Rapid Onset Psychosis after Reduction of the Risperidone Dose

Discontinuation of antipsychotic drugs may provoke a rapid-onset psychosis (also called supersensitivity psychosis). We report the cases of two patients diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, who after minimum reductions of the risperidone dose, underwent relapses of a greater magnitude than expected over the course of their illness, needing higher doses of medication with each relapse. The fast and progressive increase of the doses necessary to control the symptoms in the successive episodes makes it necessary for us to establish a distinction between resistant schizophrenia and rapid-onset psychosis. After discarding persistent chronic symptomatology in our patients and perceiving concomitant physical symptoms on the removal of the antipsychotic medication, we find it is possible to consider that we are dealing with rapid-onset psychosis.

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