[251turnaround]

What worked best for med-induced akathisia for you?

I have it pretty bad right now and it makes me want to stop taking meds. I'd honestly take mood swings over this right now.

Hi 251turnaround. I understand your misery. I have had akathisia from a few medications over the years. I got it pretty quickly when starting Zyprexa and Abilify. It was worse with Zyprexa to the point where the psychiatrist decided to take me off pretty quickly, and suggest it only as an "emergency medication" since it did stop my mania pretty well.

About 8 years ago I started Geodon. Other than some brief initial sedation (tiredness) that eventually went away, it was a great medication in that I had zero side effects from it for 5.5 years. Then akathisia started, and it was clear that Geodon was the culprit, despite me taking a second antipsychotic (Seroquel XR) on top of that.

There was a point early at the 5.5 year mark that my psychiatrist tried to take me off of Geodon, but I became seriously manic, so he bumped up my dose again. I was really suffering from akathisia. Oddly, I had been taking Propranolol for a while for something else (Propranolol is an option for akathisia), but it didn't help. Or at least not very well. My psychiatrist didn't want to increase that so he tried me on Cogentin. Cogentin did help, but for me it gave me severe constipation. I've read others who take/took it never have that side effects, but some do, along with dry mouth. As innocent as constipation may sound, it is a hell of thing when it is severe. Bad enough that Cogentin was not for me.

Some psychiatrists treat akathisia with benzos. That's what my psychiatrist ended up recommending for me. So I took Ativan every day on top of my small dose of Klonopin, which obviously didn't help, or didn't help much. Ativan did help, but it's not so good to have to take benzos every day for years. Especially not a second benzo.

Over time my mood stabilized fairly well, so my psychiatrist started weaning me off Geodon again. This time, much more slowly. I had some very uncomfortable withdrawals from it. It took me a year to finally get off of it. I started at 160 mg, which is what I took for most of the almost 7 years I was on it. By the time I reached maybe 60 mg the akathisia seemed to disappear. Since I went off completely I've been slowly getting weaned off of the Ativan.

[Wonderfalls]

I had as bad as they can rate akathisia with Abilify. Cogentin, or less popularly, Artane can help. Unfortunately they are both anticholinergics which means they dry you out leading to dry mouth and certainly constipation. I didn't have that, but at the dose I needed, 3mg, I had sensitive and blurry vision. I stopped the Abilify and it went away.

When I had akathisia with Latuda I did some serious research and the consensus seemed to be that propranolol is the most effective "cure". I ended up taking it at 80mg. I may be wrong but I think it's a fairly innocuous drug. I needed to take a beta blocker before for a benign heart PVC. That was only a heart-targeted beta blocker, but I wouldn't (and I'm not) worried about it. The person to ask about it is a cardiologist. He would know much more about it than your psychiatrist.

For me the Latuda is worth taking propranolol.

[Unrigged64072835]

I'm on Artane for mine. That and being on the lowest workable dose of Latuda helped. I tried Cogentin, but it didn't work.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

I was hospitalized with akathesia after having surgery (so we can only guess what drug caused it). I can't take propanolol so they used a combination of gabapentin and cogentin and it went away really quickly. I left the hospital on a pretty high dose of gabapentin and had a lot of side effects but was able to lower it within a few weeks and it still was effective at the lower dose.

[Gabyunbound]

The culprit is Abilify for me.

I take propranolol which helps about 90%. To me it's 'good enough' because Abilify has helped me to remain stable for so long.

Latuda gave me akathisia pretty bad. I went off it. It didn't help my BP symptoms anyways.

[still_crazy]

hi. klonopin, ativan, gabapentin. high dose b6. remeron.

[Tucson]

I am on Lamictal. I do not know if it is working, but I am also on Lamictal. I still get mildly hypomanic. But that can quickly pass.