Clozapine is very effective, used more often in Europe in fact, and it does have a potentially lethal side effect- it can alter (lower) white blood cell counts and compromise your immune system like AIDS, that is what I recall from my reading. They do regular blood tests if you take it. My doc said that if I go nuts again, he’s putting me on it.
Now do know that it is known for making people sleep too much (it is very sedating, you take it before bed and then you pass out, I would know because I’ve taken Zyprexa (olanzipine), it’s closest relative, olanzapine which was made after Clozapine in an effort to replicate the drug without the white blood cell thing. It is known to make people drool, I remember reading that.
However, it is known to treat anxiety and even alleviate negative symptoms to a degree. If you have problems with mania, it should be a good choice, as it is not exactly activating like Abilify or Latuda, which are known to help negative symptoms and not sedate people very much at all, however everyone is unique and that is just the average report.
I myself do not have mania, I just am very irritable, irate, enraged without Geodon and my other two auxiliary meds, xanax and propanolol, which are both sedating and have been found to decrease irritability and tremors, and Geodon gave me tremors. Geodon is somewhat sedating but it doesnt really knock me out at all, I take it morning and night and then can stay out at night and be alert. The xanax is what actually makes me sit still and not go practicing martial arts. However, I do delay my afternoon dose of it and go lift weights and immediately take the pill when I leave the gym, and it works quite well, I look quite strong and well I used to be a competitive lifter but that is a long story, I just workout to look big these days.
But yeah, for mania, it should do some good. I would steer clear of Abilify. That drug is just fishy, it’s a dopamine agonist, the opposite of all other antipsychotics, and it actually IS known to backfire and make people angry, crazy, manic, ect. sometimes. I refused it because I had read about it. It is used for major depression if that says anything about how fishy it is. My paranoid brain almost thinks that it’s a sugar pill. LOL
But clozapine and zyprexa do make people hungry, it screws with the satiation mechanisms in your body, I remember gaining a couple of pounds while taking zyprexa for like a month for an acute episode in addition to my other three meds. I would eat like a big weightlifter dinner and then not feel full. I had a hard time waking up. I slept like ten hours. It gave me sexual dysfunction, erectile dysfunction and it made sex pretty hard, I went limp twice while having sex but eventually it all came out ok…pun intended.
I love talking about meds. My first year, I was a neuroscience major.