[moon66]

I'm currently taking Perphenazine for my disorder and it's causing side effects. I actually had to go to an ER to get cogentin to stop the akathisia. My full diagnosis is Schizoaffective Bipolar Type with OCD and ADD. I also take medications that are already packaged from a pharmacy. My question is what is a good medication over the Perphenzine? I'm also seeing my Psychiatrist tomorrow. I also take other medications and they think it's the perphenazine causing the side effects. Before I was on Clozaril and I couldn't wake up for anything when being on that medication. My other medications that I'm not going to list aren't the problem.

[moon66]

The other medications I'm taking are listed -

Day
Vyvanse 60 mg CA
Bupropion HCL XL
Escitalopram 10
Escitalopram 20
Perphenazine 16

Night
Divalproex SOD E
Perphenazine 16

[moon66]

Anything I should bring to my Psychiatrists attention and would be helpful please tell me.

[jaynedough]

Originally Posted by moon66

Anything I should bring to my Psychiatrists attention and would be helpful please tell me.

Your PDoc needs to know ALL the meds, Rx and OTC. You should pretty much tell your PDoc the things you've said here. S/he needs to know of any side effects you have.

I used to have really bad side effects from the anti-psychotics, especially when I was given meds in the E.R. for severe asthma attacks. Cogentin was a Godsend for me. If I remember correctly, it can really dry your mouth out, so make sure you have something with you to combat that.

I have schizoaffective, too. Have you been to our forum?

Take care.

[elevatedsoul]

how did your appointment go?
the most important thing to do is bring up all your concerns with your doctor, if they dont listen then you need a new doc

i breifly took perphenazine, i couldnt tell what it did though because at the time i was on 8 other meds

i think the pdoc gave it to me to help my night terrors

[pinkflower17]

Originally Posted by moon66

Anything I should bring to my Psychiatrists attention and would be helpful please tell me.

There are a lot of newer, better drugs than perphenazine. Perphenazine is an old school anti-psychotic. There's a whole class of newer atypical antipsychotics - zyprexa, abilify, Geodon, Risperdal, seroquel, latuda, invega, saphris - that have a lot less side effects. Maybe ask about trying one of those?

[f-weasel148]

Listen to pinkflower17. Perphenazine is an old-school first-generation antipsychotic. The more popular antipsychotics since the 90s or so are 2nd (quetiapine, olanzapine) and 3rd generation (aripiprazole) antipsychotics. And it's largely agreed that as far as minimizing side effects go, 1st generation APs < 2nd and 3rd generation APs. To the umpteeth degree. But this is not always necessarily the case! Different people are different, and the new 3rd generation AP aripiprazole (Abilify) gave me severe akathisia.

But I really hope you get it all straightened out. Side effects are definitely a very severe thing.