I'm currently 2 years since my initial diagnosis of schizophrenia. At first I took medication for about 4 months (Zyprexa), then I stopped taking it for a year. Exactly 1 year after my initial onset I had a relapse, so I went back on Zyprexa and had horrible side effects. I was highly sedated, sleeping 12 hours a day or more, had erectile dysfunction (NOT fun at all), and gained 20 lbs. I then switched to Abilify to escape those side effects but had terrible insomnia and did not sleep for 3 weeks. I am currently on Risperdal now and am experiencing the same side effects as from Zyprexa! Weight gain, high sedation, and erectile dysfunction.
My question to you guys out there is what medication (medications) work best for you? Are you able to function day in and day out without sleeping too much? Are you able to hold down a full time job while medicated? Are you gaining a lot of weight? Do you have any sexual dysfunction?
All i want is to be stable, sleep 6-9 hours a day, and have my normal sexual functioning back. Any help is needed and greatly appreciated, thanks!!
I was diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder which is schizophrenia with depression. I don't specifically remember the side effects of my first set of drugs. So at first I went on Zyprexa for the schizophrenia and Zoloft for the depression. I did gain some weight during this time. With this drug just like the others it took a number of weeks to adjust to the drug. One thing to keep in mind is you shouldn't judge a drug by the side effects that show up in the first month or so. It takes a while to ramp up to the right level of the drug past your brain blood barrier.
Next I went on risperadal and wellbutrin. I did gain a little weight but eventually I was able to just hold myself to 3 regular meals and eat just a comfortable amount at those meals.
Now I can talk a little more intelligently about the drug that I am taking now. With those first sets of drugs I just took them and decided that I would just have to adjust. So at first I was put on Geodon and Cymbalta. I definitely suffered from drowsiness on these drugs. I took Cymbalta for depression and I did start this a few weeks after starting Geodon. I noticed that with the Cymbalta that I had some what you could call sexual disfunction. To be more blunt my scrotim or nuts shrunk very noticeably. I wasn't too happy with this but I convinced my doctor that really I didn't need a drug for depression and so eventually I was taken off Cymbalta. Now the drowsiness persisted. I would take a dose at 8 am and then another dose at 8 pm. A few hours after taking Geodon in the morning I would struggle to keep my eyes open. Most of the time I just had to take a nap. After explaining this to my doctor he decided that we could try just taking a double dose at 8 pm and skip the morning dosage. This did the trick. I am awake during the day and still at an even keel. At night after taking my medicine I fall asleep and get a good nights rest.
Do not try to decide on how you should be medicated. Work with your doctor. I didn't get to where I am at now by just deciding I needed my meds on one day and not on another. In fact there have been times where I decided I didn't need my meds at all and I didn't hold it together.
i'm taking haldol 2mg. I started with 15 mg of it and slept all the time. I slept an entire month! even at 10 mg I was sleepy all the time. then it was reduced to 5mg and I slept less but throughout all these dosages, I had painful tremors of the mouth. At 2mg, I am having only tremors of the hand and I am in no pain. I found that I was hallucinating on all these dosages except 2mg. The lowest dosage caused me no hallucination. I am considering taking cogentin for the tremors. I am going to ask them to start me at 1/2 mg of cogentin.
Geodon is my wonder drug. I take it at night so that I don't suffer any daytime drowsiness. I'm on a very low dose--40mg. It works for me. I never suffered any weight gain at all. I would never take zyprexa or risperadal because they do make you gain weight.
seroquel and zyprexa worked ok for me. geodon was awful, and abilify and invega did nothing. risperdol made me really depressed, and i went off of haldol and thorazine because of the risk of tardive dyskenesia.
what was my miracle med was clozaril. i had to start it in the hospital and get my blood tested every week because of risks of a terrible illness affecting the white blood cells, but now it's only a once a month test. clozaril is considered the best for drug resistant schizophrenia, but it has some serious side effects. weight gain is a problem, but i go to the gym. fatigue is awful, but it's better than the alternative. still, it changed my life.
i also keep some thorazine on hand for emergencies. takes me out of my psychosis really well.
for me the drugs that work best are the ones with the most side effects. it's a shame. but everyone is different - a lot of people love geodon for instance, and have little side effects, but for me it was a disaster. and you have to give them a chance - seroquel took almost a year before it started working for me.
I have been on nearly everything. Some things were horrible. Others worked for a while, but lost effectiveness. Latuda is my life changing drug.
While on Clozaril I developed obesity, hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, and no semen production. All of that has changed on Latuda, and I have no side affects.
