Yes, zero sleep. But I did go to bed every night and lied there till morning with my eyes closed, so I suppose although my brain was constantly on, this resting sustained me a bit. But come day 11 I realised I was going to die if I didn’t sleep, so back on the meds.
There might be a way of zyprexa. I have read in another forum a guy that managed to get off after 18 years or something, but there are a lot of things that needs to be in place.
First off you need to have the health team onboard for whatever reason you want to quit. If it’s serious side effects, or that you have been free from positives for a long time and believe you can do without. Having the medical team onboard means you will have acsess to the 2.5mg tablets, which you really need to be able to taper off. You might also get acsess to drugs that can ease the transition off antipsychotics like for example gabapentin or depakote.
Second you need a strategy for sleep including good sleep habits, useful supplements, restricting anything that is negative for sleep.
Third you gotta try to excersise, eat healthy and try to get out amongst people at least once a day. Anything to preserve good mental health really.
I am currently in the process of trying to get off zyprexa, basically because I don’t have much choice, and my medical team is onboard for this luckily. That is the side effects are too serious in form of sleep deprivation. But also I have no positive symptoms. Only 1 bad day in the last year, and that went away with 600mg gabapentin as a prn.
thats similar to what happened to me. i got put in the hospital around 72 hrs in. but they didnt give me anything to sleep and then 2 days later they transferred me to the psych hospital. and they gave me a shot of haldol and ativan and then that still didnt work so they gave me another one…and thats the last thing i remember haha
72 hours and i started hearing the doctors in the walls talking about me and thinking i was the first person in Alaska with excited delirium and the police were trying to catch me. It was terrible and ended in a hospital visit. The last time i really had trouble sleeping was when i came off of Zyprexa…now i take Restoril (temazepam) for insomnia every night and don’t have too many issues.
A little over 48 hours. I think I was having the microsleeps in the last 12 hours, my neck kept slipping back into resting position and I’d get a few strong intrusive thoughts or images and then i’d come to again.
If I stay up more than 24 hours I get a weird second wind that makes sleep very difficult for the next 12 or so hours. Not sure why my body works like this, so I need to make sure I sleep before that time lol.
Sleep deprivation is one of the most insane things I’ve been through. I cried, begged, pleaded, and prayed for sleep after only a few days. My brain still hasn’t recovered. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone
A lot here seem to have gotten that as withdrawal symptoms from stopping meds. Has anyone heard of the taper clinic and dr Josef? He talks about how to get off meds without withdrawal. Takes about 1-2 years according to his ytvideo.
Whenever I am up over 72 hours and still can’t sleep (which is very rare), I take myself to the ER. This is what my former nurse case manager taught me to do.