My pdoc prescribed me Haldol yesterday. I’ve been on a ton of atypical antipsychotics in the past, and this is the next step I guess (moving to the older, typical antipsychotics). She started me off on a really low oral dose as I still get my Invega injection, and I take Risperdal at night. She said if by next visit, in one month, my symptoms improve, we will begin the transition off the Invega and Risperdal on to Haldol.
I’m a bit nervous about being on it, from what I’ve heard of other people’s experiences. I don’t want it to mess up my school or work schedules, and I know making big med changes can do that. I wish we had transitioned in the summer, but I was feeling OK then. Now I just feel not so OK…mood wise I’m fine, mentally my head is full of static.
Any words to calm my worries, or give me expectations? If you’ve been on it, how long till you started seeing symptom improvement?
A lot of it’s trial and error of what works for each person. Try not to focus on the negatives as you can always go off it if it’s a problem. Who knows, it might be your wonder drug and I’m hoping it’s the case for you.
@Elizabeth, good luck with Haldol. I hope it works for you. It didn’t work for my family member. If you see any side effects notify your Psychiatrist. Wishing you the best as everyone is different.
Hi @elizabeth. I take 15-20 mg of oral Haldol a day. I flunked out on all the atypicals. Haldol has been a wonder med for me. It took about 3 hours to quell the agitation, and maybe a week at most to knock out the voices. I also take Cogentin to help attenuate the side effects. It’s no big deal really, just one extra pill to swallow.
it didnt do anything for me to be honest except turn me into a zombie but from another friend of mine, it worked wonders and knocked out his voices within an hour of taking it so it affects different people diffferently i guess. in fact my voices were worse on haldol than any other med so far i think. a starting abilify on the 7th but i doubt it will do anything for me as my voices aren’t stemming from a brain disease. -( good luck with the haldol hunni. hope it brings you some relief.
i’m on haldol depot. had been on prolixin depot but that crapped out on me. i got put in the hospital but was already bad off and had some coherence issues, so i can’t really say precisely how long to efficacy. i think i was there less than a month? it worked faster than that though. the immediate injections had me sorted in some respects within a day or so. depot is harder to gauge sometimes. it’s a couple of days to maximum, and then good. unsure how that compares to tablets.
with the haldol, for the past several months on it: it works as well as anything can (only really for hallucinations and delusions though, not so much for disorganization/coherence problems) and i take cogentin for EPS issues. good luck with it; hope it helps.
Thank you @etre. I take Artane for my EPS from the Invega and Risperdal that I’m currently on. I hope I can stay on that because Cogentin was an awful experience for me.
i’ve taken artane and just had the opposite experience. cogentin was better for me. but i’ve taken both, and also propranolol, so you should be able to keep with what works for you. take care!
I was initially taking 2.5 mg…a couple nights ago I was feeling awful and got in for an emergency appointment the next day. In the meantime though I was to up my dose to 5 mg for the night. Now after seeing the doctor they discontinued my Risperdal and put me on 10 mg Haldol. I just got my Invega injection last week, but now they are talking about putting me on a Haldol injection. I wonder how that transition will work.
No side effects spare some tiredness. I might ask to go on provigil for help with that.