The duration of the delusions really depends, but here's an important question: is his mood back to normal? You mentioned that he's been in the hospital since June 6th. In a severly acute manic patient who's having psychotic symptoms, doctors usually prescribe a heavy anti-psychotic such as Thorazine or Haldol with Lithium for about a week, and then wean the patient off of the anti-psychotic and continue the Lithium. It usually takes a couple of weeks for the patient to be brought down from their "high." However, if he's back to a normal mood, and he's
still having the delusions, then that might signal that he has schizoaffective disorder, a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Schizoaffectives are different in the fact that they experience psychotic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations, no matter what their mood is, be if manic, depressive, or normal; bipolar patients only are psychotic if they are bipolar I and are experiencing full-blown mania. It is probably best not to encourage his delusions if he mentions them, but it also would probably not be wise to tell him that they're not true. They're very real to him, and hearing you say that you don't believe him probably would make him resent you. I'd talk to his psychiatrist about how to handle it. The thing is that you never mentioned other symptoms that he had when he first went into the hospital. Did he have any of the following: lack of sleep, flight of ideas (jumping from topic to topic so that his speech wasn't cohesive or made any sense), pressured speech (so talkative and talking so fast that you could barely understand what he was saying), going on spending sprees, feeling as if he was "on top-of-the-world" and thinking he could do anything, engaging in many different projects all at once, or feeling hypersexual? The first three are almost always seen in bipolar I mania, so if he didn't have any of these symptoms other than the grandiose delusions, then you might want to question the diagnosis. Also, if the Lithium doesn't work soon, then he may have to play around with his medications to find one that works, be it another mood stabilizer, an atypical anti-psychotic, or a combination of the two, but since he just started it a week ago, don't lose faith about the Lithium yet. Do you have any more questions?
-GatsbyLuvr1920-
How long can the delusions last? My sister is feeling that they are not helping him sufficiently. She said he's really upset now and wants to leave. I think she expects the medications to work more quickly. They put him on the lithium last week. When we see him how should we react if he brings up his delusions? My husband has cancer and my nephew called our house before he was hospitalized and said he could cure him. I'm hoping he doesn't go there when we see him. Any suggestions would be appreciated
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