Yeah, as Moogs pointed out I'm going to be starting it in about 2 weeks after months of excuses to delay it. I have to go off Seroquel first so will be hospitalized to allow a rapid taper of that to get the bad stuff over with.

It is supposed to be a highly effective drug for many people, and if you haven't responded well to other treatments it is more likely to work for you. There is a risk of your white blood cell count dropping so for the first 6 months you have to get blood drawn weekly, then evey other week for 6 months then every month long-term. They will not dispense the meds unless you've had the bloodwork and you only get enough to get from one blood draw to the next. This is supposed to be strictly monitored through a registry the dr and pharmacist must be part of and which your dr enrolls you in at the start.

Dosing starts very low and works up fairly rapidly but it is generally 2-3 weeks to get to a target dose I think.

Side effects vary. My pdoc says they are usually pretty mild. She has not seen weight gain although that can happen. A lot of people have drooling at night and looking on the internet quite a few have had troulbe with nighttime incontinence. My pdoc has not had anyone complain of that one.

It can't be taken with Seroquel and possibly other APs (don't know) because of a high risk of a cardiac problem. One reason I'm going IP to do this is so that they can do EKGs while I still have Seroquel in my system to be sure I'm not having that interaction.

If you want to know more please ask. I've been researching it and asking my pdoc questions or months so I feel like I'm pretty familiar with it. And I'm sure I'll be psoting on here about it once I'm home from the hospital where there isn't the privacy o check PC, much less wrie on it.