Geodon and lamictal

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?

Hi. My 16 year-old daughter was diagnosed as being bipolar 2 years ago. She was put on several drugs which produced very negative side effects. She finally was placed on Lamictal (200m) and Geodon (80m). We have just found out that she has a liver problem and a heart problem. I can't be more specific because we need to get her evaluated. She has also gained 50 pounds in those 2 years and her meds make her VERY tired...so tired, she must have caffeine a lot. She is weening off of Geodon over a 3-day period. Her psychiatrist told her to take half (40m) a day for 3 days then nothing. I will keep you posted of her symptoms from withdrawal. We are then taking her off of Lamictal. I leave you with 3 thoughts from me having done research for years:
1. Get off all drugs, eat well (no sugar, refined crap and processed stuff) and exercise
2. Get therapy for dealing with bipolar disorder instead of being on drugs - it helps
3. For those of you who continuously mention that you just started a drug and have side-effects - OF COURSE you will have side effects as your body needs to adjust

Hello All,

I have been on Geodon for about 3 weeks. It has helped my depression, and I also have had my Lamictal dosage increased. i was doing well on it up to about 4 days ago. I started to have chest pain. I am 35, in great shape, I am a spin instructor part time. The Geodon has helped my ADD and bipolar symptoms. I am going to have to come off the drug due to the chest pain. Today while teaching class, I got a case of chest pain. I pushed through it, but I am not going to risk a heart attack for a more pleasant life. It just isn't worth it. Please, remember is it better to live happy for a short time, because this drug can kill, or is it better to take something different?

Hello All. Diagnosed bipolar in 2004, been on and off meds realizing that I guess I can't really be off of them, though having a hard time dealing with it. Been on Lamictal, Lithium, Geodon, and several anti-depressants and others I can't remember honestly in the past, now just Geodon, 80 mg at night (can't do it in the morning, can't work). It's now 2 a.m. and I'm desperate. I feel worse on my meds than I do off, though I get suicidal and sabotage my life and my marriage and kids. I have experienced insomnia, tired in the morning, my muscles ache, I dance all morning long and my co-workers think I'm crazy ( I guess I may be). I have landed in crutches because my "dancing" has caused shin splits. I hold a good job and I have two kids that I need to tend to. My husband travels a lot and I just can't seem to deal with the Geodon. All others caused similar issues. I'm desperate on my meds, but I suffer schitzo symptoms off meds. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. BTW, just found two great doctor's, one for therapy and one for med admin. Only been back on my meds and doctor's appts for 2 months after being off meds for 9 months and suffering another "great" relapse. Help me!!!!

Its hard to say for sure what people will experience with any of these drugs, but its nice to hear from you all.

I am looking at whether geodon or lamictal is causing me these horride nightmares.

It seems both drugs can.

I started taking catapres, which is a blodd pressure med that has an off-label use to control nightmares which helped quite a bit...

but beware...missing a dose or two of caterpress will give you a rather bad day, as it suppresses adrenaline...which causes nightmares.....so imagine what happens when this suppression suddenly stops???? BAD.

i am tapering off geodon, i had no issue with it, but being seroquel is the only FDA approved anti-psychotic med to treat depression/aniexty....i will find out soon if the geodon was causing the nightmares or the lamictal. i will post later.

just know- for me..tappering off geodon is not going pleasant for me.

my doctor said the drug rep even mentioned it had a high side effect profile...

I have been on geodon for about one year. My dosage have been changed too many times to count. I am presently taking geodon 60mg, lamictal 200mg and lunesta at bedtime. On some nights, I am unable to sleep and I have to get up at 430 am. I am very depressed and I feel that nobody understands what I am going through. I don't know which of my meds are causing which side effects, but I need a change. I am 5ft 7in tall and I now weigh 118# (one year ago I weighed 142#).

I am 21yrs old and was just diagnosed with Bipolar 2 disorder. My doc put me on Lamictal,Prozac and Geodon. I take 80mg at night. I feel pretty manic after being on it for only 2 days. I have enough energy for 3 people and my hands shake and my vision is quite blurred which isn't good because I'm legally blind in one eye anyways. The only real side effect that I find troublesome is when I feel like I can't breathe. It only happened when I took it the 2nd time though. It felt like I couldn't get enough oxygen in my body. It was literally hell. My mom finally gave me benadryl thinking that maybe it was allergies and I fell asleep when the benadryl kicked in.

