risperdal I feel so calm now (like normal calm) SO AWESOME!

Post Reply New Topic

I'm on Zyprexa and at a healthy weight (though as a woman I of course want to be thinner). I did gain weight on it; but I was also in a Residential Treatment Center where we ate Hamburger Helper day-in-day out, or similar easy-to-prepare stuff, so I was eating junky stuff. I went on weight watchers. They're behvaior modification, and they worked very well for me. I've been a little up and down since then in weight but nothing like I was, and this is pretty much the thinnest I've ever been. ((I hope I'm not jinxing myself to gain weight by saying that! ))

I'm on progesterone cream.

The one major side effect that I have read about is called Tardive Dyskinesia (please don't trust my spelling).
Its symptoms are involuntary movements, which usually start on the face area. Called Tardive because the symptoms don't usually start until the person has been on the medication for months/years. Unfortunately, stopping the medication doesn't guarantee the cessation of these side effects.
I am glad for you, theSPECTRE, but please watch for these effects.

In the picture you posted you appear to be at a normal, healthy weight to me.

I think risperdal might be beneficial for some people, but for others it can be disastrous. That was actually the first psych med anyone ever tried me on -- I was 17 and it ended up being a very horrible experience. I was especially scared when I read the drug literature and saw that it was a treatment for schizophrenia -- I KNEW I was not schizophrenic! Supposedly they gave me the Risperdal to help with "anxiety" and started me on a .5 milligram dose. I only ever took that one dose -- my heart slowed WAY down and I could barely walk. I spent the entire day crying. I could not think. I was in school and basically crying and babbling incoherently in my classes. I threw the rest of the bottle away.

That particular effect is also linked to what's called "tardive dementia," a loss of certain cognitive abilities that is often permanent as well. These both appear to be linked to permanent and visible brain changes and become more likely the longer such a drug is used. Risperdal was marketed as not causing them, but the makers have, I believe, lost lawsuits over false advertising on this count. What had happened was merely that the drug was (deliberately) released too soon to know the long-term effects.

That's something to beware of with new drugs in general. (Risperdal is not new anymore, but many of the myths about it continue.) When it's said that something doesn't cause a certain effect, often they don't have any way of knowing until it's been out awhile and by that time people can be very harmed by it.

Another thing to watch out for is Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome, which can be fatal. (So can tardive dyskinesia if it affects the breathing muscles, but that's rarer.) Also that tardive dyskinesia is both caused and masked by the drug, so its onset might not be noticed until after someone gets off the drug and the drug is then no longer masking the symptoms it was causing to begin with.

(I have mild TD, and the way I move in general was very affected by neuroleptics, and permanently so as far as anyone can tell. Although I don't know the name for that one.)

Note also, that some side effects are specific. For example, APANA sais that 7% of the population would luck a certain liver enzym neccessary to properly catalyse the drug, otehrwise sife effects are disastrous. Screening and close monitoring would be neccessary.

Wow.
I had no idea that so many had taken anti-psychotic medication. I have never taken it, although when I have had exposure to gluten I have psychotic symptoms. They usually resolve with dietary restrictions back in place.

I don't know if I want to be more social.
I don't know if my so called self-injurious behaviors are dangerous. Basically I hit my head. It doesn't hurt me.

I am asocial meaning I keep withdrawn from others.

It would not be worth it to compromise my health so the world would like me better. I would rather have a house like Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, except it would be a home for people with Aspergers, where it would be OK to be exactly as I am.

Tardive Dyskinesia is more common amongst the (older) Typical Antipsychotics such as Haldol, Thorazine, Prolixin, Trilafon, Mellaril, Stelazine, and Compazine.

The ones used today (even though the older ones are still sometimes used) are called Atypical Antipsychotics which have fewer side effects such as Tardive Dyskinesia. The drugs include Risperdal, Seroquel, Abilify, Geodon, Zyprexa, Clozaril (this last one requires weekly blood tests and can make you drool among other unpleasantries), and some other newer ones as well I think.

Aside from that, many of the neuroleptics can give one the shakes, especially-- but not relegated to-- the Typical Antipsychotics.

Actually the "atypical" ones can cause TD, and that's one of the ways that Risperdal got accused by the FDA of false advertising. And the longer someone is on one -- any of them -- the more chance of permanent brain damage including TD or other tardive syndromes. I think the only one that's never caused TD is Clozaril (and I could be wrong there), and that one can instead cause a life-threatening loss of white blood cells.

Hmmm... Must be a higher risk then, because that was the only reason given to me about not trying higher doses of the Typical Antipsychotics like Haldol (that one was VERY unenjoyable).

I had never heard of the newer APs causing TD, though Risperdal doesn't surprise me. It's one of the older newer ones.

So, yes. Atypicals can cause TD. Just seemingly less often than the Typicals. Good to know, anbuend!

Yes, good to know, and little-advertised because it hurts drug sales.

Doctors won't always tell you this stuff. That's what bothers me. That's what I meant earlier when I talked about people not knowing the risks when they get into this stuff. If people were told the whole risk of the drug, and not pressured into taking it by stuff like "It's either this or an institution," and allowed a real genuine free choice in the matter, I wouldn't be as bothered as I am about the whole thing. What bothers me is that there are a lot of doctors who don't know this stuff and/or won't tell you this stuff when they're recommending drugs.

My psychiatrist used to go to these drug-company-sponsored conventions and honestly think that what he was hearing about the drugs at conventions by the manufacturers was the whole truth about them. He was always shocked when I showed him what's actually on the fact sheets for the drugs, and eventually started asking my advice about them because I wasn't relentlessly propagandized-at by drug companies and read all the relevant material on them.

So that's one thing I'd really recommend, is reading up thoroughly on any given drug, and making sure not to just read stuff even by NAMI and other people who are heavily involved in promoting these drugs, but to read stuff that's as independent from that whole process as possible and make your own decisions. Unfortunately too few people are given a real choice in the matter. (I once had to correct someone who was told by a doctor that neuroleptics are anti-convulsants! They're the exact opposite -- they cause seizures in a lot of people! I was amazed by that one.)

Anyway, I also do know a bunch of people who've only ever had the newer drugs and still have TD. The newer drugs are quite often just variations on each other, and in the end variations off the older drugs, so what they end up with is side-effect profiles that include a lot of the old side-effects, plus a whole slew of new ones that are discovered as the general public becomes a bunch of guinea-pigs.

(One book I'd recommend on the advertising aspect of this, by the way, is Mad In America by Robert Whittaker. Not sure if I spelled that right, but it gets into the whole Risperdal thing in depth.)

anbuend, you might be able to answer me this (I'm sure): does TD only include the muscular movements of the oral and facial muslces, or is it any muscle movements like shaking hands, etc.???

I am wondering if it has a broader definition than I once thought.

TD often starts out with oral movements, but also can involve some specific hand and foot movements. Sometimes it is so severe that it creates constant and obvious whole-body movements that can at times impair breathing or walking.

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/tardive/tardive.htm

It doesn't usually look like shaking hands, that's generally classed under a different set of symptoms caused by the same drugs. But the hands can definitely move. Most TD is different than shaking though.