Clozaril is a last-resort med; it's not supposed to be used until everything else has been because of a rare side effect where white blood cells drop off and an infection can be fatal. It's a lot less risky than they thought initially (and a very effective drug) but you have to have 6 months of weekly labs, then every 2 weeks for 6 months, then montly as long as you're on it. And the side effects are hard.....weight gain is supposed to be worse than zyprexa (although I've only gained 10-15 lbs on it in a year so could be worse), serious sedation (constant battle for me), drooling like you wouldn't believe at night, nighttime incontinence sometimes. But it WORKS and nothing else did for me (it is my 70th cocktail, not including dose changes). So I am happy to have it.

There was a time I was getting Seroquel through patient assistance and if if the cost I found online was right they were giving me about $40,000 of meds per year. It was so weird that the most valuable thing I owned was this bottle of pills. Med costs are ridiculous. I can't get name brands because my Medicare doesn't pay for them at a rate I can afford so I'm stuck with generics. Which is fine since clozaril is generic anyway. We would have tried a few more name brands before clozaril if that had been an option but it wasn't extremely likely to be my solution at that point anyway.