Posted by RacerT514 on December 7, 2003, at 22:17:07
In reply to Re: Anxiety » glow, posted by KimberlyDi on December 5, 2003, at 10:06:45
I just started Zyprexa, 2.5mg, last night. I went to sleep and stayed asleep all night, and actually only slept for about 9 hours total, so I didn't oversleep, which is good. Usually sedating drugs effects seem to wear off, so after a while I should be getting around 8 hours of sleep a night, because I did wake up rather early today.
Now onto the important stuff... After taking it just last night, for one, I didn't have any closed eye or dark room hallucinations like I often do. Those are a major problem for me getting to sleep. I also didn't have any delusional visions of my body that also disturb me badly. All throughout today, there were no ideas of reference, and my social anxiety was virtually non-existent. I mean, I was totally aware of all the people around me, but I just didn't care about it anymore, it didn't bother me. It was quite a great day, very similar to taking a dose of opiates, without the euphoria, for me.
I must advise, I have only taken one dose so far, so I don't know how good an indication this is. My stomach is in better shape, too, because there is little to no anxiety causing my whole GI Tract to go crazy. I haven't experienced any side effects at all, except for a tiny bit of drowsiness, but it hasn't been a problem.
The only thing I am worried about is the intense carb craving and weight gain, which I experienced while on Remeron. That drug was horrible, it made me extremely drowsy and I had no energy, and it seemed to make me more depressed, too, and I had some BAD hallucinations on it. That was before I was diagnosed schizoaffective, only with social anxiety and depression at that point.
I also have tried Abilify. I did not use it for a long time, however, only 2 days, because of the problems it caused me. For one, it caused very bad restlessness, muscle soreness, and a general feeling of being very antsy and unable to sit still or feel comfortable at all. That was mostly due to the restlessness and aches, which were horrible. I believe it is called Akthisia. I also had horrible bodily delusions while trying to go to sleep, like I was some machine, or I was made of pills, all kinds of wierd stuff. I didn't sleep well at all, actually, I barely slept. My social anxiety was just as bad on it, too.
So, those are my experiences, I hope they are helpful. I do also recommend starting at very low doses. I was taking 10mg Abilify, but 5 or even 2.5mg may be a better idea, but of course talk to your doctor about this. I have a feeling that the recommended doses are WAY too high because they want to make sure that people "feel" the drug, instead of starting people super-low, at a level that they may not really feel anything from it and stop using the drug. The problem with these high doses is important. When people start these drugs and suffer so many side effects, it is because there is too much of the drug in the body. The adjustment period is actually the body being forced to build a tolerance to the drug in a very quick amount of time, thus the overly high doses cause sickness, etc. because the body is not ready for so much drug. If one were to start out slow, they could determine if the drug is effacacious, and if not after a week, increase the dose slightly, and continue to do this until efficacy is reached. That "good" dose will likely be much lower than the dose most people are started on, and when the drug stops working, the patient will be able to increase the dose slightly, without exceeding the recommended daily dose limit. Forgive me, for this probably sounds quite confusing here in this last paragraph, but I hope you all can gain something from it.
TL
poster:RacerT514
thread:286212
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031202/msgs/287563.html