So...
The Geodon seemed to make me too drowsy and I felt it was causing my sleep issue. I couldn't wake up in the morning. It was like I was still in REM while trying to wake. I could sleep until 12 noon and then realize I was late for work. Adderall barely seemed to help anymore.
After swearing off medications forever, I finally hit rock bottom realizing that my BiPolar had gotten the best of me. A DUI, WAY BAD CREDIT...I dug my self a hole of DEBT! My compulsive EVERYTHING had dug me a hole that thank God my Mother is still willing, after 22 years, is willing to help pull me out.
On my own, no psychiatrist involved, with my samples of Geodon and a prescription of Adderall provided by my primary care physician...I decided to go back on medication and so far...a week into it, I have noticed a significant difference...and so has others. Yes, I still might not want to wake up in the morning, but I am able to effectively work and actually somewhat enjoy doing it. I feel like I want to do things where as before...I just wanted to sleep or lay on the couch watching TV. I want to have a future and I want to better myself, where as before I wanted nothing but another drink and some pills. I feel that my quality of life has already improved and I hope with seeing my new psychiatrist on Tuesday, he might better my therapy.

Here is my current problem before asking my doctor.... hadn't taken any adderall for days. I took the Geodon at night, 60mg one day and 80mg the next thinking it might help with my sleep but it didn't do a thing. I Then the next day I took adderall around 7AM and 80mg of Geodon about 9PM and I couldn't keep my eyes open about 1-2 hours after taking the Geodon and I over-slept that morning and didn't wake up until after 10:30am when I am suppose to be at work at 9:00am.

Is it common for the extreme drowsiness to occur with the combination of Adderall in the morning and Geodon at night? I know before when I took both never missing either one, I was always extremely drowsy and that's one of the reasons I stopped taking meds. But after experiencing Geodon without adderall, I am wondering if the TWO don't mix well.

PLEASE HELP.

originally posted to Queenie30
(also should mention that in addition to the Geodon, I take Lamictal and Wellbutrin)
I have been on Geodon for just under a week and have already lost 5 lbs! I was on Seroquel, which I loved and depended on for over a year, but could no longer stand by and watch the needle on the scale get higher and higher... 50 lbs total. Talk about depression. The Seroquel was previously the only thing that worked to halt my mania and put me to bed. Since the switch from (50 mg) Seroquel to (20 mg) Geodon I feel all around better than I have in years! I felt an improvement in mood almost immediately. I am clear headed, awake, smiling and laughing, have energy, and my previously (insatiable!) appetite is clearly suppressed. I have a natural nervous/anxious/self-conscious disposition which I attribute to my personality- in addition to the BP, all of my life which limited my eating, but in a healthy way- I was not underweight/overweight. (The Seroquel turned me into a lazy, careless cookie monster to say the least.) I have gone from sleeping 12 hrs a night (and still feeling exhausted) to sleeping 6 hrs a night and waking up feeling well rested, refreshed, and actually wanting to wake up! (That says a lot, I haven't felt like I wanted to wake up since I was a kid and I'm almost 30...) The not-so-fun part- I am extremely nauseous with diarrhea. I have called out of work the last 2 days because of the constant trips to the bathroom and vomiting. I really hope this part ends soon because I want to be able to tolerate this drug and not have to go back to the seroquel. I was in such a fog w/ the Seroquel that I did not see the true zombie effect it has had on me for over a year. I completely stopped doing the things that I loved and enjoyed- including using my creativity and intelligence. I feel 'alive' again on Geodon. I have felt myself when triggered, mind racing into mania which does have me on guard. I stayed awake in bed the first 2 nights til' at least 3am unable to stop the thought train/obsessing about something stupid my husband did 6 years ago :-) This is the part however, I want to learn to control on my own without meds which I why I am aggressively seeking therapy. Though, when my mind is racing/obsessing the geodon does seem to give me that strong sense of reality/insight that what I am doing is not normal or healthy, whereas before, I'd just be extremely angry and blame my husband or whoever 'wronged me' for my obsessing/anger/rage. Now I have a clear sense that I am (or should be) in control of myself/thoughts and feelings. I need to work on that missing link between obsessing about something I can not control or change, and reality- what is healthy for me. A med can not do this for you.
Hope this makes sense! Good Luck :-)

I forgot to mention this site:
http://www.askapatient.com/viewrating.asp?drug=20825&name=GEODON

You can read patient reviews on this or any drug and submit your own. I must admit, the page on Geodon is quite scary, but since my experiences have been mostly all good, I am staying extremely hopeful :-)

