What side effects do you experience with clozapine?

Medications
1

Hi all, just wondering what you guys think of clozapine after trying it. Do you really need to do bloodwork every month!?

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2

Side effects: drooling while asleep, mild sedation and occasional constipation. But it has worked wonders for my sz. And yes the blood tests are needed and occur every month. Thinking of tsking it on?

3

It can cause night sweats, overheating in general but I only experienced a tiny amount, shakey hands, drooling ( which is better than dry mouth, which other aps cause ), sleepiness. I did better on it, I had a job. I got off it because I wanted to take risperidone, it had just come out. I never got back on it because when I took it at night I had no choice but to go to sleep right away or I’d feel bad and my drooling in my sleep was more than usual for that drug. I felt better though on that drug than the other anti psychotic medicines, it is different from the others, the way it works.

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4

Thanks for the replies guys. I already asked for the medication but they told me too much bloodwork, so after I move to the big city I’ll ask for it again. Sounds very promising, anyone else got shaky hands?

5

It works for me

6

I’ve experienced increased appetite and weight gain on clozapine

7

What about loss of appetite?

8

Haha :joy: sorry poohead. It’s just funny. Poohead is what my family and I call someone who’s not nice.

9

I’ve never heard that clozapine causes loss of appetite

10

drooling, having a had time holding my pee…

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11

I take a low dose and sleep 12 hours a day. I don’t do bloodwork anymore.

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12

I drool on risperidone too.

13

i have my blood works done every couple months. Should do it every month but they don’t make an issue of it that i just do it every couple months.

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14

In the beginning I had to do it every week, then every month, then every couple of months. Then we strongly decreased the dose and my pdoc didn’t request any bloodwork anymore.

I know that officially you’re still supposed to do it, but I just take 25 mg so I guess the risk on complications is very low.

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15

Its blood tests weekly for 6 months, then biweekly for 6 months then monthly. Thats what my Dr told me for Clozapine in Canada.

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16

Its said to be the most sedative AP.

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17

I’m very susceptible to the sedation. When I took 200 mg I slept 16 hours a day.

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18

I took clozapine in 2004 and the side effects weren’t nice so I stopped it and switched to risperidone which helped a lot.

Side effects from clozapine I got were …
Drooling (had to wrap a towel around my pillow)
Heavy sedation (slept 16 hours a day)
Incontinence in hospital once (wet the bed)

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19

I was on it from 1992- 1995 and was not heavily sedated. I was on a fairly large dose too.

20

Risperidone was the only non sedative anti psychotic I was ever on. I only slept 5 hours a day and it was a problem.