The Latuda is not going well

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After an hour of speaking with me when I saw her for the first time on the 16th, my new pdoc told me that she does believe I have a psychotic disorder, and her initial theory is schizoaffective depression type. She said however she will continue to be open and monitor me to see if something else turns out to fit me better in the future. But for now, she feels confident that that is what it is. Then she prescribed me Latuda, 40mg per day to be taken at night. I have now been on it for 8 days I think. I see her again on the 30th to discuss how it is going.

I think a lot of my symptoms have gotten worse. Worse insomnia, worse chaotic and intrusive thoughts, worse paranoia and anxiety, etc.

But in addition I am also experiencing reemerging emotions that I haven’t felt in some time. I think this was in part activated by the stress of going to the appointment in the first place, but it has can continued to escalate the whole time since then.

I’ve been very flat and numb minus bursts of anxiety for a long time, but in the past week I have cried multiple times. It;s a sadness that is physically painful, it makes my face and throat hurt. I also experience surges of intense seething bitterness and paranoid rage.

I feel two things at once. One that I am not myself lately, and two that I am myself lately, myself is rather ugly and I just haven’t been myself for a long time. It feels very confusing.

Even when I am not actively feeling anything, I find myself saying hurtful and spiteful things to people, and then later I realize I had been viscous. It happened tonight at the dinner table with my mother and her husband. They were talking about wasted tax payer money, and I chimed in about a study that wasted millions trying to study why so many lesbians are fat, and that the whole thing seemed like the real message was that lesbians are lesbians because they are too fat and ugly and no man would want them. Everything suddenly felt tense and awkward in the air, and her husband quickly changed the subject. I could feel something was wrong, but couldn’t place it. Later in the evening, I realized that it was because my mother is very overweight and has always been very insecure about it, and also worries about her husband cheating on her. So it was like my subconscious mind found a covert way to attack. I feel like my suppressed hatred of her is bubbling out of my pores even when I’m not noticing it.

I actually feel like everything that I normally can’t or won’t feel is breaking all its chains and starting to come out. I can’t tell if this is a good or a bad thing. I can’t tell if it’s a bad reaction to Latuda, or if Latuda is working and my true emotions unleashed are just honestly venomous.

I keep having very dark thoughts in general, intrusive imagery of blood, shattering glass, screaming and violence. I get impulsive urges to destroy myself. I feel like my entire family wants to kill me, and the seething venom in me just keeps oozing and flaring up.

To be honest I feel like perhaps my true nature is coming out, and I’m having a hard time fighting it. I want so badly not to be a bad person, because I was treated like an inherently bad person from the day I was born, it makes me self-righteous in a paranoid, self-protective manner. But maybe I have suppressed so much that I felt was “bad” over my whole life that it has turned into a monster. And it feels like the Latuda is somehow releasing it.

I skipped my dosage tonight because I was afraid of it. And also because I was a bit horrified and ashamed by the things I said at the dinner table. Maybe I wanted to blame the Latuda, so that I could stop this from happening by not taking it. I have resolved to take it again tomorrow night, I know that not taking it is a mistake as my pdoc warned me not to do it, but I couldn’t handle it tonight. I felt like my instincts were telling me it was corrupt somehow and not to take it, no matter what. I couldn’t do it, I needed a night off, or something.

I’m not having any hallucinations. The world doesn’t look wrong, people’s eyes don’t look messed up, I don’t hear the music, nothing in my head is talking to me. But I also feel like I am coming undone in some way.

I have read so many wonderful reviews about Latuda. It gets an average of 7/10 rating which is impressive; most people don’t review a product unless they think it sucked. This medication has worked miracles for some people. Which makes me think further that it’s something wrong with me. It’s my true self. This makes me feel very conflicted. Maybe my true self needs to stay shackled and buried.

Someone elsewhere suggested that maybe it is a mixed state, but I don’t know. I am trying to organize my thoughts in various places to have things to take the pdoc on the 30th.

