Hey everybody. I have paranoid Schizophrenia diagnosed 6 years ago when I was 20 and I’ve been on the following anti-psychotic medication:
Risperidone
Abilify
Latuda
Loxapine (current med).
I find the Loxapine really ineffective right now plus it has too many side effects (bad akathisia). Latuda was the best asides from the one hour of fatigue/low mood I’d get 30 minutes after I’d take it. I discontinued it because I was in the middle of a personal crisis and I relapsed big time and went into hospital for a short time. When I tried taking it again, I mixed it with sleeping pills and I was having very angry thoughts/ideas. I didn’t realize that the sleeping could have triggered those thoughts. Anyhoo, after a few months of some self experimentation with an Abilify 20MG/Risperidol 0.5MG combo (which didn’t work) I was put on Loxapine 50MG which I now hate/doesn’t work well. My pdoc (who is an addiction specialist) says that says once you discontinue a medication, it won’t be as effective the second time around. Is this true?
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Jenny
I think the thing about a medication not being as effective the second time around is something that is specific to everyone who takes it. I know there is supposed to be some science behind it but as with all of these meds there are no guarantees and things that are wildly successful for some people are a nightmare for others. If there is something you really want to try again I would convince your doc to give it a shot and have support with it. I mean, the fact that it worked once is also a good sign so who knows?
One thing to be mindful of is that switching on and off different things hoping for wonderful results can lead to problems. If you have a doc whipping you on and off things, even if doing so is absolutely necessary, you can quickly end up having taken everything on the market and then wondering why you will never get better. Sometimes things take a lot of time to adjust to. Even after you have titrated properly you can expect things to change. Sometimes being on something that is at least somewhat effective can lead to improvements after months of taking it. My personal theory is that you should try to take something that doesn’t give you bad side effects and at least helps your symptoms a little - then work with it. These meds can cause a lot of awful side effects and/or be ineffective or make us feel worse. If you can start with a goal to just stabilize yourself a little and adjust to life and the med so that you are getting stronger bit by bit you will be able to take off from there and try to make changes in your life that will improve your condition. The meds aren’t going to cure you but you can help to cure yourself.
I found that Latuda was easier to tolerate than almost anything else but that’s just me of course. I also had some side effects that were very annoying but I didn’t have the option to switch right then and I knew that I had experienced much worse and I wanted to work with it. I found my body adjusted after a few months, even after I’d titrated to my long-term dose (which was clinically approved max dose at the time). I’m not sure where you are in your journey of med taking or what sorts of experiences you have had with them. Some people and some doctors have this idea that if a med isn’t making you completely better then you need to switch to something else. It can be taxing on you to keep switching and have certain expectations of a drug. They will all hit you differently and you are sort of just at the mercy of your body when you try something new. It’s possible to predict your response to a degree but that’s really all we have to work with. I think you’ve tried a few different things and you have some experience understanding how you react to meds. I would evaluate what your wants are and what your responses have been. The thing with fatigue after Latuda is something I have heard many people have. I had it along with awful blurry vision as it was peaking. I took it later (which I know can be difficult with the whole calorie requirement) and knew that after I took it I would just see how things went and if I had to lie down or even go to sleep early that’s what I would get. After a month or so I noticed it wasn’t as strong of an effect and eventually that went away entirely. You really have to give these drugs a shot and know what you want. Other things you are taking can definitely factor in. You gotta have a good doc who will look at everything.
Not sure if any of this helps. It’s a bitch to juggle but that’s the reality of it.
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I have anger issues on latuda too. A sort of obsessive thought disorder. I started therapy for stress managwment.
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@sleepybug is back 
I have been on Latuda before but I didn’t have a very good experience with it, it made me vomit within half an hour of taking it every night.
I think if you want to try it again, the only way to know whether or not it will be more or less effective, is to try it. I hope your psychiatrist is supportive of you trying it again.
If it worked for your before and you were happy taking it, then I think that is a real plus for trialing it again.
I have tried four different medicines while also remaining on invega. The only time I was ever totally off invega was when I was taking latuda.
The latuda didn’t work out well for me so I went back on invega. And it has been working well for me ever since restarting it. I don’t think it has lost any effectiveness since stopping and starting again.
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