My Zyprexa Experience

Medications
1

Hello everyone! This will be my first post here. I’m diagnosed with SZA & my best medication used to be Seroquel, until it started to mess with my heart too much.

I’m currently in the process of getting back on some AP & I’ve been leaning on giving Zyprexa another shot. However, I am a bit perplexed by this & I wonder if someone here has gotten the same kind of reaction to it that I did. So in general: when people describe Zyprexa they usually talk about hunger, cravings for fat & sweets, an unstoppable appetite & everything tasting spectacular. I quite liked Zyprexa, even though it made me having trouble staying awake during the day (though it wasn’t like I was sleepy or tired, it was more like sleep invading everything). My highest dose was 7.5mg, stayed on it for a bit over a month. Here comes the weird part: I could barely eat while on the medication. I had zero appetite, I would usually eat normal to large portions of food & had no problem with eating at any time of the day: Zyprexa just made me want to vomit at the sight of food, no matter the time. Eating even a small portion of food would take me at least an hour & I couldn’t eat sweets or snacks. I still have problems with some foods after quitting it 4 months ago, those things just taste foul now. Even just a consuming a simple salad felt like a mission to the moon.

So, anyone that experienced something similar while on Zyprexa & have any advice? I usually do better on night-time medications, weather it is an AP or an AD which is why I’m almost willing to try it again. I can’t tolerate Lithium anymore, since it messes with my thinking too much after 6+ years (Valproate is an option but I fear it also would mess too much with thinking) which means that my pdoc wants me on something that can stabilize both upwards & downwards in mood. I’d like to try Latuda, but since it doesn’t affect mania my pdoc isn’t fully on board. It basically stands between Zyprexa, Abilify or Risperdal/Invega (some newer meds aren’t available in my country yet) & it sucks. My only medication atm is Mirtazapine.

Well, that’s that. Happy weekend everyone!

2 Likes
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Hey inside the heart machine…

When i went on zyprexa i started on 5 mg and i had huge cravings for sugar and food…

As the dose went up i started having less cravings up until im on 20 mg and am eating what i would say is normal.

Same thing happened with me being tired. I was tired on a lower dose and at 20 mg im not really tired anymore and my sleeping patterns are fine.

As for my taste buds they seem to be acting good :slight_smile:

P.S welcome to the forum :sunglasses:

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I took Zyprexa but not for very long. It didn’t do anything for me. No improvement.

Welcome to the club

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I gained 60 lbs. in 120 days when I was on Zyprexa. I craved sugar and sleep. Sometimes the thought of sleeping a lot is appealing to me, but I got off Zyprexa as soon as I could.

1 Like
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Hello Wallafish & thank you!

I’m afraid to go higher than 7.5mg since it was so hard to be awake (5mg was fine), but might try it this time if I choose to go with it.

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Thank you & bummer :frowning:

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That sucks to hear, did you manage to lose the weight afterwards? I actually lost weight while I took it (maybe not that weird since I barely ate), or at least seemed slimmer than before starting it heh.

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No, but I did stabilize my weight after I got off Zyprexa. Part of the reason I gained so much weight is that I was starting from a very lean body. I went on a seven day hunger strike while I was in jail, and before that I had operated with a substantial calorie deficit for an extended period of time. Part of the reason I gained all that weight was because I needed to gain it. These days I weigh almost a hundred pounds more than I did when I got out of jail.

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I have been taking zyprexa for 5 years almost. Its totally different from other aps. Other aps make me drowzy but im fully alert with zyprexa. I dont even feel im on ap. But 10 mg makes me tired and get fat. So im taking 7.5 mg. My eyes roll on top of my head with 10 mg. But not with 7.5 mg. Im very pleased with zyprexa.