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I hate Latuda, my Zofran script ran out and now I am back to puking everytime I take the Latuda, pretty soon I will be in the ER with withdrawal again.

and I would say what you are experiencing is what my Pdoc calls “Transitional Paranoia” where you experience some strange symptoms before leveling out with your meds. I went through it when I first went back on meds.

I thought I was turning into a monster because I suddenly had the nerve to tell people how I really felt about them, and just about everything I was saying was negative.

Its usually just your brain readjusting to the new chemical distribution. its like when you change your diet, your digestive tract needs time to adjust, in the mean time you have cramps and the runs…

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This feels like the worst part. I feel like I completely ■■■■■■■ loathe everyone in my life. I don’t understand why anything is happening. My brother who has been so sweet to me for the past year-ish, is suddenly giving me the silent treatment and I have no idea why. The last time we talked was fairly pleasant, we were gaming together online and joking around, said goodnight and logged off. Then he never logged onto the game again, it’s been weeks. I tried emailing him some info about the game to try to gauge if he had lost interest in it, and also to try to check on him because I worry about him getting depressed a lot. He ignored the email. I was then very worried he was depressed. But then I found out from others that he has been sharing funny videos and talking with others, just ignoring me. So I waited another week and sent him a funny video, he ignored that email, too.

I feel like I’m in so much pain over this and I hate it. My brother is the only person in my entire life who I have always been able to consistently see as good, I can forgive him for anything, I can relate, I love him to pieces. But this past week I feel like I hate him and am sick of him. I am sick of him being super nice, getting close to me and then doing this. I hate my whole ■■■■■■■ family. I know they hate me. I wish they would just kill me. And I feel like a monster.

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That is your true nature. I had trouble with Latuda too. I was angry the whole time I was on it. For many people it is a wonder drug, but the med’s can affect people differently. Ask your pdoc to try you on different med’s. It might change things very much for the better.

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This is fairly normal for people having a bad reaction to a med, I have been through it more often than I care to think about.

All I can suggest is to do as @crimby says ask for a change of meds, I may have to switch back to Geodon, which wasn’t working well for my symptoms anymore, because the Latuda makes me feel like crap

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80mg is the most effective dose of Latuda I wouldn’t be surprised if you get bumped ups they have to put you on 40mg for a few weeks so you don’t get as restless later from akathisia. That’s like taking 2mg of risperdal it doesn’t work for most people.

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I agree. It sounds like you’re just having a bad reaction to Latuda. I’d talk to your doc about switching meds. And just because Latuda works well for a bunch of people doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you.

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I stopped taking it because they made me into a sleepy insomniac. No appetite,no energy . Serotonin Syndrome

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Maybe try not to be guided by those medication review sites. You might miss out on trying something that really works well for you just because it didn’t work well for people who have bothered to review it.

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I tried taking it this morning, and it seemed to go better taking it for the daytime instead of taking it at night. Granted I slept all day, but that was the thing, I didn’t have terrible anxiety issues and was able to really sleep, I slept for 12 hours actually. I just woke up and feel calm and blank. So maybe night time is just especially bad.

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That’s good news @Turnip, maybe you found the trick!

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Latuda gave me a shotgun mouth too which did a lot of destructive things. Even though I knew it was destroying me i continued because my hallucinations also quit. I had hypomania which caused me to constantly talk even when no one was there (and everything in my head went out there in the real World to my extreme embarrassment. My caseworker compared it to my voices talking through me since I could not recognize them as voices anymore. I hope the extra sleep helped you but I would try to watch what you put out there if I were you and if you start alienating everyone consider going off of it. It is difficult to do when you finally stop having hallucinations and I hope things work out on those other things for you so you don’t have to. I was forced to do it myself and am glad the doctor made me do it.

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Latuda helped with my delusions, but caused me to have really bad panic attacks and fatigue. I had to switch.

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Took it this morning again, and haven’t had any freaking out. Took it 8 hours ago. Have been up all day (how it’s supposed to be), will see if I fall asleep tonight (like it’s supposed to be). No crazy thoughts today, no anything, really.

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