Had anyone been on Haldol before? My doctor p started me on 2.5 mg for a few days then I was supposed to jump to 5mg.
At first it was great. Haldol knocked me right back into reality and it was crazy to see how “crazy” I had been. I was ready to hail Haldol as my savior. Then the side effects started.
All of a sudden, about 4 days in I was got with the worst Anhedonia. Nothing brought me any joy or disappointment. I was incapable of reacting to anything around me and felt like I was going crazy.
Also am getting tremors in my hands and feet, my jaw keeps going up and down, I have no control. On top of that moving is just difficult in general. Like my brain has to work too hard to do anything.
This morning I didn’t take any in order to give my brain a break. But I can feel the delusions and paranoia/ fear creeping back. My psych recommended taking 1.25 mg tonight to work back onto it.
Had anyone experienced these issues? Do they go away? I’d rather be crazy than feel this way all the time.
Yeah, maybe so. My doctor said Abilify is an option. I’m just terrified of weight gain and the haldol worked so well at first. Really disappointed that I haven’t been able to find a good fit for medication. Abilify will be the fifth that I’ve tried.
Almost all APs cause negative symptoms like anhedonia. The best for negative symptoms for me was Abilify but it gave me more serious side effects than negative symptoms like anhedonia.
Yup. That is what haldol does. In me it got worse over time. If you are on it too long, the zombie feeling will stay with you even if you quit. All other AP i tried had the same effect, only Abilify a bit less so, but it didnt work for me. It is worth a try.
I decided to be on a lower dose haldol (0.5mg) and it is somewhat more bearable.
Oh wow!
.5 was what I’ve seen as a recommended starting point. So I was really thrown off when I was told to start at 2.5mg and then bump right up to 5mg after a couple days. My psych even said the next step would be up to 7.5 mg throughout the day. I don’t know how she expected me to function! Even on 2.5mg I’ve had to drink a ton of coffee and use ephedrine just to be somewhat human.
The way she prescribed the meds seemed less like outpatient and more like being inpatient where you use anti psychotics to knock someone back into reality. Maybe she’s going by old school haldol rules where they regularly had very high doses. Now, as far as I can tell, recommendations seem to be to keep under 10 and try to never go above 30.
How did you get your psych to agree to such a low dose? Just filled my Ability prescription, she prescribed 2.5mg which seems low to me. Maybe she is being cautious due to my haldol side effects.
For right now I’m thinking of sticking to a lower dose of Haldol, no more than 2.5 mg, and starting on Abilify. Maybe using them together will let me keep the Haldol dose to something more manageable.
Haldol is unique in that it can have immediate effects. That why in psych hospitals they might give you some haldol on arrival to bring you back to normal quickly.
I’m on abilify and that can take a month before it works.
But if you’re getting those kind of side effects on haldol maybe it’s not the med for you.
They didnt agree. I do not recommend this, but i went against their advice. They always wanted me on 2-3mg (5mg for a few days in crisis). 7.5mg is a lot. My current psychiatrist agreed i do not have schizophrenia though, but other psychosis, and wasnt as sensitive to psychosis as is seen in sz…so i might respond differently.
I hope Abilify works. 2.5 is a very low dose. I used 10mg.