I didnât argue with her so I didnât ask why.
Just out of curiosity, what makes you convinced clozapine is too dangerous? I know the blood tests can be scary, but unless you get the weird blood side effect, it actually has a m,uch lower side effect profile than most others. Lowest incidence of TD, low association with weight gain, low association with negative symptoms.
I enjoy your posts.
I enjoy your ankles!
[ nip ]
Iâm the only person I know out of many clozapine users who had the side-effect. Itâs a very safe drug for the vast majority of people. I just have weird luck with health stuff.
My Dr told me its the med that causes the most weight gain even more than Zyprexa. The other Dr said its similar to Zyprexa and causes much more weight gain than my Risperidone.
I suppose I am mostly going off anecdotal evidence but some of the most productive SZ folks I know IRL are on clozapine. They sleep 12 hours a day, then wake up and are extremely active. None of them have gained weight, but they also started the drug at a much lower weight than you would be starting at, and were already in active habits. Itâs really hard to build up a new habit of being active, but once you are into the groove, it does come back.
If you can live with full psychosis sure. Otherwise the only solution is looking for a new drug.
Maybe you are angry about your situation. Not so happy to live with your family. I donât know. You say you get in trouble with your family because you are angry. Maybe you can talk to them about lowering the dose of your meds and that the emotions doesenât mean that you are sickâŚyou are just adjusting to feelings. If you are aware that you get irritated you can work on controlling those emotions. But only you know best. Have you been on some drugs that didnât make you irritated?
I just know for myself that living at home with my old folks made me angry a couple of times because they get too interacted in my dealings and life.
My doctor told me the exact same thing. When I was overweight he took a tape measure and measured the girth of my stomach. He was also my dadâs doctor, my dad had a heart attack about 20 years ago and the doc knows there is a history of heart attacks on my fathers side of the family. He told me I was at risk of a heart attack because my big gut put stress on my heart, that was scary.
That was one of the reasons I started lowering my olanzapine, I did lose weight as I reduced my dosage but not enough, when I got too low a dosage I became psychotic and that is when I transitioned to Lurasidone, which has worked out great.
This is where Iâm at right now. More fat means my heart has to do more work. Iâm losing weight to reduce the strain on my pump.
Why do you think Vraylar is safer than Rexulti? If you had a bad experience with Abilify, Vraylar may be even worse. I donât know about Rexulti, but my understanding is that Vraylar is the most activating of the three.
-Albert.
Because my Dr and the FDA said so. Rexulti has the same FDA warnings as Abilify, Vraylar doesnât. My last 2 Drs said Rexulti is very similar to Abilify so they wonât prescribe it.
Weird.
All three share the general mechanism of action, being dopamine partial agonists. The main difference between Vraylar and the other two is that it has a preference for the dopamine D3-receptor, which is incidentally the most strongly associated with reward and thus addictions. Depending on the details of the partial dopamine agonism (ie. does it result in an increase or decrease in D3-related signalling in the relevant parts of the brain?), it may be either particularly risky or vice versa.
-Albert.
Yea thats why its better for negative symptoms and cognition I read. 40% D2, 60% D3.
Better than Abilify and Rexulti.
Did you try Vraylar or Clozapine? I wonder whats better for negative symptoms and cognition. Clozapine is a partial D1 partial agonist but weak D2 blocker.
I realize it is frustrating, to say the least, to have to take medâs that have so many detrimental effects. I think a lot of us have negative feelings about that. But the costs of psychosis can be extreme. You donât want to end up in the criminal system. At least in America, theyâre using the jails as psychiatric facilities these days. Talk to your doctor about it. If you show your pdoc that you donât want to fight the program, that you just want to recover some of your old vigor, your pdoc might be amenable.
Thatâs the way I feel. I gained at least 
pounds on clozapine