I’ve now made it one week on 3.75mg Olanzapine.
I feel almost normal and my sense of joy and emotions have returned!
Can feel a little bit more stressed and have had the odd paranoid thought. But overall nothing to concerning.
Now I’m just wondering if I should tell my medical team about it? Or should just go back up to 5mg and treat it as a successful experiment. As they say I can reduce to 2.5 mg in six months?
When I went off meds, there was a honeymoon period of about a month when I felt great, then it all went south.
So a week off meds for a week doesn’t tell you much about being off meds long term.
Being on 3.75mg is like being off meds.
The therapists have given you the choice, so you have to decide what is best for you. Olanzapine made me want to sleep, which sometimes doesn’t seem so bad to me now. It killed my creativity, though, and because of that I don’t want to get back on it.
Is 3.75 really that much different to 5mg though?
I hear what you’re saying, and know it’s a risk!
Feeling almost completely normal and a massive difference in how I feel compared to on 5mg.
So I’ve answered my own question lol
I guess what I’m asking is will I be okay? I know nobody can answer this though!
But should I tell my CPN what I’ve done? Or should I just go back up to five mg and wait the six months?
Did you get rebound psychosis when you went off?
Yes, I ended up in the hospital.
It is a risk, yes, but being on a low dose is not equivalent to not being on meds. Below minimum effective dose treatment can be successful during maintenance, and while the response from meds drops sharply in the lowest dose ranges, it also drops pretty linearly from the plateau around the recommended dose range (Dose-Response Meta-Analysis of Antipsychotic Drugs for Acute Schizophrenia | American Journal of Psychiatry).
So it’s risky, and I would wait longer than 11 months before taking this risk, but you’re still medicated and it’s likely still preventing some symptoms.
You might be okay, you might not. Relapses can be sneaky and hard to spot because they happen so slow and gradually, and before you know it you have a relapse without even realizing it yourself. At least that’s my experience going below 5mg.
But we are all different. There’s only one way to find out if 3.75mg can work for you, but you probably won’t know for sure before 3-6 weeks.
But if you have a plan with your medical team to taper off after being stable for a given time I would stick to that plan. No need to rush things. I know it’s your life, but a relapse could set you back and you would have to start over. Whatever you do, be careful.
Thank you.
My plan now is to wait for four months more and then taper off. I won’t come straight off like my CPN has said, I’ll save my 7.5 and use them to split to 3.75 for four weeks and then I’ll go to 2.5 for six months or so if all goes well!
I felt so different on 3.75 to what I do on 5mg though!
Yeah. I recently made a adjustment from 6.25 back to 5mg because I have been sleeping better lately. There can be a huge difference going down 1.25mg, especially when you are already on a small dose.
I too feel better with more vitality after cutting back. But I’ll probably stay on 5mg for now.
My CPN is insistent that she’ll only prescribe 2.5 once I reduce.
But I’ll keep my 7.5s in stock so I can cut them and reduce more gradually
But going down to 2.5mg can be problematic…if you can’t get proper sleep. Trust me I tried. If you can sleep on it fine…but if it impairs your sleep it probably won’t get better with time.
That can be a problem…if you don’t sleep…because then you would probably depend on your medical team to give you some sleeping medication to support sleep while coming off.
I’ll look to that, when I reduced I found it difficult to sleep for the first two nights and then was okay after that.
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