Is mental or menopause?

[1devotedhusband]

My wife is 47, has no history of mental illness. We have been married 6 years, we separated 2 years back, during our separation she had some problems, got involved with some drugs (crank) for a short time after which she started seeing a psychiatrist, he diagnosed her as schizophrenia and has her on effexor xr 225mgs a day, the problems she is having is she has periods where she just wants to cry and wants to hurt herself by banging her head on something, she has these symtoms sometimes together sometimes separately. She also has hot flashes, having gone through or is going through memopause. She is not on any HRT medication. We have been back together for over a year with no marriage problems and very happy together. We are really concerned and don't know what to do next, I have searched the web and found no one with these symtons,and no answers to my questions, can you please help in any way?

[fuzzy882]

I agree with jennifer on the second opinion.
But, I have to tell you something about what happened to me at that age.(now i'm 51)
When I hit 44, my mind also did some crazy things. Everyone said it was the "change" Ok, I accepted it, went on my crazy way.  But, after a considerable amount of time enough was enough and I went to see a dr., He agreed too that the "change" was for sure part of it, and also depression/anxiety/panic/hypothyroid/ you name it. So it did take some time to get ME figured out, but with the help of a good dr. and family/friends/ the right medications, I think I can safely say Im on my way back.

SOOOOO, back to that second opinion, Yes, do go for it,  some women go through this with no problem some dont. There is help out there for this.

Good Luck hubby

[Jennifer375]

I dont know enough about the drug abuse , or about effexor other than what Iv heard others on there say about what a rough med it can be to deal with for somone its not working for... but based soley on the diagnosis your doctors given her of schizophrenia... Id be seeking a second opinion immediatly.

I find it really hard to believe that a seriouse mental disease like schizophrenia would be entirely misssed during the years when it usually first appears in ones early 20s... and thats shes been walking around hearing voices and having hallucinations and abnormal thoughts all these years,, and NO body including herself notice it.

It just strikes a deep chord of 'somethings not right here' with me too.

*Wishing you and yours peace*