I've been on loxapine, a typical AP, for about 6 weeks now. I've had muscle rigidity since early on and confirmed EPS diagnosis for 2 or 3 weeks. I am on 1 mg of cogentin and valium at night. I'm supposed to be trying to get off klonopin at night and just take 5 mg of valium (or more with permission) but the valium doesn't work until too late and then it works too well and I sleep all day, making the cycle worse. The last few days I've had less valium but took klonopin. Last night I cut the klonopin dose in half and took the valium. I had a little more trouble falling asleep but nothing terrible.

My pdoc thinks that some of the EPS will go away if we can lower my Seroquel dose which we're planning to try in 3 weeks. She wants me on the dose I'm on for a little bit to make sure I'm done with most of my episode.

The rigidity was always worst in my jaws. They hurt so much until I got the valium and cogentin going. I've had some weird stuff going on that I thought might be oral movements but I couldn't tell; it was like I was grinding my teeth but my teeth didn't hurt. The last 2 nights I wore my bite guard and that helped some but just made it pretty obvious that my tongue and lips are moving all the time. So the EPS is there now too. I'll be taking all the klonopin and valium again and will try to find a way to get the full dose of valium in while still being functional but I'm so fed up.

This med works well but it appears that I can't go up on it any more and I can't increase my AD because they seem to be interacting and since I'm on an MAOI the interaction affects my blood pressure and could be dangerous if it is too much. Having nowhere to go with dosing on 2 meds, one of which is the AD I've been on for 6 years at the higher dose so presumably will need the higher dose once SAD season hits, is a problem. Having yet another med that works but can't be adjusted much is a huge problem. One benefit of this stuff is a huge range of doses and I apparently can't do that.

And the last time I had oral movements on a med they got worse until I was constantly sticking my tongue out and had to go off it. If this become visible or more sore from rubbing I'll have to reduce my dose and that means probably reducing my feeling better since I started really feeling better about 2 days after starting this dose.

I'm scared and I am sore and am so frustrated with meds. I have so few options left and EPS is a bigger risk with them so being more likely to get EPS, which we already knew before I got it on this drug since I've had it several times, and I really am tired of worrying about this but until we find a med that is safe I have to worry about it. I'm so tired of meds being hard.....I swallow the pills, it seems like that should take care of it.