Cogentin ??

I'm in the 6th or so different drug combo for depression. Latest is Prestiq + Abilify. This = better mood but terrible muscle twitching and pain. Doc wants to keep those 2 and add cogentin for the tremors. Scary to take a drug to undo the side effects of a drug that is a helper to another drug.

Anyone else on it? Anything awful to report? THANKS.

Can't say I have personal experience, but I know that a lot of people in the psych hospital I work at have cogentin added to their regimen to stop the effects of other meds. I am like you though I would hate to take a med to counter the effects of another. I have a big problem with antipsychotic meds for depression and mood stabilization for that reason. Antipsychotics can cause two side effects that describe what you are experiencing. EPS (extrapyramidal symptoms) and tardive dykinesia (sp?).

Not trying to scare you but maybe you should ask about anti-epileptic medication. Sometimes antipsychotics are a good alternative, not trying to bash them completely but I would defanitly use them as one of the last resorts. Defanitly talk to your doc anyway about why he wants to keep you on these two as opposed to trying something different. Maybe he has a good reason I don't know about.

JayCee - thanks for the feedback. I'm not the least scared of the anti-convulsants and I've taken many of them already. I'm really torn because the Abilify really IS helping my mood/anxiety, it's just the darn side effects that are hammering me. The Pristiq is new too (about 2 months) so I've never tried the ACs with Pristiq. I really like my doctor, so I think I'll call him back and see if there's another option I should consider before making the cogentin decision.

I'm on Cogentin to help side-effects of Saphris.... it took away some of the effects- like drooling and throat feeling like it was hard to swallow (attractive, right?), but it didn't halt all the effects, like boosting my prolactin level.

So yeah, it kind of works for me... good luck, I hope you have success!

I take Cymbalta and Abilify and Cogentin for the twitching and spasms. It has worked really well for me. I take 1mg everynight and am able to get to sleep without the "restless leg" feeling all over my body. I still have a few spasms during the day, but no where near what I was having. I hope this helps you make your decision.

It can be scary to take a secondary medication because the side-effects of the primary medications are that bothersome or difficult to manage. I don't know if it makes you feel any better but cogentin is a fairly old medication and has remained in existence because of its success. Older medications are often replaced by newer ones to manage side-effects, so in my amateur view, when a fairly old medication is still being used, it indicates it has great success.

One of the things you want to watch out for, especially if you have current heart conditions is tachycardia (unusually fast heart rate). Also, excess amounts of cogentin can result in psychosis, so if you are on it and you experience psychosis, you want to see your doctor because either the cogentin dosage is too high or the anti-psychotic dosage is too low, or both.

I don't know if this will make you more comfortable or confuse you but Prestiq and Abilify use metabolic enzymes CYP3A4 and CYP2D6, whereas cogentin uses CYP2C19. "CYP" refers to a family of enzymes called Cytochrome P450. The overall point is you can know whether there will be a harmful medication interaction depending how the medications use the same CYP450 enzymes. If this part is too confusing, which it may be, the summary is cogentin should not negatively interact with your medications. Also, Prestiq and Abilify can somewhat enhance each other by the way they use the CYP450 enzymes.

I remember my pdoc gave me a new med when I was in the hospital....the next morning all my joints were so stiff I couldn't move to get out of bed.....think it was cogentin that they gave me, or a shot of something to counteract the reaction I had....needless to say, that new med wasn't an option to continue even with taking something to counteract side effects.

Thanks everyone ((((group hug)))). I'm going to pick up the Rx today and give it a try. I'll report back when I know one way or the other.

Happy to say that so far, it's working exactly as it should - the jaw tightening, my doc called it tardive dyskenisia, has gone away but the benefits of the Abilify are still there.

OK, so it worked too well and left me so darn constipated that I thought I'd die So, since I can't take the Abilify w/o the Cogentin, I'm going off the Abilify and hoping that the Prestiq is strong enuff to keep the evil forces of depression away. Wish me luck!

Cogentin is the "gold standard" med for antipsychotic restlessness. It's pretty benign - only major side effect is dry mouth. Shouldn't have many if any issues with it.

Jerry