Tapering off meds

Medications
1

-Was hospitalized after ruled incompetent to stand trial in jail. Was started on risperdal 2mg in jail, increased to 3mg in hospital. Remained on 3mg for 6 more months while receiving outpatient treatment.
-My doctor tried lowering the dose to 2mg to see if the proper diagnosis was schizophreniform or schizophrenia.
-About 2 weeks after the lowered dosage of 2mg I was feeling jumpy in response to other people, which was characteristic of my psychosis. I also experienced an intense auditory hypnagogic hallucination while falling asleep. It sounded like the rapper Quavo saying something.
-After that the diagnosis was changed to schizophrenia. I cross tapered to latuda, 40mg with 3mg risperdal to 60mg latuda.
-Then went to a mental hospital for a depressive episode where I was prescribed lexapro and they upped my dose of latuda to 80mg

  • That was in April 2017, about 5 months ago, I experienced severe akathisia while falling asleep and a feeling of dread an hour after taking latuda

2 months ago told my doctor about this and asked for a lower dose, it was lowered to 60mg.
1 month ago asked for an even lower dose of 40mg, doctor obliged.
-I notice some delusional thinking, virtually just misinterpreting people’s body language and infrequent auditory hallucinations, today when walking down the street listening to a prank call on YouTube that had me smiling I heard the lady across the street laugh, it was obvious by her facial expression she didn’t make a sound in reality
-I see my doctor again in april. I want to try weaning off medication entirely.
I can cope with delusional thinking as long as I can recognize it as delusional and talk myself out of it, and infrequent auditory hallucinations that people on acid can experience are so acute that they wouldn’t really phase me. Anyone have experience going off medication? I want any and all advice and tips

2

I tried coming off of mine (my doctor didn’t approve) and couldn’t handle it. Hospitalized.

Good luck.

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3

Same here. I went off meds and ended up in hospital. Don’t do it.

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4

Every time I tried to quit meds I wound up in the psych ward.

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5

Careful tapered off my meds twice ,thus 2 trips to the ER. Looking at the responses I see a pattern here.

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6

Tapered off. Lasted 3 months without meds. Had an episode. Back on meds.

Not worth the risk.

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7

Just recently tapered off myself, though still take aps on an as needed basis. Can’t say anything, its only been 4 days. But was on a very low dose of Abilify the past month or so. Coming off can be dangerous, make sure you do it with a pdoc’s instruction. Finally, consider talking about as needed meds (prn) with the doctor, like benzos (xanax) and short acting antipsychotics. Mood stabilizers may also help reign in your issues.

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Warning signs Jail and coming off meds dont do it man.

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