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Hello all, just found this site and was looking for some advice on tapering off antipsychotic's. It all started about 11 months ago when I was prescribed saphris for depression by my pdoc to augment pristiq, (I know I should have known better). All was fine until about three months in when I started slowly developing anhedonia, just a complete lack of interest in life, it messed up my endocrine system, and destroyed my short term memory. Having successfully quit seroquel cold turkey in the past I thought saphris would be a breeze.... Boy was I wrong, only managed to make it there days in before the overwhelming anxiety (which I've never had before)and insomnia drove me back onto it. After three failed attempts to taper off(lowest dose is 5mg and couldn't cut sublingual wafers any lower), my pdoc suggested switching to 10mg zyprexa for two weeks then stopping that cold turkey, well that was a mess again, had anxiety from hell and insomnia. Again we tried switching over to seroquel which failed.So now I'm back on zyprexa (with a whole new set of side effects)with the plan of tapering off at a rate of -1.25mg every two weeks, currently I'm down to 7.5mg with moderate anxiety, intermittent insomnia and an insatiable appetite. Just wondering if this is too aggressive a taper, I only have tablets available so I'm just relying on cutting them into quarters. Just want off this pharmaceutical merry go round, feel as though I've been lobotomized.

Moderator note: link to benzo forum thread DMV64: New here from other forum and need advice Hello. I am glad to have found this place. I am currently in a horrible withdrawal from Saphris. Really it is like debilitating terror, beyond panic even. I saw a post from 2014 mentioning Dr. Rob Purssey but the link was broken. A bit about me: I am I guess atypical. I have major depressive disorder and anxiety and ADHD. I respond in unexpected ways to many drugs. Although I do not "fit" the criteria for bi-polar, I cannot take seratonin, it makes me sick and manic. I have been on a lot of (cocktails) things so I won't list a history, but am currently on: Lithium 300mg, about 5mg vyvanse (I open capsule), 1mg Klonopin and now 40mg Geoden to help with the Saphris withdrawal. Mornings are THE WORST. I feel afraid to get out of the bed. My psychiatrist seems to not even know about this kind of Saphris withdrawal. Really I just want to take it again to feel better but it kind of turned on me causing depression and dips to suicidal thinking. This is not the first time with the Saphris. In 2011 I was on it for about the same amount of time (2 months) and had a dystonic reaction and went off cold turkey. Very bad. this last time they had me on Cogentin along with Saphris. So I am suffering and I need help. I need to function. When will this end? I need to know what to expect. The Geoden is helping but it's still there. -D

I'll introduce myself as Yabba, I'm a 22 year old male who has been diagnosed with many things over the past 10 years, but in the past 4 everyone has agreed It's BPD & Anxiety. I've been on various medications from prozac to olanzapine to alprazolam, It all started when I was 12, I was put on psychiatric drugs at this age, this is where it all started really - I'm feeling xyz so they prescribe what they think is right, The symptoms of one medication caused side-effects so they would prescribe another to counter. At one point I was on six medications at one time (16 y/o). So now for current day events: My psychiatrist has informed me that Zeldox causes side effects that are irreversible and I should consider moving to a newer anti-psychotic which he gave me a choice, Latuda & Saphris. I've had history with one but not the other. I was on 160 mg of Zeldox (Max daily dose) and I was informed by him I should come off slowly, since being on such a high dose for multiple years (3+) it may or may not be difficult. I've tapered down to 40 mg and wow, this is what emotions are like? My question is to others who have tapered off anti-psychotics: Is this like "wall" of emotions normal? I'm so happy throughout the day, I have lots of energy , but sometimes I'll see something on youtube that will just hit my heart some kind of way and I'll just start to cry, I'm not sad or depressed, I'm just in tears. My goal is to stop anti-psychotics all together, the past 2 months of being tapered off my life has only got better since being on a reduced dose, I'm enrolled back in school to get my diploma (3 credits) I've already made plans for collage, I went and got my licence back, applied and accepted for new bank account and credit card. For the first time in so long things feel good . I don't feel the same 2 emotions anymore & it gives me hope that I can finally do something with my life , that this illness beat me for a decade but In the end I won. Current Medications: Zeldox 40mg Adderall XR 10 mg Alprazolam 2 mg PRN Trazodone 300 mg PRN (for the rare night I can't sleep and I have an appointment the next day ect) p.s Too anyone else with BPD: This **** sucks, but you're a good person. We don't get told that enough but we are. Don't let the stigma get you down.

