychiatric conditions do not meet the 'single identifiable cause' criterion. A corporal medical illness is defined by its single cause that is present in every single patient. Diseases with similar symptoms but different causes are considered different diseases and treatment is based on attacking the cause. Psychiatry is not cause-based, but symptom based and treatment is based on diminishing the symptoms for the most part. This goes to the extend that insofar a mental or neurological defect is understood in a causal relationship it is no longer psychiatric but a neurological illness. Like people getting a bump on the head and henceforth losing the capacity to recognise human faces. That's not a psychiatric condition, that's a neurological one, the damaged brain tissue can easily be identified. It seems that vagueness and a lack of hard science is needed to call it psychiatry.
- Consequently, psychiatry hasn't really delivered any cure yet, they can 'treat' as in, diminish symptoms with medication whose working is not entirely understood and which are some-what found by chance which for the most part have side effects which may involve damaged neural tissue. Tardive dyskinesia is not a psychiatric condition because it's understood and the damaged tissue in fact shows up on scans.
- Psychiatric illnesses are very much subject to the whims and woes of cultural change. Can you remember when homosexuality was an illness? It's not like any groundbreaking research changed that perception. Culture did. I doubt being born blind is ever going to stop being an illness, it's a clear disability, something you can't do. Many psychiatric 'illnesses' are in fact more 'You are different' rather than 'you are disabled'. And also 'You are different in a way we disapprove of'. Let's face is, homosexuals are different to the mainstream, but people don't disapprove any more so it no longer becomes an illness. People often joke that simply due to how Japanese culture works, 80% of people there has 'autism' from a western perspective, and there is some truth to it. Then there's the fact that many people raised the issue of why religion isn't a delusion, and they have a point, if only one person believed in God, that man would've been termed a madman.
- Psychiatry is in a unique position where people are treated against their will which raises issues of personal autonomy. People have the right in most countries to refuse treatment in life or death situations based on religious reasons. But people can be comitted against their will to psychiatric hospitals, supposedly because they are not sane enough to make that choice. Okay, fair point, but why does the choice then go to the government? If I'm incapacitated in some way, the choice of medical treatment goes to my next of kin, why doesn't the same principle apply with involuntary commitment? Apart from that, people can be involuntarily committed on a professional opinion and it comes close to serving jail time. Your basic human freedom to go and stand where you please is taken from you much like imprisonment. Which is supposedly seen as a deterrent to stop people from killing each other. To lock someone away for a crime, his or her guilt has to be proven beyond all reasonable doubt. Psychiatrists have to supply little more than a hunch that someone is a 'danger to himself' to lock that person us. You have to supply far more than 'a hunch' to lock someone up because someone was planning to murder someone (danger to others). Like I said, they threatened to commit me because they held I was a walking time bomb if I didn't take pills, this was 5 years ago, long timer on this time bomb.
Atop those things come the usual pharmaceutical dubious things in that pharmaceutical companies of course have business in there existing as many sick people as possible because that creates clients. So they have incentive to A: invent new conditions and make people believe they need help when they don't. B: Actually make people sick.
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EPT
