Gauging Medication Side Effects and Withdrawal Symptoms

Hello all,

Please respond with concerns or problems you have had with drugs taken for Bipolar.

I've taken Abilify and had movement disorders and akathasia from it. I just couldn't keep still. It was really annoying and I didn't feel like it was doing anything for me.

I've taken Zyprexa and I gained a huge amount of weight while developing metabolic syndrome with high blood sugar. Also I was drowzy and sleepy while on it. Also I would have withdrawal problems coming off the medication. Mainly with psychotic symptoms developing outside of mania. Also my body would speed up about once every couple weeks and my metabolism would go haywire.

I've taken Invega which is my current medication. For awhile I was having issues with hard stools but that went away. Now I just get really lethargic and don't want to do anything. I lost my job partially because of it. It seems to sap my motivation. I just am not motivated to do much but rest half the day. Also I get headaches if I do try to get motivated. I've only been on 3 months.

With Invega and Zyprexa I have had mood stabilization and the psychosis has gone away for the most part.

I guess I feel bad that the motivation is taken away to want to achieve life goals. I don't know if that is negative portion of psychosis or if that is from the dampening of dopamine transmission from the drugs.

Anyway I just want to hear what other people have gone through on various medications.

I'm quite afraid to ever get off Invega as well. The withdraw seems very problematic in comparison to Zyprexa.

Anyway thoughts would be great to hear as well especially in reference to Atypical Antipsychotics.

It's odd I have been able to just cold turkey drop a shyt ton of Ap's with not a single problem at all...... When I went off Lithium? Ooooo whole other story, it was pure hell on earth I was sick sick sick..... Took me literally 3 months for my brain to go back to "pre" Lithium function. Gah ! it sucked !

I'm on Invega Sustenna and it works great, I'm also on Zyprexa but might be coming off that soon because I really don't think I need it. Anyway, I tried to stop taking a particular psych med by myself a few months ago and ended up having seizures, you should be fine if it's done under a doctor's supervision though.

As for the lack of motivation, I've heard good things about Wellbutrin for that.

I went years without medications so I don't remember too well what the withdrawl was like, the side effects were numerous. I've been toying with the idea of quitting the latuda and lamictal, no real side effects beyond weight gain and inability to lose the weight I gained before starting it. I'm just sick of not being able to lose this weight no matter what I do I know if I quit cold turkey I'll get sick enough to lose weight.

I tried to stay off medication for about 6 months but the metabolic changes scared me. I didn't like the feeling of my body consistently speeding up and then having to take some Zyprexa to get it back to normal.

I didn't have much family support through the process to deal with the psychosis so I gave up and told my doctor I was willing to get back on medication. At that point I was kinda angry with my wife's family for calling the cops on me so I took an extended break off work which led to me resigning.

It feels like once the road on medication is started its hard to get off that road. Especially when the psychotic symptoms develop. For me they weren't terrible, but coupled with the metabolic changes I just didn't have anyone comfortable to rely upon to help me break through. People act like medication fixes the issue and staying on meds will fix everything, but they don't have to take the medication.

I figured the best way to get back at my wife for putting her trust in her parents over me was to lose my job. Maybe she will need to rely upon them for financial support.

You listed AP's ... I'm sure you have tried mood stabilizers.. Are you currently on one? What has worked or not worked?

I don't use mood stablizers. The last suggestion my P-doc was considering was to put me on an antidepressent.

I'm not sure I want to try mood stabilizers. I've been using the AAP's as mood stabilizers.

I was considering getting on lithium. But it feels like the doc's want me on AAP's not mood stabilizers which leads to believe they think I have more issues with psychosis than mood.

I really don't think mood has been the issue either. I'm fairly certain that after my initial episode of mania with psychosis that after starting on anti-psychotics that psychosis is my main concern.

I might be having some rapid cycling here and there but the moods do not feel destabilizing.

A note about Abilify... I was only on 4mg for about 8 weeks and developed tremors in legs and hands. I stopped taking it 8-months ago and had to undergo spinal tap and neuro testing. I have what appears to be permanent distonia (uncontrollable tremors) from the drug. Use great caution with all these Med's! I hope you find the right ones that will help for the long term.

Lately all I want to do is sleep, eat and such.

I had all these aspirations to eat healthy but the motivation has gone away to keep up with that. I had lost 50 lbs. Got my blood sugar back to normal. But now since I'm back on the meds I just have this don't give a crap attitude.

The only thing that keeps me wanting to do stuff is my son. He's 4 years old. I have a daughter that is 6 months. My son really likes to play with me and I'm glad to teach him stuff. I keep busy with him but otherwise I'm pretty unmotivated.