I've been taking saphris since Nov. of 2017. When I 1st. started saphris I thought it was the greatest medication ever made. It helped me sleep, stopped some of my bad habits and manic behaviors and I really felt good. After 13 to 14 months it took it all back. Insomnia, 30lb. weight gain, increased anxiety, terrible stomach issues and I just didn't feel like me anymore. All the things that I used to really enjoy doing were gone. Hardly wanted to do anything. No motivation. Visiting sights like this on the web helped me to see that I was not alone. That other people were having bad experiences with saphris also. I finally made up my mind that I had enough of saphris. I'm on the 4th. wk. of a 6 wk. 10% taper. When I read an article by Dr. Peter Braggen about the dangers of saphris , SSRI's, and other psychiatric meds. and besides all the other interesting facts he shared, the one that really scared me and was the straw that broke the camel's back for me was that people have a 20 to 30% chance of getting tardive dyskenisia, an irreversible movement disorder, after long term use of saphris as well as other psychiatric meds. It goes up to 40% after 60yrs. old. I'm 61yrs. old and that's NOT a chance I'm willing to take!!! This plus all the adverse side effects mentioned above made my decision VERY EASY... I know, from what I've read on line, that this is NOT going to be fun getting off of saphris. I've read the horror stories of saphris withdrawal and to be quite honest they are scaring the hell out of me!!! Wish me luck

I want to get off Saphris. I was taking 2.5 mg and tried to taper it down over the course of four months, went with three-quarter to one half to one quarter. Became suicidal and so anxious that I almost had several panic attacks. Was manic, and I'm not bipolar. Felt pressure to do things, mostly react with extreme emotions. Went back up to one. Now want to taper down and desperately want to get off of this hellish drug. I also take lamictal (300 mg), Viibryd (40 mg), and Mirtazipine (7.5 mg). I want off of all of them and am horrified at how long it is going to take me. I so want to hurry my taper. I also just quit drinking, after tapering down on alcohol over the course of a week. I've been an alcoholic for years. I am now, today, two days sober. I am going to remain sober. My diagnosis is Depression and Generalized Anxiety disorder. One thing I've noticed is that I have so much rage over the doctors who put me on all of these meds - they just kept shoving more and more meds at me, and never told me about the scary side effects. I want to sue one in particular. The other thing I've noted is that I just hate myself for letting them put me on the meds. My mother said, when she learned of all that I am on: You dropped the ball! She was horrified, and rightly so. I am horrified at myself. Like I said, I hate myself for letting this happen. So mad for ruining my life. So there's this rage and horror at the doctor and at myself. There is also this manic anxiety and decision making problems for myself, problems that I worsen by my anxious reactions. I've been back on a whole dose for a while, but every few days I get scared, and try to take only 75% of a dose. It's not really working out for me. For the last two days, I have felt very suicidal. It's nuts. This is not me. I don't know what to do. That's why I've come here. I am desperate, and very, very afraid. I hope that I've done this intro thread right...

Here's his stuttertalk website. I know the purpose of this forum is "Books, news, blogs, video, radio -- items related to the psychiatry industry and adverse effects of antidepressants" and this technically does not fit. So what gives, why did I start a topic on it? There's been discussion of saphris lately and I started looking it up. This guy, back in 2010, participated in a clinical trial of saphris to reduce stuttering. I don't have the time right now but I am wondering if (he's a psych MD) he rx's or recommends saphris to people. Gotta keep an eye on him. If he is still taking it, will he show any long term effects (going on 6 years now....) Did he ever just take himself off it and did he have wd syndrome that he treated by rxing himself a bunch of drugs? I'd dearly love to know. It is not often we know of docs actually taking the meds they give to their patients with such abandon.... I nearly freaked when I saw there is this drug being prescribed for stuttering....

