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Advice on psychosis

ShellyKinelly
Community Member

Hey everyone,

I'm hoping to find anyone who knows anything about an 'acute psychotic episode' that my relative is going through at the moment? We are at day 18, he is stuck overseas in a medical centre and they keep saying that he will 'come out of it' any day...

Thank you in advance

1 Reply 1

Dr_Kim
Community Member
Hi ShellyKinelly,

Acute psychosis could be due to many things so it is really vague. In this context I am gathering it  refers to someone who has no previous history of psychotic illness suddenly developing a psychosis.
 
In simple terms , Acute psychosis refers to when someone is delusional or having hallucinations , meaning they are believing things that are not based in reality or seeing or hearing things that are not there. 

This can happen as a result of taking an illicit drug that precipitates this reaction , or sometimes prescribed drugs (e.g.  one antimalarial drug is known to do this very occasionally) . Or it can sometimes be part of an illness or the beginning of a more long term illness e.g. schizophrenia . 
 
The treatments at this stage are often the same though - to stabilise the person as quickly as possible with antipsychotic drugs and usually that happens pretty quickly . I would then get the person assessed by a psychiatrist when they return to Australia to work out what happened and how to proceed. 
 
In the meantime. I hope your relative has  a close friend or family member over there advocating for them as they may not be in any fit state to do so themselves. It is a scary and awful thing to happen especially so far from home and familiar services . However many do recover fully from them and don’t have another. I wish you all the best of luck in sorting it out .