So... there is no solution for the weight gain that is caused by antipsychotics?

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In all my life, since I was 18 years old, (when I had the first psychotic outbreak) I took 3 antipsychotics, and all of them caused me to gain indefinite weight. Olanzapine, risperidone, aripiprazole.
My question is, if all antipsychotics have almost the same mechanism of action, do they all gain weight? Thank you for your answers.

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Thats the order from worst to best in terms of weight gain.

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For me due to my mood, i get hungry, i am going out of shape too.
Walking i have become fit.

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Olanzapine is brutal for gaining weight. Great medication but sadly it causes weight gain due to the desire to eat more. But also puts weight on you without dieting.
All AP’s will increase weight in some way.
Better to gain some weight than sitting there being tormented by the thoughts.

Don’t worry about it, it gives some quality of life x

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This is a very common question here. All antipsychotics except haloperidol, lurasidone and ziprasidone have a risk of causing weight gain according to the article I will list below. Some more so than others according to my past knowledge on the subject.

As to the question in your title, I would suggest being on one of the more weight neutral antipsychotics if it’s possible for you to do so, and to engage in proper diet and exercise.

Antipsychotic-associated weight gain: management strategies and impact on treatment adherence - PMC.

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I was on 40mg of Olanzapine for almost 17 years.

I started reducing my dosage about 5 years ago and completly quit almost a year ago.

I switched to 60mg of Lurasidone (Latuda).

I’ve lost about 80lbs and am a healthy weight now.

At my heaviest I was 240lbs.

I didn’t change my diet or exercise. As I reduced by Olanzapine and then quit the weight melted away on its own. No effort required.

Lurasidone hasn’t caused any weight gain, in fact I continued to lose weight after I switched to it, I’ve been on it since 2019 and zero weight gain from it. I got down to 160lbs, I’m about 165lbs right now.

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Weird, I weighted much more on Lurasidone than on Abilify. Probably because my negative symptoms were better on Abilify.

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Two solutions:

  1. Healthier diet with controlled caloric intake.
  2. Regular exercise to help burn calories.

Not easy, but the safest route.

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Another useful article:

"Antipsychotics with a lower risk of weight gain are:

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I’m gonna start this tomorrow. As in exercise. I don’t go anywhere and saw earlier @rogueone walks more than 20.000 steps a day! I think that’s truly amazing

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I just got 4,000 steps going from my home to a park in the centre of town to try and photograph some goslings (baby geese). Didn’t find any birds worth mentioning, but I hope I got some moody panoramic shots of the lake. Going to head back out in 45 min to another pond in the other direction (north) to try for some sunset shots. Hoping there might be goslings there instead. That’s another 3,000 steps.

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I think that’s fantastic. Increasing your steps by your interests. That’s really positive and I bet by the end of the day you will have gone way over the 10.000 step mark.
I love the USA. I’m in the UK and live in built up areas and it stops me going out.

Hope you enjoy the sunset. I’ve got some awesome pictures of sunsets from where I live. They really are beautiful

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I’m in Western Canada. About 35 minutes straight east of Calgary, Alberta.

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I’ve got relatives in Canada, Cambridge Ontario. I can go anytime but again I think it’s massive compared to the UK.

Canada’s a wonderful country

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Thanks to everyone for your replies. I think I’m going to find out about more advanced treatments like the one offered by the Sant Pau hospital in Barcelona, Spain. That they put electrodes in the brain to regulate dopamine. Although I understand that it is very invasive and dangerous and it is only for resistant schizophrenia.
Although the truth seeing what the current antipsychotics are, that treatment is tempting.

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Think it through properly before you go ahead and do this.
Only in my opinion, I think medication is sufficient. There’s so many you can try.

All the best x

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I was diagnosed as treatment resistant and I’m doing fine on regular antipsychotics other than being a bit overweight. I’m working on it. No need to try anything crazy in terms of treatment just yet.

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I’m on generic prolixin and I lost all my extra weight on this med…love it…it’s an older AP so people are afraid of it but I love it.

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