3 days ago I passed from 10mg of zyprexa to 5mg and the first 2 nights went well but this 3rd night I did not sleep at all ! I had insomnia, like when you quit your medication bluntly !
what is your experience with lowering your dose, did you have insomnia? should I continue with 5mg or should I go back to 10mg ?
I precise that my psy doc does not know that I am lowering my dose. I know it’s not ok but he won’t lower my dose and I think those medication are poison.
I use a pillcutter to cut a 2,5mg tablet in half so I can get to 6,25mg which is my current dose. On 5mg I don’t sleep well enough. But I do manage to get better sleep when I combined zyprexa with melatonin and magnesium which I take at the same time as the meds. You could try that.
iIf the insomnia continues I would up the dose again. Getting sleep is extremely important, but maybe there is somewhere between 10mg and 5mg which would be better for you.
Let me preface this with saying I am off APs. But, I did it with my pdoc’s blessing this time.
You simply need to follow a scale down process with your doctor. It can help avoid the extremes. Not all withdrawals can be avoided, but the extremes you are suffering could possibly be avoided by listening to your pdoc on a taper schedule.
Please talk to them. Don’t do this yourself.
When i tried it alone I ended up having symptoms again. And meds are not poison, they’re tools for health.
I was on the max dose of Zyprexa 20mg for 6-7 months starting in 2015 and ending in 2016 and when I switched meds I had some insomnia for a while. I would just lie in bed for a long time like over an hour and then finally fall asleep. Eventually I was able to get back on a normal sleep schedule again.
I didn’t wean off Zyprexa, I was just switched to Chlorpromazine (which is an old sedating antipsychotic) with no cross tapering, I didn’t have any problems doing it that way.
I am on Cymbalta now. I do take Seroquel sometimes at night, but only to help me sleep. I have had really bad insomnia as a child, and I am waiting to see a Psychiatrist, because I don’t really need the brain chemistry altering effects of an antipsychotic, but only the hypnotic effect.
A long time ago they were seeing how I would do if they reduced my Haldol shot. At the time I was drinking ten cups of coffee a day, taking ephedrine, and doing moderate exercise. I didn’t sleep for a week. I ruined a Thanksgiving dinner for our family. They were sitting in the den making nice conversation, and I was pacing back and forth fuming about death and destruction. They had to call the police on me. The point is - be careful. No sudden changes in your med’s.
I was initially on 40mg of olanzapine. I weened off it over a period of 4 years under my doctors supervision. When I got down to about 5mg I started having sleep problems. When I quit I couldn’t sleep at all.
I quit olanzapine 5.5 months ago and I still can’t sleep. I have to take 1.5mg of clonazepam to sleep.
Do a Google search for “Olanzapine Withdrawal Insomnia”, there are thousands of people that have experienced the same thing on other websites and forums, and the insomnia lasts for years. This insomnia problem doesn’t affect everyone but it affects a lot of people. There is a Facebook group for it.
Either reinstate the olanzapine and hope you can sleep or find some kind of other medication that helps you sleep.If you really want off it you’re probably in this for the long haul.
I can’t find very many success stories online about this. One guy said it took him 2.5 years to start sleeping, and his sleep wasn’t that great.
I switched to your new med, Lurasidone for about two weeks before I was forced back on zyprexa. The thing is my doctor wouldn’t prescribe a sleeping med because of fear of interaction. But I decided to try the switch anyway.
The funny thing is I was able to sleep some of the days. I’d say I got between 5-6.5 hours sleep some of those days. But others of them was total insomnia. The first two days after switching was insomnia. And at the end before going back on zyprexa I had a couple of no sleep nights in a row. I was so fatigued that I had no choice but go back on zyprexa.
But it was interesting that I was able to sleep without zyprexa. After all I’ve been on it for almost 15 years.
I’m not sure if the lurasidone did anything for sleep, or if it maybe was the supplements I were taking that did something, or both.
All other attemps I did before this trying to quit zyprexa have been unsucsessful trying to get sleep.
Now I will stay on zyprexa and try to rebuild my strenght. I suspect I might try getting off again later with my doc onboard.
Thanks for inspiring the switch by the way. It might not have been sucsessful, but I learned a lesson. I was feeling really well those days I did get sleep and was off meds, and it gave me hope to see how things maybe can get better in the future.
When I switched to Abilify, my pdoc put me on 5mg, and I started experiencing delusions/hallucinations again. He upped it to 10mg them 15mg before my symptoms were mostly controlled.