Posted by GeishaGirl on December 6, 2005, at 20:32:48
In reply to Re: Living on antipsychotics - a retrospective » GeishaGirl, posted by ed_uk on December 6, 2005, at 14:05:57
Hi Ed,
Not very good ones. None of them did what I was told they would do (stop "hallucinations/ delusions").
I started taking Zyprexa about 3 months after it came out. The others I took were the older antipsychotics, with the exception of Risperadol. The one I was on the longest, with the exception of the Zyprexa, was Moban.
Had a really rough time. I so completely freaked on taking Resperadol that I was switched soon after taking it, mostly agitation/ speedy kind of stuff.
Across the board side-effects from the others: hypothyroidism, sleeping way too much (then later, when I had akathesia from it, I didn't sleep enough), constantly moving from the akathesia, feeling like I was coming out of from skin (so intense that I almost killed myself) from the akathesia, weight gain, couldn't focus or concentrate (couldn't read even simple things), memory loss, unable to complete thoughts/ sentences (would keep mentally searching for words I couldn't find), zoned-out "personality", loss of passion, loss of self, slight case of td, shaking/ trembling, dry mouth, blurry vision (had to get glasses ), constipation and hemorrhoids...I think there's more, but I think you get the picture.
I will add that I never took antipsychotics by themselves. After my first few months on meds, I was always on between 3 and 6 meds at a time. I was always at least taking one antidepressant and one mood stabilizer with it. Also, my understanding is that the hypothyroidism was caused by lithium. However, it was not able to reverse itself until I was off all meds. So, I feel like it must have influenced something someway.
However, I also need to add that most of the side-effects went away after I discontinued the antipsychotics altogether (at the time, Zyprexa).
The only ones that still stay with me are some of the brain damage side effects - problems with word retrieval and some cognitive processing and I can't read as fast. Also, I used to be able to learn from any learning style. This is now limited to a couple. My memory is not what it used to be. However, all of this had been slowly improving over the past three years.
My thyroid and eyesight has gone back to normal (no thyroid meds and am donating my glasses.) My td went away. I am really happy and grateful about this.
Sorry, long answer to a short question :0
Geisha Girl
> Hi
>
> What was your experience with other antipsychotics?
>
> Ed
poster:GeishaGirl
thread:583797
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051203/msgs/586259.html