I was sleeping 16+ hours, drooling, constipated, trouble speaking and thinking straight… just on autopilot barely living. I gained 20# while taking Risperidone, then 50# in 4 months on Clozapine. I feel, looking back, that I had just given up on life. I think I was put on this so early (it being the 2nd AP I had taken) because it was kind of an emergency situation. I was super suicidal and had command hallucinations telling me to hurt myself. So I can say it worked, Clozapine did its job. I was no longer in imminent danger but it was no life for me to live.
I do not recommend doing what I did. I quit cold turkey. It was like one day I woke up out of this haze and took a look at my life and body. I quit taking it that day. No SE or withdrawals from quitting (I don’t remember the dose I was taking). I lost 40#, it just melted right off. Amazing. It was the best 6-8 months of my recent life. That is until the depression came back in full force and I ended up hospitalized. They put me on a super high dose of Saphris. This was the 1st wonder drug for me.
But in hindsight, I guess I respond well to most meds, just happen to get most of the SE from them as well. Except for Risperidone and Lurasidone, those -idones are not for me. I believe Saphris is in the same drug family as Clozapine, its generic is Asenapine. So if you respond to one it is likely you will respond to the other.
Starting with the worst, I had the worst time with Geodon. Couldn’t sleep without it, it gave me palpitations, made me feel like I was short circuiting when the dosage ran out and I forgot to get more. Not to mention the other side effects. On the plus side, didn’t gain weight that I couldn’t lose.
Abilify is the best med for me so far, in terms of curbing psychosis and paranoia. I still have certain stubborn beliefs and fears, but they’re manageable and not encroaching every second of the day.
I tried riperidone once. It made me feel entirely numb emotionally and robotic. But it was great for all of my symptoms, just too broad a stroke.
Seroquel - orthostatic hypotension, i fainted several times getting out of the hospital bed
Zyprexa - Went from 225 lbs to 245 in a couple weeks, I have stretch marks to prove it
Risperdal - Made me tired like all SGAs do but warnings were coming out about gyno/man boobs so I said I need something better than this
Abilify - I got through grad school on this, took after clinic at 530 and then slept 630-9pm and then it was time for bed anyways so I went back to bed at 10pm
Latuda = WINNER: Negligible antihistamine and anticholinergic side effects, still sedating but remember — all second generation antipsychotics are also called MAJOR TRANQUILIZERS. So I found out that taking Latuda at 9pm at night with food (food increases absorption into blood by two fold) and then I sleep very well.
I am on Lithium 900 mg twice per day and night dose i take Latuda 40 mg. It took me 4.5 years (A looooooong time) to get this figured out so please spread the word. Latuda also has minimal EPS because it blocks D2 receptors at about 50-75%. Any drug that blocks it at 78% or more has shown to cause EPS (Extrapyramidal symptoms) like tardive dyskinesia, tremors, etc.
@Skims what you describe is what I fear the clozapine treatment will do to me. I have decided today not to proceed with it. I will disclose this this week in a meeting with the psychiatrist
Worst: probably seroquel. It made me faint multiple times while I was on it, and I had not even been on it for more than two months I think. Zyprexa worked great for me in the beginning, but after about a year and a half, I started gaining weight and gained around 50 pounds in less than a year.
Best: Definitely invega. It works great against my symptoms, and the only side effect I’ve noticed is I sleep more. My paranoia is not completely gone on it, but it helps a lot in my opinion.
Worst: Abilify- made my psychosis a thousand times worse
Best: Risperdal Consta, Geodon, Seroquel- in combination, eliminated all my psychosis and mood symptoms
In the beginning I was on some medication that I don’t even remember years ago because I kept denying I had a problem but it made me gain almost 30lbs, sleep all day, lethargic and basically my brain wasn’t functioning the way it used to. Just like one of the posters talks about being in a haze I was in one too and feeling very down. Eventually I just quit cold-turkey and even though I had a little bit of a rough time I basically pushed through it and had basically the best 1 year in a long time. I was productive, working, saving, excercising, eating goood, sleeping properly, and most of lost all the weight that I gained in about 3 months.
However, my symptoms came back and I lost my mind again and eventually had to get baker acted for the 4th and now my hope will be the last time. I am on Invega Sustenna 234mg monthly injection and it has gotten rid of most of my positive symptoms which took between 5 - 8 months to completely go away and it was complete hell even getting to this point.
But I am a lot more stable, grounded in reality, not delusional, don’t hallucinate, neither am I constantly talking to myself all the time or when no one is around, my mind is a lot more calmer but not all the way because I still have random intrusive thoughts and paranoia and most of all the voices are almost non existent.
The only problem are the side effects and the negative symptoms that I have been dealing with for the past few months which have been very tough. I don’t plan to give up because I have made a lot of progress and maintained stability for the past 8 months and have to just hang in there. But Invega Sustenna has been the best medication so for me at this stage of my treatment and my pdoc will be lowering the dose in another month so we’ll see how that goes.