Medication questions

Hi there, new to the forum. A bit about me.
I have had Schizophrenia since being a child. I am 32 now.
I have been on a plethora of medication with varying affects.
Currently I am taking 600mg of Quetiapine at night along with Zopiclone 7.5mg (sometimes two) to help me sleep.
I also take Diazepam 5mg sometimes up to three times a day.

My main problem is Quetiapine makes me feel like a zombie and I don't feel it helps much in terms of dealing with hallucinations.
However without taking it I can't sleep a wink. Ive been awake for sometimes days on end without taking it.
Does anyone have any positive experiences taking it? Or perhaps there is something that works better out there i've not tried.
I was on aripiprazole for a while which seemed ok, but I was getting early signs of tardisive (sp?)

In a ideal situation i'd like to feel awake and feel as though I have aspirations to do something other than sitting about like a vegetable like this drug makes me feel.

Any suggestions would be great.

Thank you

A lot of people like latuda----its one of the newer ones...good side effect profile.....

alternately you could try risperidone which is one of the stronger ones

Hi thanks for the response, I've not heard of Latuda before.
I had been on risperidone a few times before in the past but that didn't agree with me.
I've also been on Olanzapene, Arirpriprazole and a few others that I forget now.
I'm in the UK and my psychiatrists only seem to rotate me around all of these aforementioned say every six to eight months or so.
I've got an appointment with the Consultant on Friday so will enquire about Latuda.
To be honest I can deal with the hallucinations, they're not a problem for me and i've not suffered any form of delusion for some time. So ideally something that will just keep me awake during the day, or at least feel as though I have some substance and then later, the ability to sleep.
It seems I can't be greedy and expect both

Just read about Lutuda on Wikipedia, was released in the UK only last year so its worth me mentioning to the Psych about a possible go on the med.
On reading about it, it sounds very beneficial as, whether or not it was the thought disorder, schizophrenia and a quitapine causing me to have a terrible memory and I mean terrible, I quote this on the wikipedia
Lurasidone may be useful for treating the cognitive and memory deficits seen in schizophrenia.

So thanks for the suggestion, def something I will enquire about.

I'm on Geodon 80mg. It's an atypical antipsychotic. No weight gain. No side effects. I love it. It's generic too. I'm not sure Latuda is generic yet. Abilify will be generic in April I believe. Thanks to the United States healthcare system, and being an independent contractor, I have to buy my own health insurance and I can't afford the best. Therefore, I look out for generic stuff.

Have you talked with a psychiatrist? God, I got lucky with a great psychiatrist.

I've not had Geodon, not sure if it is one that is available in Britain? just a variety of the older more common ones like olanzapine, abilify etc.
Got an appointment with the psychiatrist on Fri. So I can talk over the potential of changing medication yet again. I have lost track just how many times my meds have been changed around since 2008.

try what i suggeest here, it might help?!

i was on abilify for psychosis and bipolar, it did not do anything for me. Then i was switched to risperdal, it seemed to help especially in the beginning. i did feel kind of zombied out for the first week though. but it got better, but then seemed to lose its efficacy. today my new psych was going to raise my dose, but didn't bc it did make me lactate early on. instead, she was going to put me on latuda but since its new and costs a lot, she put me on geodon. these are just my experiences with antipsychotics though

I take Zyprexa and find it to be very helpful

So do I. However, Adipocere3_616 has already tried it (Olanzapine is the generic name for Zyprexa)

I was delusional, hearing voices outside of my head and on two occasions (same week) I had visuals. I also had crippling anxiety, social anxiety, it was bad.

I was held down each day to take the shots First they gave three shots of Clopixol Acuphase over three days and then a shot of 100mg Clopixol to be repeated every three weeks. This is what I get and have been getting for the last 6 months.

One side effect where that my eyes would roll up into the top of my head and my neck would jerk back. So they put me on kemadrin, stopped that effect grand..

Then I got put onto chlopromazine 50mg 3 times daily and I actually started to lose weight. So I'm taking these tablets every day and then go get my shot every three weeks. It's keeping me normal, very rairly

I have schizoaffective, and I take Latuda. With Thorzine as a booster, it has worked very well.

So back from my Psychiatrist today. Seemed to take forever to walk there.
Anyway he asked me about olanzapine as it was the first medication I was ever on after my first stay in hospital.
He has decided to keep me on Quetiapine, but rather than being on prolonged release ones like I am now, he's changing it to the normal release ones. As I usually take the prolonged release ones at night he said it means I can take the other ones throughout the day if i'm having any break through symptoms; which I have been quite a lot. He also said it has anti depressant properties which will help with my recent mood problems.
I did ask about Latuda and he said it wasn't something he was familiar with, probably because it was only released in the UK late last year. And he would be more for staying on what i'm on.
To be honest nothing i've really taken in the past has helped with hallucinations much, but I deal with them just fine, i don't feel they are the major difficulties in dealing with schizophrenia in general, more so the negative symptoms were my worst enemy. but that's just me.
Anyway thanks for the suggestions everyone. I'll stay on the forum and make occasional posts I think as it seems like a good way of understanding myself the best i can, in reading others stories who have similar experiences.