How to get off clozapine, I literally can't sleep without it, terrible chronic insomnia

Take a low dose of Zyprexa instead Clozapine .
They are similar meds…

Going straight from Clozapine is hell

Are you still taking 25mg?

I’m down too 100 now

Welcome to the forum @letmesleep !

Not going to lie, your story scares me for my future. I’m on olanzapine at the moment. I’ve read tons of horror stories of people legit not being able to sleep when stopping it. What if my doctor wont give me a new script, or if the pharmacy runs out? It worries me.

I know you’re not on olanzapine, but they are both ap’s.

I wish you well.

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It’s only temporary dw. I know someone who was on it and when they stopped they had insomnia but it went back to normal after a few weeks or months

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this is what i think would happen. i cold turkied 350mg colzapine over night. cant really remember much of the next couple months and then do remember being up for days at a time but eventually it normalized. i think the key is not worrying about it or letting it make u anxious cause trying to hard to sleep or getting anxious about sleeping will prevent u from sleeping even more.

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Yes, taking 25mg clozapine + sleep stuff for the past few months.

I just hope this is temporary. It’s scary because I was using high dose amphetamines and pulling all nighters with it on the regular.

Soon I’ll try to go to the gym super hard for 2 hours and tire myself so that my body has to sleep or something at night.

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Can’t you just ask for an increased dose and save the extra? Hopefully you find a workaround.

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Did you feel a little positive symptoms on your way down?

I felt it a bit when I got down to 100mg but now it went away

I too believe my situation was drug induced…I was smoking marijuana on the daily…and I must say it made me anxious at times. I felt I could run a marathon while the rest of my friends would be super calm

Oh and the weekly getting drunk… Ahhhh, mixing both often too

The only time I had any psychotic symptoms was just before I started clozapine when I had the episode. Once I started clozapine, and was able to sleep, everything went away. I never heard any voices or had delusions since then.

The only problems I had were side effects from clozapine, like drooling, constipation, fatigue, etc. And had insomnia related issues while lowering the dose. Going down to 25mg, the side effects are still there but not as prominent.

Mind altering drugs and those with schizophrenic genes are a no no. I’ve learned the hard way I guess. Have been super clean now.

Oh yes same here
Drooling, fatigue, also tachycardia

Anyway, im gonna go down another 12.5mg soon
It’s a slow process but I’m ok

Yeah no more weed
And less and less booze on occasions

Hello @Mr_Hope , do you know interaction numbers with neurotransmetters for haldol and abilify please ?. Thanks.

No idea, you should ask a doctor.

Use a bridge drug of the Class pines that have very similar properties like Clozapine.
Try.
Olanzapine
Qutiapine
Mirtazapine antidepressant
Asenapine very expensive.

Hey guys, just an update.

I decided to add the supplement Kava to the mix, and it improved my sleep quality a bit, so I take it along with the other sleep stuff I listed before.

So recently I’ve tried lowering Clozapine again by about 1-2mg so 23-24mg (just cut a tiny triangle bit of the tablet, I have a pocket scale and did the math), and I was only able to sleep for about 3-4 hours and it wasn’t really deep. I reverted back to 25mg and I’m back to my usual 6 hours of sleep of average sleep. 6 hours makes me tired throughout the day a bit, but that’s the lower limit I am willing to do. But my dream sleep is back to my normal sleep which was 8 hours of deep sleep.

I will probably just reduce it by 0.5mg every month. I don’t want to switch to any meds but may try in the future.

I’m down to 100mg Clozaril and I find my sled is weird

Just vivid , weird dreams
But can’t really say “insomnia”
I can sleep 9 hours
But I feel any less will start to give me some of that

I’m sorry to hear about your trouble with insomnia. I’ve never had Clozipine, but do suffer from insomnia. For me, the best natural treatment is to be outdoors all day during the daylight. It helps to reset your biological clock. Even better is to be active outdoors. When I spend the entire day gardening outside I can barely make it to bed because I’m so tired. I then sleep well without any melatonin or tryptophan (the only medications i have used to treat insomnia.). I don’t think it’s good to go “super hard” at the gym. Vigorous exercise can release epinephrine and interferes with sleep, especially if you exercise vigorously in the late afternoon or evening.
I would recommend relaxing outdoor activities such as hiking (but not too fast or steep inclines), gardening, walking on the beach or just any outdoor activity that’s not stressful. Other activities such as washing and waxing car, helping neighbors with their gardens or volunteering to do outdoor activists such as picking up trash, cleaning streams, etc might be helpful as well.

Well I’ll like to say that I’ve had Insomnia for more than 20 years. For years I was in the Limbo of staying awake for 37-43 hours and afterward sleeping for 10 hours. I got a meds swap 2 years ago so now I sleep much better but the sleep intervals are now 30 hours > awake and 12 hours> asleep.
It’s sutch a relief to sleep much better and has really improved my quality of life.
Go for a bridge drug cause it will help you speedy recover from your insomnia.

Hey guys, another update.

I tried adding Glycine, and the high 15g dose that’s recommended for schizophrenia just makes me tired (I can see why it works for schizophrenia for some). I also found out that it interferes with clozapine, so I now only take a little bit of it.

When I tried reducing it again from 25mg, to around 24mg, I sleep fine, but then I lower it to 23mg and all hell breaks loose. I sleep maybe a couple of hours, and then the next day I go to 24mg and still cannot sleep normally, so I have to revert back to 25mg and then finally can sleep again. This is with all the sleep supplements I take as well. But those sleep supplements are probably causing me to be tired too.

:\

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I’m tapering my clozapine too. I went from 25 mg to 20 mg.

On Monday I see my pdoc and I want to go to 15 mg this time.

We’ll see what she says.