My wife left again to hang out with her family and I wasn't invited so I'm sitting here thinking about ordering a pizza. I'd visit with my own family but I'm not much in the mood since they didn't offer me much help when I was trying to get off meds. Even though my dad is clearly psychotic which sucks. He acts like I only want to be with them when I need help. Well damn if you gonna put it that way I'll just not visit with you at all.

cloudyn808>

I was afraid Abilify was leading me down that road. Luckily I felt like it was causing my depression I experienced after I developed it when my mood went super down. Thankfully blaming Abilify may have saved me from more prominent movement disorders.

I wish you the best of luck trying to fix that problem. I agree that some of these drugs have very scary side-effects.

I'm a bit confused... If your having manic episodes or flipping into psychosis... Pdoc's "in general" will put people on a mood stabilizer , well...... because the goal is to stabilizer your mood.. Sure Ap's AAp's can be tossed into the mix, but ideally keeping your mood more stable is the main way of keeping a patient stable.

Lithium is the "gold standard" when it comes to Bipolar as it was the first medication to be actually made specifically for Bipolar and nothing else. Yeah, it comes with its own set of side effects.

When was the last time you spent any time at baseline for more than a few weeks? and what were on medication wise ?

I'm guessing they figure my mood was a secondary condition.

That's why I questioned my bipolar illness to begin with. If I'm primarily a mood problem then why have 3 different doctors not put me on a mood stabilizer?

I hate to consider conspiracy but it seems doctors don't want to classify people as schizo anything but put them on antipsychotics anyway.

I'll admit everytime I've been hospitalized I've felt like the fruitest of them all. At least of the patients they had that week or two.

My guess is that the modern technique is to fight bipolar with AAP's. I've only been diagnosed three years ago. Either that OR they feel in my case the psychosis is the main issue and the mood portion is not.

I've never experienced psychosis, so my heart goes out to you and everyone that has had to go thru that. I think you said something about going on antidepressants, be careful for me and other BPers it can induce mania. I really don't understand why you were not initially put on a mood stabilizer? That is usually the first step pdocs take. I'm on lamictal and have had no side effects and I've read others on here that have not had side effects as well. I've been on almost every AP and am allergic to five of them. I'm currently on Seroquel for the second time and my pdoc is trying to see if I can come off it because I haven't experienced psychosis. I want off because it has caused me to be pre-diabetic and have high triglycerides. Seroquel has worked for me but does cause the zombie affect for me. Coming off has made me so sick every time I go down in dosage. I tried latuda a year ago and experienced akathasia and I have had other long term problems as well. I understand your frustration and my heart goes out to you. I just wanted to let you know that lamictal has been a positive drug for me, and maybe that is an option?

I'm pretty sure I have problems with my dopamine transmission. Even at my highest points of mania I knew I need a tranquilizer and as I was getting my first shot at my first stay in the hospital I remember saying I just need a tranquilizer...I need to sleep. This was before I had known anything about AAP's being called neuroleptics which is another word for tranquilizer.

The problem I have is that being on a tranquilizer constantly just does not seem right or fair but that is how they have figured to deal with me.

I have to send woe is me attitude, but I feel like I have some special powers that are being dampened by this. I consider it mind prison. I know unusual things have happened around me. I do believe in supernatural.

I hate to be the guy that seems crazy enough to believe he has superpowers but there are things that happen that can't be explained rationally. I believe people just get nervous when I'm amped up or have a lot of dopamine pumping...that is all. I'm probably doing unexplainable things with my mind but I'm not hurting myself or anyone else...quite the opposite.

Yeah Pdocs wanna make sure before they toss labels and rightfully so !

BP and Schizo is tough to diagnose unless its a cut and dry slam diagnosis.

I have seen person after person be in a mixed episode here on PC and there true diagnosis be a blur because they are just flat all over the place. If you have tried a bunch of Ap's and AAP's and your not getting any help.... I would ask for a mood stabilizer... You need to level off.. I mean really what do you have to lose?

Lithium... yeah you need blood testing at first until your at good levels, yep some side effects but so does every other psych med. I took it for a couple years.

I just hate seeing so many people just flipped onto a AP so fast..

I hope you find something that allows you to feel better

Anyway...I think I'm doing ok with Invega.
It doesn't take away all the psychotic symptoms such as delusions and paranoia...

I'm on a 6MG daily dose. I just feel trapped on it. Like my wings are clipped. Just do not have any motivation to do things.

I don't trust wellbutrion. I think it would counteract what the Invega is built to do based on the pharmacology.

I guess I'm in a piss poor mood right now but I'm not depressed, just annoyed that I om on a drug I don't want to be on to control an illness I don't think is that terrible for me anyway.

I almost wish psych wards were like they were in the 1950's. Or that I could go somewhere that wasn't so expensive just to relax my mind and stabilize. The psych wards have shut their doors to making people feel good...they now feel like prison. Nothing feels like it should. Maybe I just see psych wards as they are portrayed with large lawns and plenty of space to roam. Maybe those types of places are a thing of the past. Its sad really.

I agree that a mood stabilizer should be tried.

