My doses of antipsychotics have varied depending on the individual medication and/or the severity of my mood state (usually mania). Some antipsychotics seemed to pack a more powerful punch than others. For example, Zyprexa and Risperdal seemed more powerful for me than others. The two 1st generations I took were also very powerful mania stoppers. You'd think I should still be on them, but they were very side effect unfriendly. I took semi low to medium doses of them.

Abilify was more of an antidepressant for me than antimanic. It made me manic at even a high dose. I'll never take that again, plus it gave me akathisia.

Geodon was side effect friendly for 5.5 years, but I took the highest recommended dose and it was eventually not enough. A second antipsychotic had to be added on top of Geodon to curb my mania. The second one was a 1st generation at a somewhat low dose. It seemed to help, but then I got a dystonia so my psychiatrist slowly weaned me off that. And as I was being weaned off the 1st generation, Seroquel XR was added at a low-medium dose, so at one point I was taking 3 antipsychotics at the same time, in addition to Lithium, Tegretol XR, and a small dose of Lamictal, plus Klonopin.

When the 1st generation was totally eliminated, my Seroquel XR dose increased a bit to around 350 mg (a medium dose).

My psychiatrist then had to take me off Lithium because he discovered kidney damage. He did so slowly. Getting off that was luckily easy with no med increases, showing that Lithium was not that helpful for me.

Geodon eventually gave me akathisia. It was miserable, but I lived with that, taking Ativan for relief, for almost 3 years. Then my psychiatrist and I decided to eliminate Geodon and leave Seroquel XR as my only antipsychotic. The Geodon weaning was rough. Rougher withdrawals than for any other med I had taken and gone off of. We couldn't get me off of it for 1 year. As my Geodon dose decreased, my Seroquel XR increased because of mood instability.

Now I only take Seroquel XR with my moodstabilizers Tegretol XR and small dose Lamictal, plus Klonopin. My Seroquel XR dose was up to 600 mg (a medium high dose), but lately it's gone down to 450 mg (a high medium dose). I'm doing great with almost no side effects.