Do meds have calories?

I don't want to ask T because that opens me up for a ton of questions and no straight answers to the actual question. Does Zyprexa have calories? Why does it cause weight gain if you're eating the same? I'm cutting out soda and meat. I'll stop the Zyprexa if I need to. T thinks I binge because of my weight but that's furthest from the truth. Does anyone know how many calories are in lamictal and zyprexa? It's like I take all my calories just taking those pills.

In a word, no. Apart from the coating on them, there's no nutritional value in medication. And as far as that coating goes, you will get more calories from a Tic Tac. It's not even a full calorie in most cases.

As far as the weight gain goes, my experience with antipsychotics is that they mess with my metabolism and the like and/or put me in a state that I term "too hungry to care." I'd wager you might be having issues with the former.

Hope that helps!

I looked it up. They don't have calories.

My understanding is that they change your metabolism which makes you hungry.

My personal approach that seems to be working is that I have a small but healthy lunch (I sleep through breakfast), a healthy dinner with at least one serving of veggie. Then when I take my meds and get really hungry from the clozapine I work on getting my fruit and veggie requirements. That's supposed to be 5 servings of veggies and 2-3 of fruit so I don't eat a lot beyond that. I also drink a LOT of water.

Oh and I take metformin but have no idea what it does. I think it mostly helps me not regain what I lost.

I lost 30 lbs and have maintained that through the holidays when I ate whatever I wanted. Now I need to get back to exercise to try to lose more but I'm pretty happy with my current plan.

they mess with my metabolism Does it go back to normal when you get off the AP?

Sometimes yes and sometimes no sadly enough.

It’s like Lithium... it often blasts the thyroid and even quitting Lithium you still needs thyroid meds for life, Lithium can also trash your kidneys.. but it’s a great literal life saving med for some.

But anyway ... most things just “ depend”

I’m dealing with metabolic syndrome and it’s killing me to try ways to get back to “normal “ , my Pdoc and GP said it’s possible , we shall see.

Anything is possible I have learned

In my experience, yes. I didn't gain anymore weight, my blood sugar returned to normal and I was no longer "too hungry to care."

I would very quickly add that I was never on an antipsychotic for any large length of time (8 months was the longest) courtesy of the above reasons, so I can't speak for an extended period of use.

At any rate, my dilemma (which I would wager is a lot of people's dilemmas) is that even through all of that crap, APs work for me. To balance everything out, my doctor and I agreed to what he termed an "extended PRN." I take an AP as needed like an actual prescription for no more than two months to try and avoid the worst symptoms and address my crisis.

Like before, hope that helps!