Zyprexa symptoms and conditions

My son's on 500mg. Depakote along w/Zyprexa for past 8 months. In past month he's had insomnia and doesn't want to go to sleep for fear of nightmares. He's dreaming he's going to die and someone's going to take him. Recently, i've read where Depakote can cause horrendous nightmares. what to do?

My wife has been on it and Seroquel and Lamictal for about 2 years. The longest on Geodon. Up to 80MG per day and as low as 20. She started having muscle cramps in her legs after about 2 weeks on 80 mg. Doc put her on Benztropine to counter act the cramps. Then Seroquel at night. (she had bad psychosis). Then later the Psychiatrist would not treat her and we switched to another doc. She was on Seroquel. He increased it to 600 mg at night. Then her throat felt like it was locking up at 2am She quit Seroquel immediately. Then back to 20 mg Geodon... Zyprexa for a trial.. 2 doses and she had a seizure. Invega... akathesia and heart rate up after one dose.
Now she has been off of Geodon for 5 weeks and has SEVERE gi upset. She is having ERCP and Pancrea ultrasound tomorrow. But I think it is ALL gi upset caused by Geodon. She took ONE 20 mg Geodon Saturday and EVERYTHING went away. GI normal... but I will NOT let her stay on this drug. I WANT MY WIFE BACK! It has destroyed her personality. HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE? Is the permanent?

I have put on weight I am 104kgs.I am picking up bacterial infections.I have a persistent cough and feel somewhat deflated.I also suffer from mild schizophrenia as well as my O.C.D.I take 375 mgs of Effexor and 10mgs of
Olanzapine or Zyprexa.I have had bouts of depression since the age of 25.I am now 39.I would dearly like my medication to be reduced as I'm finding it hard to be happy and content.Any advice?

I have been on antipsychotic medicines for like 14 years now I have been on every one there is and im only 23. A couple of years ago I was put on zyprexa for my ptsd, the nightmares, and the phobias and it really work well but it made me gain so much weight that the doctor switched me to Seroquel and i was on that for years but the side effects were awful. I still gained weight and the nightmares were getting even worse. And after I would take them I couldnt swallow and my heart rate would go up to like 120 beats per minute just lying down. I kept telling my doctor that it made me feel so weird like I was having a heart attack but he said that the medicine didnt do that but the second I stopped taking it (which I decided on my own) my heart felt so much better. It seems like the medicines for these kinds of disorders have the worst side effects of any medications out there. What is horrible is without them I feel like I am losing my mind. So I have no idea what to do.

I only took Zyprexa once every week b/c of severe insomnia and sometimes 2x's a months w/ 3 days intervals to catch up on sleep. I was doing fine just eating ridiculously healthy and exercising but the hunger came and I could no longer sleep because it was so severe I would wake up in the night ravished and couldn't sleep until I ate so I stopped the zyprexa, which I wasn't even taking much in the first place!! I've been off for a week and I would like to know from those who went off of it, how long does it take for the hunger to back to normal? They want to try seroquel but I'm scared that will keep it going, so would like to get it back to normal before trying something else. Need sleep! last semester of school, need to pass. Thank you. BTW, works great for sleep, did save my life in that aspect.

I took Zyprexa for 11 yrs always pleading with my psychiatrist to let me try something else. I had gained 90+ lbs with Zyprexa and slept about 12-14 hrs every day. Plus I just sat around watching TV all the time. No motivation. But it did stabilize me when it seemed nothing else could.

Two weeks ago my doctor changed me to Geodon. What a wonderful change! At least the first 12 days I had no problems and lost 7 lbs. My head is clear, I am hypomanic which is so much better than mired in drowsiness and trouble thinking. Now I have energy galore and feel maybe I can even return to work soon.

