I fell to sleep last night naturally without taking any clonazepam. This is the 4th time that has happened in the last few months. I only slept for 2-3 hours but it made me extremely happy. It means my brain is capable of falling to sleep with taking a medication, that must mean my brain is slowly healing from the olanzapine withdrawal because in the past that was never possible. Olanzapine affects 17 different receptors in the brain and I was on 40mg for decade and a half so I guess it’s gonna take a long time for my brain to heal and all those receptors to get back to normal. Thankfully all my other withdrawal symptoms are gone.
The problem is falling to sleep naturally doesn’t happen too often. After I woke up I took my clonazepam but had trouble getting back to sleep.so I am a little tired today.
It’s been over 4 month since my last dose of Olanzapine. Looks like withdrawal insomnia is gonna be with me for a lot longer.
I’ve been on clonazepam for about 5 months now (I think) and I feel like it isn’t as effective as it used to be. I used to sleep 8 hours, then 7 hours, now it’s sometimes down to 6 hours. I don’t know what I will do if I can’t sleep. I’m worried I am slowly developing a tolerance to it.
Hi,
So I end up in hospital. When I decreased olanzapine to 1.25mg I got terrible anxiety and I could not sleep. Now they try to find me antipsychotic. I try paliperidone, but I get terrible tiredness. As well they gave to a lot of people haloperidol and we got constipated could not go to toilet.
Alena
It’s no use, all antipsychotics in the market now have side effects. The more tolerable ones are brexpiprazole,aripiprazole,lurasidone,vraylar,ziprasidone,caplyta. Since they all work on dopamine receptor, all of them has weight gain and cause motor and memory symptoms, etc
If you don’t take antipsychotic or take too low a dose, you are just going to relapse again and end up in the hospital. Then your hospital might put you on a court order which you have no say over which medicine you want to take and put on something like an injection. Do you want that?
Doesn’t matter if they are agonist or antagonist, if they work on dopamine receptors, the side effects will be similar, just the intensity might be different since they surely have some antagonistic function.
Today is 6 months without olanzapine. All my withdrawal symptoms are gone. I’m still stuck with insomnia and am taking 1.5 of clonazepam for that but I think it is improving.
Last night I fell to sleep, with the TV on, and slept for 4-5 hours without taking any sleeping pills. That would NEVER happen 6 months ago, or even 3 months ago. There have also been several times where I fell to sleep for 1-3 hours without taking any sleeping pills over the last month or two.
It seems like my brain might be slowly recovering from olanzapine withdrawal insomnia. I hope one day I can sleep 8 hours naturally, without sleeping pills, if that happens I’ll have to start the benzo withdrawal process, but I’ll deal with that when the time comes.
Hi Headspark,
How is your Olanzapine withdrawal going?I tried to quit first time I finished in hospital. 2nd time I quitted cold turkey. I was vomitting and from beginning I was sleeping now I sleep only few hours. I started to be suicidal too. I do not have other AP to go to so it seems I have to go back to Olanzapine. I wish to find AP that I will not be sleepy and I will not put on weight, but I will be able to sleep in evening. I was thinking to try Saphris.
Alena
Initially I couldn’t sleep at all. I couldn’t fall asleep or stay asleep without sleep meds. I’ve been on 1.5mg of clonazepam to sleep for about 7 months now.
Things have improved. I don’t have anymore weird withdrawal symptoms. And I can fall to sleep without my clonazepam when I am really tired, bit I only sleep for about 3 hours then I wake up. So then I take my clonazepam and go back to sleep. This is a MAJOR improvement though. When I first quit I couldn’t sleep on my own AT ALL.
I don’t know how long it will be before I will be able to sleep 8 hours without clonzepam, but in any event things are very slowly improving.
