Update on me lowering my olanzapine

Medications
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At one point I was on 20 mg, then lowered it to 10 mg, now for the past 5 or 6 weeks i’ve been on 5 mg a night. These are some things ive noticed.

  • My sex drive has increased. I’m able to get better erections. I’m thinking about sex way more often. Now I just need to find myself a girlfriend :crazy_face:

  • My sleep is about the same on 5 mg as it was 20 mg. I have trouble falling asleep but once I eventually do, I sleep decent.

  • My appetite is still out of control. I was hoping being on a low dose would fix it… but nope! Damn olanzapine!

  • My paranoia has increased, but only very slightly. It’s still much better on 5 mg then it was before I started taking olanzapine.

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2

i dont like olanzapine it caused me a lot of weight gain while on it. also you have high risk for developing diabetes while you are on it.

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You should let your Psy doctor /team help you find a better medication, and the changes you have made can be dangerous to you at some point. Be very careful of those changes. I would recommend taking notes on everything in detail and sharing with your provider(s)

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Yeah it’s well known for making people gain weight :-1:

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I had a similar time as you when I was coming down off olanzapine. I had been on it for five years and each time I came down a dosage I had some serious anxiety for four weeks then I was good until the next reduction. I went from 20mg to 15 to 10 to 7.5 to 5 to 2.5. 2.5 was much too low for me and I went back to 5mg. I ended up losing a bunch of weight on 5mg. Life was good at that stage, but my general practitioner noted I had high triglycerides so I had to change medications.

It is nice getting your life back, enjoy it and good luck!

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Did you have insomnia when you stopped olanzapine and switched to another med?

Thanks Pat!

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The first med I switched to was 10mg aripiprazole. I didn’t have insomnia in the evenings, but I did wake up early, like 5:30am every morning. It was a bit of a shock as I used to sleep in to 10am at least. It was kind of cool to wake up early, but in the end the med didn’t work for me.

You’re welcome!

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