I'm coming off invega sustenna

Have you noticed any improvements so far?

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I have almost all of those side effects from Invega Sustenna 234 mg. I want to come off of it but my doctor wants me to wait until my positive symptoms are more stable first. Nobody believes me that negative symptoms are either created or made worse by Invega. Especially the low motivation is bad for me.

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@Skatchatoon my doctor also made me wait for 2 years before switching (which was a very long time). I’m also of the belief that APs can sometimes worsen negative symptoms. Hope you are able to switch soon and that those side effects go away!

@arbie I was planning on posting an update on the 29th of this month but I will post it now

:::::::::UPDATE (1month after last injection)::::::::::
So to recap, I took a 50 mg injection on July 29th. I thought I was going to take the 25 mg injection this month, but my pdoc told me to not take anymore injections after the 50 mg one.
Basically, the half life of invega sustenna is 25-50 days, so my thinking is that is took about 30 days for the concentration in my body to reach 50 mg, which is around this date. I didn’t have any major changes, because I’m still on 2/3rds of the dose I was on, but some things happened which I think are mention worthy.
I was listening to music one day (can’t remember exactly when, but probably two weeks after my last injection), after I woke up from an afternoon nap, and in during one particular song, I felt the same kind of motivation that I used to feel when I used to go the gym. But it only lasted for the duration of that song.
Also, this other time I was listening to music as well, I actually felt like I enjoyed listening to a new song I had discovered. But I only noticed it for that song. And I didnt listen to it for much time.
So yeah, not much to report, and maybe these things were kinda placebo, but I’ll keep looking for things like these.

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I hope things keep going well for you keep us informed

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Update? How are you doing?

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@arbie Hey. I was planning to post on the 29th, but I’ll post it now
:::::::::UPDATE (2 months after last injection)::::::::::
So this month I noticed a couple things. I was thinking about the japanese classes that I am taking and then it hit me. I thought to myself “hell yes! it’s gonna be so f*cking cool when I’m fluent in japanese!” and I think you could say that for that short moment I was excited. I’m also planning on rejoining the gym at the start of next month (sooner rather than later), and I was checking out gyms close to me. I came by one that was pretty large and had lots of equipment, and I had that “hell yeah” moment all over again.
Also, a couple of days ago, I was with two of my best friends just hanging out and I think I was lightly enjoying their company, because prior to being with them I was feeling bad about an upcoming job interview, and after hanging out I had completely forgotten about it and felt better.
Just a couple of things this month, there’s still alot of room for improvement, but let’s keep going and see what happens

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Invega will leave and lose it’s effectiveness in 25 days and at most 49 days per the tests. After the half life it can’t have much effectiveness. Many people have had good luck with Invega for some time. If you go off try to find another anti-psychotic.

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Hey so would you say you recommend coming off invega? Ive been on this injection for 4 years and ive been pretty happy with it except the constant negative symptoms like hard to hold a train of thought while speaking and lack of emotions and just slow thinking n replying while talkin oh and social ANXIETY. Did it help in that area for u or did u never have a problem with it?

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I am on the injection.my negatives were awful, but adding 10mg Abilify a day realy helped. I feel almost normal.

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Hey, Did u have the same problems with negative symptoms as me?

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My negatives were awful. To the point I thought about quitting the injection. But adding Abilify made me feel human again.

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I have the same negatives as you. I stopped the injection 3 months ago and I’m still suffering from horrible side effects.

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How long were u on the injection for what dose? Did u show signs of any improvement?

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how much of what you listed is from psych meds, and how much of it is just normal schizophrenia illness
Zyprexa causes diabetes.

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Was on it for 3 months, 156 mg. No signs of improvement whatsoever.

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Did u feel the same negative symptoms before the injection? Or did u just have it after? And was the injection just made u realize u had it or is it the cause of the symptoms? Just want to clear that up for myself since ive been taking it way too long haha

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I felt the negative symptoms on my 3rd month of taking the injection. Which makes me wonder if it’s the injection causing my issues or if it’s just the schizo…

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@Nelson23 hey sorry for the long wait on my reply. I can neither recommend coming off or staying on invega sustenna. It’s gotta be a decision taken by the person that is taking it. Some questions you gotta ask yourself are, for example, “can I continue living with the side effects that invega gives me?” and “am I willing to switch to an antipsychotic whose side effects I don’t know?”. If you answered ‘no’ to the first question, I would suggest switching to another antipsychotic

@Daze I actually was suffering from a psychotic break for about a year before I took invega sustenna. And I had none of the side effects I listed. Only when I took invega did they start to appear.
Thanks for the concern about zyprexa. But I think most people that get diabetes on zyprexa are also obese/overweight. I am able to control my weight and I can safely I’m not even close to being overweight

Dont give up according to another post i saw about coning off invega here which @Qirat posted above this guy was back to normal after 6 months even though he only had depression he had negative symptoms from invega sustenna after he was on it for 3 months like u

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