Hi,
glad you are improving. I feel really bad now. Its maybe 1 week as I quitted olanzapine cold turkey. Iam without any AP at the moment. I vomit a lot from withdrawal and had suicidal thoughts. From beginning I slept, but I sleep only few hours now. Iam thinking to try Saphris, but its just in Austria and it will costs me 230Eur. Iam still not sure if it will help me, but I want to try. The problem is a lot of new medication is not where I live. If Saphris will not help I would have to go back to Olanzapine. My problem with olanzapine is weight gain, difficulty to wake up and feeling tired.
Alena
Yeah, well it took me about 4 years of slowly reducing my dose from 40mg/day down to nothing. So I went really slow. I am now on Lurasidone 60mg and doing much better.
Olanzapine made me weigh 240lbs at my heaviest, and I also slept a lot while on it and was tired and lethargic during the day. Developed diabetes, high cholesterol and triglycerides too.
I’m guessing it’ll be another year before I fully recover from it…IF i recover from it.
Olanzapine affects 17 receptors in the brain, more than any other antipsychotic, so when you quit it takes a long time for all that neurochemistry to reset back to normal, that is why I quit very slowly, give my brain time to cope.
First I tried to quit slowly. I finished in hospital. Now I quited cold turkey so I feel really not well. I just hope that new medicine Asenapine will be good for me. Otherwise I have to go back to Olanzapine. You are lucky you are doing good now. I was stabilized recently on Olanzapine. I took some supplements that helped. Just I started to put on weight and yes I felt as well lethargic on olanzapine. Hard to wake up in the Morning. Iam praying so much for Asenapine to work as I do not feel much like living now. I feel really bad now after quitting.
Alena
Today is exactly 9 months since my last dose of Olanzapine. I can now sometimes fall to sleep without sleeping pills but I only sleep for 2-3 hours, occasionally a bit longer. After all this time I am still affected by withdrawal insomnia. It’s my last withdrawal symptom. My brain seems to be recovering from Olanzapine, albeit at a very very slow pace.
Currently taking 1.5mg of clonazepam every night so I can sleep.
Here one month after the lowering with 2 00 mg Seroquel down to 400 mg I’ve regained the ability to sleep without worsening of the psychosis. I won’t try lowering any more.
Alt1 I’ve red some good review’s about Asenapine. It should be quite gentle side effect wise. And should work quite good for positives after you’ve used it for 6 weeks.
I have been doing some reading and I think I may have a theory why olanzapine withdrawal causes insomnia, but I don’t know why it only effects only some people.
Upregulation (i.e., increase in the number) of receptors occurs when the activity of the receptor is lower than usual (e.g., due to long-term administration of an antagonist). - Source
Olanzapine is a histamine antagonist, meaning it blocks histamine receptors. According to the above source that would lead to an increase of histamine receptors in your brain, which olanzapine would then block, which would lead to more receptors, etc… After being on olanzapine for a long time you would end up with way more histamine receptors in your brain than you normally would have.
Now high levels of histamine causes insomnia. I think our histamine levels are normal, but because Olanzapine led to the creation of so many histamine receptors in our brains, they are all flooded with histamine when we quit olanzapine and this is why can’t sleep. I think this makes sense because when I took an antihistamine such as Benadryl I was able to sleep a little, it just wasn’t strong enough to give me a full nights sleep and I developed a tolerance after 4 days.
It seems it takes a long time to decrease (“down regulate”) the number of histamine receptors in your brain back to normal once you quit Olanzapine. That is why I have been off olanzapine for about 10 months and still can’t sleep properly without clonazepam. There has been some improvement, I am able to sleep for about 3-4 hours without clonazepam on average but that is it, so I think the number of histamine receptors is slowly returning back to normal.
What I don’t know is why some people are affected by Olanzapine withdrawal insomnia and others are not. Maybe some people just naturally create more histamine receptors quickly than others.
If my theory is correct, then based on that source I quoted, in order to down regulate (decrease) histamine receptors you need a histamine agonist. I’m trying to find an over the counter histamine agonist online and order it, it may help speed up my recovery, but I haven’t found one yet that isn’t a prescription.
If I can lower the number of histamine receptors in my brain I may be able to sleep normally again.