Posted by ed_uk2010 on March 6, 2011, at 16:28:16
In reply to Schizophrenia and Risperdal, posted by Lao Tzu on March 5, 2011, at 7:26:57
The tablets are also useful because it's much easier to adjust the dose.
> When I was fully diagnosed with schizophrenia back in 2006, my psychiatrist put me on Risperdal Consta injection every two weeks. It took almost a year of the injections to "mellow" the voices and eventually they stopped shouting at me and were more calm and friendly, more docile. Still, five years later they are still there, just in the background most of the time, but they do talk everyday still. Recently, I had to stop the injections because of cost and go on the pills. It's been three days on the pills, and everything seems fine. I actually like the pills more for some reason because they are not time-released like the injections. I felt lethargic all the time on the injections, but not with the pills. And it only costs me $5.00 per month for generic risperidone. However, the injections initially saved me because I refused to take pills everyday. If there is a compliance issue in the beginning of your illness, the injections are the way to go. My voices, at a time when they were very severe, didn't seem to object to the injections like they did to the pills. The injections were more tolerable in the beginning than the pills, so I give them a 9 out of 10 for acute schizophrenia only because the injections are great when you don't want to comply with taking pills everyday. Also, when I was in the acute phase, I tended to forget to take my medicine on a regular schedule. That is no good. At least with the injections, compliance was so much easier and they saved me, thanks to the insistence of my doctor that I get them every two weeks. Now, 5 years later, compliance to take my medication is no longer an issue. I'm happy to take my meds everyday, and now I prefer to take the pills instead. Since I am so used to the risperdal, that is not a problem for me at all. The risperdal actually helps me relax, and that is very important for schizophrenia because it also "calms" the delusions and hallucinations, and although the voices persist, they can be made more manageable over time and life will be less stressful than it is in the very beginning of the illness.
>
> Lao
poster:ed_uk2010
thread:980123
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20110220/msgs/980181.html