HOWEVER, the last two nights I just can't go to sleep. Night before last I tossed and turned for 2 hrs before I could sleep. Last night it was 4 hrs. I tried taking the Geodon (80mg) this morning instead of taking it tonight, hoping that would help the situation. But after taking it in the morning, I was in terrible shape. I couldn't seem to keep my mouth closed -- it kept falling open and I looked like an idiot. I couldn't concentrate to drive -- I know I ran at least one red light. Finally I just went home and slept for a couple of hours. Then I was fine.

Also I have light headaches and nausea off and on and totally no appetite. I like the appetite part but have had anorexia in the past so I have to be careful when I don't want to eat. Insomnia too, as I said. And hypomania. All in all, a trade up from Zyprexa, which I hated. I just hope I can manage the side effects enough to stick with it. I hope they will go away, but you never know about that. Zyprexa's side effects never went away.

I also am having a difficult time with memory loss. I have a very short term memory. I never used to be this way. Before I started taking Lamictal, I was taking Depakote. I haven't been on Lamictal for that long, so I do not know if my previous medications have caused my memory loss. I also get dizzy sometimes and I'm feeling out of breath lately. Some other medications I've taken are: Zyprexa (which gave me type I diabetes); Abilify; Risperadol; Adavan...the list goes on, unfortunately. I have been taking anti-psychotic drugs since I was 16, and I am 37 years old now. God help me!

Been on Geodon, substituted for weight-gaining Zyprexa, 3 weeks. No more paranoia, clear thinking, but want to go off because of horrible insomnia. Racing heart while on too high a dose of Geodon. Doc won't let me off, so here I go myself....

I live in Israel, and here in this country not only do the police do their duty incorrectly, but so do psychiatric officials.
I was in a bad state emotional, and that did not result in any obscene or out-of-the-order matter, but me having chosen to move on with my life was a bad idea since moving on meant letting go and kicking out of my life a she-devil that posed as a girlfriend.
she had connections and accused me wrongfully of stuff i didn't do, and since she had friends in the police force, I ended up being admitted to a psychiatric hospital, there I was forced to take 10 mg of ZYPREXA, every day, for a little more than a month and a half, after a couple of weeks i developed a rash on my head, and vibrations with palpitations.
when i stopped taking ZYPREXA, the rash continued, the vibrations when i go to sleep with the palpitations continue but are even worse,
I cant sleep, and when i do fall asleep I wake up every hour, if lucky i sometimes manage to sleep for 2 hours and then only wake up, and i keep waking up until i give up on sleeping, i get headaches, nausea, dizziness, i eat, and after 30 minutes to 1 hour i go the the toilet and diarrhea..
my left eye sees blurry, i hear much less in my left ear, and not to mention that i have no tinnitus, - all day long i hear an electric pulse in my ears, i am disconnected from emotions, cant concentrate, my memory is impaired, i cant seem to make myself do anything, i cant even figure out what i am feeling, my teethes health has gone bad, get mood swings which are not extreme at all, resulting in me not knowing what it is I'm going through, i think this Zyprexa ordeal as resulted in multiple sclerosis which hasn't been diagnosed yet, and i don't know what more else there is, since i am quite handicapped mentally emotional and physically i can do stuff, but for some reason i don't do anything.
bad dreams (when i do manage to get several minutes of sleep), and i feel stoned all the time. and this is not all, but seriously, here in Israel or overseas, who really gives a damn? and who can help these things go away??..Ive been told to wait (I've been waiting a little more that 3 months) for all this to go away, and nothing as gone away, instead more things slowly gather.
too bad there is no death sentence here in Israel, if there was I might try to get it, to end this suffering, though, what can i say, even dying is not something I can manage to get myself to do, I cant seem to actually decide to do anything, I just think of it, and in the meanwhile, my whole life is passing in front of my eyes, making me realize, this might be the ending of my life as I know it, and all i have to do about it is just sit and wait, either for things to change (cause i cant change them), or to die.

