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Comment by tominous | Hacker News Reader

For the last few years I've been keeping an eye on Geneuro [1]. They're trialling a HERV-W antibody on the theory that this endogenous retrovirus triggers an immune reaction in the brain that causes multiple sclerosis. Schizophrenia may also share a similar etiology [2]. When/if it does get approved for MS, I will be asking if it can be tried off-label on my brother with schizophrenia (although of course it may be too late now anyway, 15 years after his diagnosis).

[1] http://www.geneuro.ch/en/news-press

[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26404170/

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To late in the sense that his mind is already gone at this point? I have a brother who also has schizophrenia, and as time goes on I wonder if any chance of return to normality still exists...

It's impossible to know. There are examples like John Nash where there is apparently a very good outcome, so I wouldn't lose hope. However, I would be concerned about long term physical changes from both the disease and the existing treatment. Separately I don't know how one would cope with "waking up" from years of schizophrenia - would the delusions persist even if the initial cause is removed?

My mother was diagnosed schizophrenic at around 38 yrs old. She was hospitalized after every relapse, probably a dozen times. Each time she relapsed, it was at least a month, if not several months before we were able to get her in to treatment because of her refusal. It would take an incident with the police to initiate the process. My mom is now 62. She's medicated, happy, and perfectly normal. She hasn't had a full relapse in about 10 yrs, there were moments when hints of it would return, and she would be aware enough to self-correct and continue medication. The only problems she says she has is that she doesn't feel as quick-witted as she used to be. As for the memories, she occasionally has a hard time distinguishing real memories from invented memories. Most of the voices were obviously fake to her, now that she's clear headed and can reevaluate what happened. There were occasions where one of the voices she had was her sister's, and she now has a hard time reconciling real memories from false ones in that situation. She tends to avoid talking to her because when she hears that voice, painful memories come back and she gets stressed. Stress is a major factor in relapses, so she sadly tries to avoid it. At least in my mom's case, this anecdotal evidence suggests it's definitely possible to recover after being "gone" for months at a time. Not enough families are able to cope with the trauma this causes and fight this disease and, instead, let their family member "do what they want." Which usually means they become homeless and lost until they die. Happens a lot here in LA (skidrow). I personally know people that couldn't cope with the trauma it caused their family so they let them wander off to whereever they wanted. Almost without fail, they end up in skid row. Strangely enough, we have a history of auto-immune disorders in my family: Hashimoto's (2) and Alopecia Areata (2). Depression and bipolar as well (most likely every sibling, diagnosed or not). It's an area of study I've recently been interested in because it seems promising in preventing schizophrenia and maybe curing our depression. There's so much great research going on in this area, from anti-virals, immunosuppressive drugs, to even dietary changes and fasting (something I've recently piloted on myself). It seems promising. In my case it's already yielded results in that I'm no longer constantly sleepy. Hopefully we'll have this fully sorted and cured in under 15 yrs. I think it has the potential to be revolutionary on a global scale.

People with bipolar tend to have higher antibodies to gliadin (gluten) than controls. People with schizophrenia have higher casein (dairy) antibodies than controls. In neither case does it cause the illness, but in both in can impact severity of symptoms. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21320252 And http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22801085. It does not mean it applies to everyone, but scandinavian/Northern European people with milder cases of both illness often actually have autoimmune disease. One study found 7percent of schizophrenia inpatients actually had Celiac, to say nothing of other autoimmune disorders. More: http://www.celiac.com/categories/Celiac--Disease--Research.....

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