how much medicine did you take when you first got schizophrenia? do you now take more meds?
i think i started on 5mg zyprexa and i actually ended up having to lower the dose because of how tired it was making me. that was a year ago. i’ve switched medication since then but they’re still at a low dose and just as effective.
I started with Mellaril way back in the hey day. I was too young to remember the dosage.
I started on 20 mg Zyprexa. I wasn’t sleeping at all and they wanted me to sleep. I switched to Abilify three years ago. I’ve had to increase Abilify every now and then. On 25 mg today.
They started me on 40 mg Haldol a day. It was horrible. They need to be shot for giving me that high a dose of that drug.
When I first got sick and I was locked up in the psychiatric hospital, they put me on 130 mg of Prolixen. A year after I got released a private psychiatrist told me that is an extremely high dose. He said that is the 3rd highest dose he ever heard anyone had to take of that medication . Of all his years of medical school and training and being in practice for 8 years my dose was the 3rd highest dose he had heard of. That’s saying something. I researched it online many years ago and they don’t give even give anyone that high a dose anymore. But after I got out of that hospital my doctor cut my dose of prolixen in half to 60 mg and I slowly tapered down to 5 mg.
With my first break, atypicals did not exist, so they put me on a powerful typical AP - Navane.
I dont remember the dose, but I am pretty sure it was pretty hefty.
Over the years my meds changed and my dose went up and down - Now I am on a pretty low dose of Risperdal.
For a lot of us, schizophrenia and bipolar gets ‘softer’ as we age - at least the positive symptoms tone down a bit.
Started with 25 mg zyprexa. It has been lowered since to 7.5
I started with Haldol. Went all the way up to 80 mg a day (oral). Am now taking Stelazine 20 mg/day.
I started with a 150mg of Invega shot, with 20mg of zyprexa, then tapered down the the zyprexa until off of it completly, now I’m just at the 75mg Invega monthly shot.