I have been on 40 mg Geodon for over 6 months, and I stay like I am in the clouds and my legs and hands will shake ,bad anxiety,I don't want to go out and do anything.I want to get off this drug against my docs orders , does anyone have any information on withdrawals from the Geodon?and how do you tapper yourself off it . email me *** thank you Melissa

Geodon - Weight Loss, Mania Anyone?
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I've been on Geodon for 5 wx & have lost 15 #'s. I usually weigh 130, now 115. looking anorexic, but my depression is a lot better now, I'm happy, first time in ovr a yr. nothing else could break the barrier except the Geodon, but it makes me manic, on top of already being manic…can't sleep. as I was about to crash & burn (thu), before I went running to the ER, i found my stash of 4 mg Risperdal that I just weened myself off of 3 mos ago, due to the long term side effects I was having (td, slurring, twitching, sexual dysfunction...). it took the edge off, til I can talk to the pdoc on tue.

like many of you, i’ve tried everything. i’m at my wit’s end. This bizarre combo seems to work for me. It puts a muzzle on the mania, allowing me a more hypomanic state where I can function & still feel really happy. although I’m going to try 40 vs 60 mg geodon. & try going down to 2 mg risperdal or try another a/p. adding the risperdal allowed me to sleep, along w/the lorazepam. but, I prefer not to be on risperdal

So, as of now…i'm on 60 mg geodon, 675 mg lithium, 4 mg risperdal & 1 mg lorazepam X 2/day.

has anyone else had this experience? Especially w/the mania & weight loss?

PLZ HELP! QUEENIE

Is this a forum for trashing Lamictal? I've been on it for a year and it probably saved my life. If you have negative effects from taking it, why not drop it and try something else? I'm glad I never read all of these horror stories, as I'm sure it would have scared me enough never to have tried it. That would have been a shame .. I've never felt as symptom free as I do now; I sleep well and dream well, put in long days in my business and never have a problem remaining focused and alert. The perfect cocktail for me turned out to be 250mg Lamictal twice a day, 25mg Trazodone at night, and 40mg Citalopram. I feel really fortunate that my psychiatrist only feels the need to visit with me once every 6 months just to check in. If I miss a day, my wife notices immediately as I start to swing "up" again. Drawbacks? The cost (about 7 bucks a pill), and some weight gain which may have happened anyway .. (I'm 52). If you have the insurance to cover it, I say give it a try.

Within 5 days of beginning course of Geodon, 40mg daily, doc doubled my dosage to 80mg, began to have problems. Intensely manic, easily frightened, insomnia, terrifying dreams. I decided to get out of hospital ASAP and decide if to quit taking Geodon.
On day six already my face was twitching, was irritable and manic, pacing, increasingly manic throughout day, decided to skip evening dose, keep total dosage same as before, 40mg. Began tripping around midnight and it was all downhill from there. Sleepless all night, by morning I had convulsions, increased heart rate, fear and anxiety, psychosis, uncontrollable crying. Had another seizure 12 hours later. Slept a little with help of Valium. Next day developed Parkinson's like symptoms, had my father not been there to help me, Lord knows what would have happened to me. Still awake in day 3 of withdrawal. Hoping the worst is over.

Before I was on Geodon I was on Zyprexa. That was the worse mistake of my life. Before I started with these anti psychotic I was 5'9 male who weighed 140 pounds after a few months I gained 50 pounds. Geodon stopped that though and I'm thankful.

The problem I have the most trouble with is never feeling awake unless its at night and I hate that.Now just a couple days ago I have been feeling that my jaw is locking. Other than that I do appreciate Geodon for what it does. I haven't been depressed for over 4 months now.

Geodon has been great for me. I was on Zyprexa and gained 125 pounds. Got off of Zyprexa and started taking Geodon. I have already lost 14 pounds. On Zyprexa I was sleepy all the time. I slept all day long. I hated it. On Geodon I'm not sleepy. I don't even need naps. I love it. The only side effect I have is a runny nose. I'm happy I switched to Geodon.