I take 5 diff. drugs and am trying to figure out which side effect is associated with which drug. I have a really shotty memory now where I have lost perception of time. I thought I had spoken to my friend two weeks ago and I spoke to her two days ago. I read the news all day at work and can't remember any of it. This could be from the Ativan, Ambien, Lamictal or Provigil that I am also taking, but I have no idea which or if its the combo of a few. I am on all of these drugs because i have Bipolar 1 disorder. I take 160 mg of Geodon at night. Also, horrible facial paresthesia and insomnia. Does anyone know if this drug causes memory loss?? Thanks

Hi Everyone,

Doctor put me on Geodon about 3 months ago. I started out 60 mg in the sample package the Doctor gave me. After using the sample pack I was prescribed 2 60 mg tablets (120mg) at night. It worked well for awhile and all of a sudden it seemed to stop working for me. I read a lot about how this drug is a nasty one and decided to cut down to 1 tablet (60 mg at night) The very next day I was trembling and having hot and cold flashes along with "brain zaps" and heart palpitations. I was hoping the Lamictal would cushion the side effects of the Geodon. Well it sure didn't do that and I know as the day goes I will have the same symptoms as I did yesterday.
The Geodon website makes this drug sound like a miracle drug but does state that heart related issues are there especially for the elderly people. This is a nasty drug that I hope I can get off and maybe go back to Lexapro because I have ADHD and not Bi-Polar.

Geodon has been wonderful for me!! I have been on it for 2 years (I think). My dose was just increased due to some depression. I am on 40 mg in the AM and 40 mg in the PM. I take it at 7 am and 5:30-6 pm. I think it helps to have the even doses throughout the day. I am also on Lamictal (awesome drug!) and Wellbutrin. My medley works great for me. The only side effect I had when my dose was recently increased was a little sleepiness in the AM. Now, 5 days into it, no more tiredness. Actually energy because I am no longer depressed. Best of luck to y'all. I am bipolar, and it sucks to have to take medicine for the rest of my life, but I feel great and I certainly don't want to go back to the depression and mania I felt off the drugs.

At times this has been a great drug for me. It let me get up from utter depression and start gardening, cooking. But now I think, after 4 years off and on, mostly on, the side effects are hurting me. My tongue is always red and painful. Does anyone else have this problem? I take lithium and Lamictal too for bipolar disorder.

Geodon has definitely proved useful for me, thus far, for the depression side of my bipolar disorder, and compared to Lamictal (which had many and terrible side effects for me, even at a low dose) and Trileptal (to which I discovered I'm quite allergic), it's been a blessing. Took it for three days and it was like throwing a switch to turn off my depression, which had been increasingly bad and getting worse over the past two years. I've been on it for only two weeks, but thus far, I have had minor problems with a rash (easily controlled with a small dose of benedryl, and which will hopefully go away in time), one night of insomnia, and a day of frequent need to urinate. The jury's still out as to whether or not it is affecting my blood pressure. I'm also taking Klonopin, which may be why I have not had much trouble with sleeping, but the need to suddenly run to the bathroom every two hours (or less) is disconcerting and will be watched. I'm taking what most doctors would probably consider an extremely low dose, only 20 mg, but my particular variety of BPD makes me extremely hypersensitive to drugs of any kind. My doctor has suggested that I try increasing the dose in another two weeks, but so long as I'm doing well at this level, I have no intention of doing so, and he knows it. I am seldom able to reach "normal therapeutic levels" for these kinds of drugs, and if I do, it takes years for me to get there. Thank God my doctor understands that if the level I'm taking is effective for me, it doesn't matter that it's half, or less, of what "normal" people take. Because nobody's body chemistry is the same, and one size does not fit all when it comes to drug dosage.

Yesterday my Doctor prescribed 120mg Geodon at night along with 10mg of tomazepam and during the day 150mg of Wellbutrin 10mg Lexapro and 100mg of Lamictal
I slept all the way through the night but this morning felt awful, difficulty forming words and feiling faint. I knew that Ihad to force myself to do something and went swiming, I hate getting my head in the water but my head was so hot that I went under water to try and clear my thinking and aleive the headache
I was unsure which of the night medications produced these reactions
I have been on Wellbutrin Clexa Nerontin wellbutrin and more recently Lymictal and Seriquil were added
It is scary to hear everyone else's side effects to this drug.
Has anyone been switched because of thier side effects?