I'll bring up lithium to my doc next time I see him again

In the past he thought my mood was just generally hypomanic most of the time. I tend to agree with him. My mood only seems dampened when on meds.

Its confusing to me and I don't enjoy being stuck on AAP's...

I do want to try lithium and had told him I'd rather be on that then an AAP in the past.

Maybe that's why he hasn't put me on it LOL!!! Bah

I would tell the pdoc: What the hell ! I have been on heavy hitter Ap's and AAP's why not give a mood stabilizer a chance.

I've been on nearly everything except the old anti-psychotics. I have a "blog" that is just a place to track the meds I'm on for my own sake. According to it I was on cocktail 64 in Jan. 2014 and I need to update because I'm at least one cocktail from that now. So ask me anything about any med and I have a record. I could give you the link but I'm worried you'd just find it incredibly depressing and not helpful and the chances of being as sensitive to meds as I am is rare. In fact I'm donating blood Monday to be used in a clinical trial that will look into this and may explain why I (and most of my cousins and siblings) do not process meds normally. I can't wait to get my results next month.

The other thing is that most meds had some positives with them and I don't think I have always documented that, especially since I don't update the list that often (I will tonight so I'm glad I looked today) and there have been positives on many of the meds I've taken, but for whatever reason my body couldn't handle them. My med blog doesn't ever talk about how incredibly effective one specific combination was because I posted about it only while I was getting on it and not while it was working and then when I came back because I'd had changes I didn't write about how good it was. (That combination was Seroquel XR 600 mg, klonopin 1m twice daily, 1.25-5 mg valium PRN, Emsam 9 mg patch, Nuvigil don't know dose now, and meds/vitamins.) It was great for me for as long as anything has ever worked and if I hadn't gotten whooping cough (allergic to the shot) and developed severe asthma and allergies to anything I inhaled from that which required steroid inhalers that destabilized me I might still be on that combination. But life is what it is.

Anyway like I said, if you want to know a reaction to something specific feel free to ask and if you want the blog address you can have it but I am really worried it might scare you as it isn't a very positive set of experiences.

Jen>

What can you tell me about Invega, Abilify, and Zyprexa and the effects on you?

I'd agree the drugs do have some positives and I cannot deny they take away psychotic symptoms for me anyway.

I do feel that the symptoms for me are stronger than they used to be. I do wonder at times if psychosis is progressive and the AAP's become less effective over time.

abilify for me gave me migraine headaches

I think that our bodies just adjust to meds and eventually they don't work as well. That happened to me with every until I started an MAOI about 6 years ago. I've been on Seroquel for 8 years I think and have had to increase the dosage over time to the point that my current episode caused it to go really, really high. The disorder does progress at least in some people but I think that's at least partially med burn-out.

I have never taken Invega because risperidone (which is related) causes me to have high blood pressure. We tried the risperidone I think 3 times because it was so frustrating; it worked for me but the blood pressure thing wasn't healthy at all. My dr said good things about it once before realizing I couldn't take it.

You picked 2 meds that aren't my best experiences. With Abilify my psychiatrist said she had a feeling I might be sensitive and started me at a teeny dose, 2.5 mg if i remember. The day after I took it I kept falling down. r. It also caused double vision and akathesia, both of which took several weeks to resolve. I was off work about a month.

Zyprexa was another story and in a way it didn't get a fair trial but I'm not anxious to go on it and my psychiatrist seems to thing it really did not work and is not an option. Anyway with it I had akathesia from something given during surgery. So in trying to treat me at home we had me taking a lot of medication. Zyprexa was one of them and at 5 and 10 mg both taken for probably about a week I did not become any less agiated, much less sedated or all the things Zyprexa is suposed to do. So it never got a chance to try a normal episode and see what happens then. I suppose it might be re-tried but since tha's never come up and much nastier drugs have I think that it just must not work for me. I'd try it again if I had to but honestly I'm kind of glad it didn't work because I don't need the weight gain.

Thanks for the info Jen.

My blood clot is back. DVT is pretty common side effect.

Antipsychotics May Be Linked to Blood Clots

Didn't know this before. Guess I didn't put 2 and 2 together.

I didn't know that either. It must not be a HUGE concern since I had ankle surgery last year and was in a cast on bedrest for 6 weeks and immobilized for another 10 weeks and I just was on aspirin instead of a stronger blood thinner. Good to know though; being casted so long blood clots become worrisome and you can't see inside to know what is happening. I had a big bruise from a tourniquet and worried about it for a while. Then I'd just gotten a little more relaxed in a walking cast and my family dr warned me to be careful of clots because his sister had one with long-term casting and I started making people look at my toes again (they were in the cast so I had virtually no way to see any signs of trouble). Of course it was all fine.

I'm sorry you have a DVT and have to deal with the blood thinners. That's never fun. Even the aspirin wasn't much fun and that was not exactly heavy medicine but I bruise easily anyway and with the aspirin I bruised constantly whenever I banged a cast into my other leg.