Hi!
I was wondering how fast your antipsychotics take to work?
I take quite a potent one, and notice within a couple of days that my symptoms lessoned. Then I noticed slightly more help little by little over a few weeks.
I read somewhere that some antipsychotics can give help within 24 hours.
I am really interested to learn about other peoples experiences 
It’s a hard question to answer, for everyone is different. It’s common for anti-psychotics to not work at all, which is why many people have to try several anti-psychotics before they find the one that works best for them. I tried almost all of the atypical anti-psychotics, with no relief of symptoms, before I was put on an anti-psychotic that ameliorates my symptoms (Seroquel). I don’t remember exactly how long it took for Seroquel to begin helping.
In general, I would say it takes about 6 weeks for an anti-psychotic to begin relieving symptoms of schizophrenia, and several months for full therapeutic effect.
I’d say 24 to 48 hours is about right,
but longer and longer, hopefully all the side effects go away.
It took 3 months for abilify to work for me. I think the only one that can act quickly is haldol, but I could be wrong.
Well I take perphenazine which is supposed to be similar to Haldol. I can´t remember how.
I am super-lucky, I have no side effects as yet. But I was surprised at it´s quick action. I have only ever taken the newer ones, abilify, seroquel and risperidone. They did nothing for me.
So you can guess I am surprised at this working so quickly!
You might find the side effects creeping in after a month or so. You can minimise side effects by finding out the minimum dose that works for you. But there’s always side effects unfortunately. Be prepared, and keep your doctor updated on side effects. Also have regular blood tests to make sure things are OK under the hood.
Good advice. I read about a risk for parkinsons-like symptoms, I will just my eye on things 
the sedation clears a bit after the first two or three days with a lot of antipsychotics. that might be why.
It took two months for the Risperdal to gradually work. In the past I have also tried seroquel and abilify which did nothing for me.
It depends if you’re taking typical or atypical antipsychotics. For me, the typicals work faster, but they make me feel so bad that life loses its appeal for me when I take them. The atypicals work fast enough for me, and when I take them I don’t feel so bad. Both classes of antipsychotics have side effects I don’t like. For me, the typicals stay in my system longer than the atypicals. When I stopped taking the Prolixin depot injection it took about seven or eight months before I started to hallucinate again. The typicals might work better than the atypicals, but they make me feel so bad that life loses all its meaning for me. When I take those drugs I turn into a great big lump of nothing. If they tried to put me on typical ap again I’m not sure I could face it. I might choose to live on the street and be psychotic.
I am sorry to hear the typicals work so bad for you.
I am the opposite, abilify put me to sleep, risperdal did nothing, and seroquel did nothing either.
I tried Haldol and that was good, but trilafon supposedly has a lower incidence of bad side effects.
I appreciate everyone´s answers, thank you.
The start to work after a few days for me but the full effects can take months to present themselves.
When i stop my meds it takes three days before I get symptoms again, but if I start taking it again it takes at least two months to get back to where I was before I stopped.
Bear in mind that I have Schizoaffective Disorder, not Schizophrenia, but I do have a LOT of psychotic symptoms when I’m bad.
Some of them work very quickly. Haldol calms me and eases the paranoia within a few hours but takes a few weeks to get rid of the voices, and never actually got rid of it entirely even after several months. I currently take Invega and I didn’t notice much change on 3, 6, or 9mg but once I switched to 12mg a day it was like hitting the mute button on the tv: No more voices! Paranoia is almost gone and delusions are gone. This is after 1 month.
I started feeling better at about 4 months. That’s when my “images being unreal” hallucination went away. I guess for me it started to come around later.
my progress is slow in my case but i am ill since child and now i am 34 years old. i am already 7 months on Zyprexa and my pdoc said to me that sometimes, in some people, it can take years to see an improvement. ive tried many aps in the past and for the moment Zyprexa suits me the best… ill have to work hard to improve my negative symptoms and i find Zyprexa helps me even for this :). it even gives me an energy to be on my feet in the day even though that i still dont go out so much…