On October 5th 2007 I experienced auditory hallucinations but their different than the others. I hear my thoughts directly outside of my head and they repeat the thought continuously until another thought happens. Sometimes their are thoughts that I have previously thought of and they won't go away. It starts from the moment I wake up in the morning until I go to sleep in the evening. Sometimes they sing like a choir and sometimes they talk my thoughts. Children's, women, men, and one old man. Sometimes it's a mechanical voice. I started taking Lamicatal in August. I started with 25 mg. for two weeks. Then I increased it to 50mg for two weeks. Then I increased it to 75 mg for two weeks. Then I increased it to 100mg for two weeks. Then I increased it to 125mg and I took this for one week and that's when these auditory hallucinations got worse. Now I only take 50mg and the auditory hallucinations will not go away yet. Before I started taking Lamictal I was on Cymbalta 20mg. I needed to stop taking this medication as that it caused abdominal pains, severe headaches, nausea, I started hearing other peoples thoughts and conversations. I was only Cymbalta for one year. I never was able to hear peoples thoughts before taking Cymbalta and I never heard hallucinations before taking Lamictal. Years ago I was taking Paxil 20mg and this medication increased the abstract visual dreaming and the zoning out. The reason I started taking Lamicatal was that in the evening while I was sleeping I would sometimes get startled in the middle of the night with abstract visual dreaming and it hurt my head. Also I was zoning out occasionally during the day. Kind of like daydreaming but no visual dreams. Lamicatal did stop this but this side effect is driving me insane.

I have been on 40 mgs of Geodon since April 2006 and I have had absolutely no side effects from it. In fact, it is far better than the 7.5 mgs of Zyprexa I was on previously (gained 70 lbs on Zyprexa) and I have lost 40 of those lbs already. I told my doctor to take me off the Zyprexa as I couldn't stand to gain any more weight, so that is when he put me on Geodon. I was still in somewhat of a dark mood all the time and still paranoid on the Zyprexa, but when I started on Geodon it cleared it all up almost immediately. Geodon has been a life saver for me. I'm sorry to read about the bad experiences of some on this medication. I have never experienced any of the symptoms mentioned in previous posts. In fact, I have no side effects from it whatsoever.

I am bipolar II and began taking Lamictal on top of my usual cocktail of Wellbutrin and Zyprexa following a suicide attempt. As everyone else has reported, it took a while to get up to a theraputic dosage; once I got there though, I felt the best I had in years (no exaggeration) - I literally felt completely freed from my illness. This freedom came at a cost, however. During my college days (I am a recent graduate) I was the top student in my department and routinely completed tremendous projects in unusually short amounts of time. Since reaching my current dosage of Lamictal, however, I have begun FAILING a Spanish course I am taking as I am both unable to retain anything I learn from studying (especially flash cards, which as everyone knows are the key to learning new vocabulary words) and, more importantly, feel no motivation to correct the situation. I am currently preparing to take two GREs as well as apply to eight graduate schools and have gone from obsessing over the issue to not caring whatsoever. I have also begun a new job recently and have extreme difficulty waking up each morning due to how exhausted I feel (it's notable that I didn't have this feeling upon switching to a large dose of Zyprexa.) My doctor has instructed me to lower the dose and monitor my mood accordingly to see if I can have positive psychological results with minimal side effects. I am upset about potentially having to give up the radical change in how I feel every day, but the side effects are just too severe (at the current dose, that is.) It still remains to be seen whether a lower dose will have sufficiently positive psychological effects with minimal side effects; I will make a followup post after this one once I can assess that.

Well I been on Geodon for about a year and a half now and at first I was taking two 80mg pills at night which was making me so tired the next morning that I had trouble waking up for class and so after the next time seeing my doctor I was told to take one 80mg pill during the day and one at night.For a few months everything was fine because I was going to class and working and then all of a sudden I started having trouble sleeping at night.I was sleeping maybe two or three hours at night which was effecting everything.I had stop going to my classes and I had quit my job because I kept getting written up because I kept falling asleep at work .Now my doctor has me on 10mg of Zyprexa and I take two 60mg of geodon during the day but I still feel tired all the time.

I can't say if I do or don't recommend this drug because the side effects are different for each person and I haven't had a good experience with Geodon

I have been on geodon for 5 months now. At first the side effects were horrible. I was very agitated, unable to sit still, flushing, and paranoia. However, now I feel better. The first month and a half were hell. I have BPD and my moods are very controlled. I have lost 30lbs on this medicine. I was on Zyprexa prior to this and experienced a 60lb weight gain. Thanks to everyone who has posted prior to this...when i was struggling so, it was good to know others had experienced my side effects too.

Yes, it is 3:40am and I too am up searching the internet to find out which medication is giving me insomnia! Looks like it's Geodon! I started with 40mg at bedtime for one month and they just upped my dose to 80mg at bedtime. My main problem has been sweating! As a 30 year young female living in sunny California (100 degress plus) it isn't to attractive to have a sweating problem. I am miserable! My eyes are so dilated and dry my husband actually asked me if I was using drugs (ha ha ha) and I am getting "trails" off things and small hallucinations if I wake up in the middle of the night (like a washcloth crawled away on the counter). I have trouble swallowing, am restless and anxious. I feel the symptoms worsened with the increasing dosage. But I guess this is better than the Zyprexa when I gained 30lbs in two weeks! I'm gonna give this drug a chance, hoping the sweat thing will get better with time. I've been playing this medication game long enough to know that unless the side effects are life threatening to stick with it and give it time. I have read many places that if you have stiffness and shuffling walk to stop the drug immediately and I saw a couple posts that were having that problem. It's on the manufacturers website; stop the drug immediately!

I have been taking Geodon for about 4-5 years. I was diagnosed with schizophrena in 97. I had tried Seroquel and Zyprexa prior but quit because I still heard things. I saw things. I had disillusions. On top of this, I have extreme anxiety as a symptom. I saw my doctor as a drug dealer trying to take my money. At $240 an hour, he probably was.

After 2 years of being off the medicine, I was quite a mess. In retrospect, my psychosis was influencing my thoughts. In an attempt to be normal by not being on medication, I had reached a whole new definition of abnormal thinking. I justified it by thinking I was a psychic and not psychotic. Hey, if spirits spoke to John Edwards, why not to me. They do make sense sometimes. They are just intrusive.

I came to a point of depression. I had never thought of killing myself before but it became an obsession. I just wanted it all to end. So back with the doctor and he prescribes me Zoloft and Geodon. The Zoloft had to go after 2 weeks because it made me extremely anxious. Anxiety causes increased thoughts and more anxiety.

I stayed on the Geodon. My doctor said that 120mg was the theraputic dose but I take 80 at night. Does it help. I guess. I have forgotten how I was before it. I still hear voices but my anxiety is under control. I can sleep at night when I take it without feeling like I am privy to some celestrial conversation. I haven't layed in bed worrying for years. I forgot a pill last week and had a restless sleep and that isn't fun.

I get hateful thoughts when I am getting close to the night. Anxiety starts to build and I am uncomfortable for a few hours. It takes about 3 hours for me to have an effect. I don't have the side effects other than insomnia when I skip. Sleep is impossible.

The major problem I have been having lately is with my memory. I feel like I am living life with a chemical labotomy. I can study for tests and pass but then forget the material shortly after. I can't remember if today was yesterday or a week before. This could be because I'm getting old though.

On October 3, 2003, my wife awoke from a nightmare so real she believed it, followed by more, plus extreme confusion, and hallucinations, which according to the head pharmasist of one of Baltimore's big hospitals is a rare but well known side effect of Toprol. Why can't I find a thing about this, much less how to reverse this? She's on Zyprexa to control the hallucinations

i have been taking this drug now for about a month and have noticed that it take me longer in the morning to get going my appetite has increased.

I was on Lithium,1200 mg aday .I was on it for a long time and it changed my world for the good . Now I have gone off because it has lost it's affect. My Psychiatrist has put me on Zyprexa and it is doing great things for me.The only thing I don't know if I should take it at night or morning .Exercises helps keep the weight down. Esther