I have just started trying to get off Saphris. All these forums and blogs are terrifying me. Especially the story of "acetyl". It was prescribed to me after wellbutrin alone wasn't fixing my depression. I am not bipolar or schizophrenic. I think it was an overly aggressive choice and i wish i had researched it before taking it. I was taking 20mg daily along with 10mg lexapro and 450mg wellbutrin. It put me in a zombielike state. I used to be a high performing software developer, at the top of my field, well respected and capable of great things. After Saphris I was unable to think clearly and lost my ability to design software, ending my career as a software developer. I may as well have been asked to perform Brain surgery so complete was the loss of ability. On top of that my current insurance doesnt cover it and i can no longer afford it. I previously tried going off it when i was only taking 10mg. I went too fast and started to experience anxiety pretty bad before going back on it and eventually ended up going up to 20mg. This time i am going much slower. I tapered from 20 to 10 for two weeks and then to 5mg for the last three weeks. Going to 10 went relatively smoothly. Going to 5 has brought on some anxiety that comes and goes. The worst withdrawal symptom so far has been the sexual dysfunction and this is where things make no sense. Each time i increased the saphris dose (5 to 10 and then 10 to 20) i experienced a decrease in sexual function. I expected things to improve when i reduced my dose but the exact opposite happened. With each decrease in dose my sexual ability is still declining. I am married one year and am not ready for my sex life to go away. I hope this will return once my brain recovers. Anyway now that i am at 5mg i am stopping my taper and waiting for the anxiety to subside. It has actually been better the last two days. Not as intense. Also while i am at 5mg i am going to taper off the wellbutrin since that can cause anxiety, before i continue my saphris taper. I will continue the lexapro. I expect this last 5mg to be the hard part and plan to go very very slowly. At each reduction my plan is to wait until symptoms subside before going on to the next reduction. I plan to hoard saphris over the next 6 months so that i have a multi year supply. My latest rx is for 60 10mg tablets per month expecting that i would be taking 2tablets or 20mg per day. Since i am currently only taking 1/4 of that this makes my rx good for enough for two years. When i reduce even farther it will last even longer (4 years at 2.5mg). Since my insurance will not cover it i will have to pay out of pocket but i think it will be worth it to have a chance to get off this drug successfully. I am seeing a new psychiatrist and he didnt know about saphris withdrawal. To his credit he went right out and researched it. Unfortunately he was unable to find any scholarly or official documentation of saphris withdrawal. The only thing available is anecdotal reports on forums and blogs like these. At least he said i could taper the saphris at whatever rate i feel comfortable. I will report in as the taper continues. Hopefully i can be successful and serve as hope for others. I was unable to find any record of successful withdrawal from saphris

I have found forums like this valuable so I thought I would post my recent experience in case it can be helpful to someone else. My wife has recently been trying to get off Saphris. Here is what she experienced and the problems she encountered. Of course this is just one individual case, your situation may not come out the same. -she has been on Saphris for over 3 years - she tapered from 15mg a day down to 1.25 mg/day over a period of about 3 months going from 15, to 12.5 to 10 to 7.5, to 5, to 2.5 and then finally to 1.25 with zero withdrawal issues. In fact she felt great! side effects gone... no anxiety.. fantastic. -then, just a few days after tapering from 2.5 to 1.25 she decided she could just stop alltogether. She figured 1.25 mg was so little anwyay it was a tiny step to zero. - at that point she started having terrible insomnia. Not necessarily anxiety, she just felt like her body wouldnt let her sleep or if she did sleep it would be for a a very short time. She was getting at max a couple hrs a night and of course this was debilitating. -This went on for like a week, she was hoping it was temporary but it didnt seem to be improving. It was her only withdrawal symptom but of course if you can't sleep it pretty much destroys your life, so we had to do something. -her dr suggested benadryl which helped for 1 night -- she took 2 benadryl and it let her sleep about 5 hrs-- not great sleep but better -but then the next night it didnt work. She tried 3, even on 3 it didnt do much. -so then her dr suggested ambian. We werent too thrilled to put her on a sleeping pill since she was trying to get *off* the drugs but on the other hand she couldn't sleep and we had to do something. She tried 1 ambian and it helped... she slept about 4-5 hrs, restlessly, but felt horrible in the morning.. as exhausted as if she hadnt slept at all. The dr was suggesting to up the ambian. Orig dosage was 6.25 mg and so he was going to double it to 12.5mg. We considered that but didnt do it. - we read the info at theroadback.org and it gave us the idea that maybe she just needed to go back to the 1.25mg dose and taper that down much more slowly. We had been worried about going back on the Saprhis at all because we had this idea that she had been suffering through this withdrawal period that *maybe* was almost over??? and we didnt want to give in and "reset the clock"-- if it even works like that. Anyway though, with the only other option being other drugs, we decided it was the best thing to try.. so she went back, after 2 weeks totally off, to 1.25 MG of Saphris. This completely alleviated the insomnia. She is feeling well now after 2 really good night's sleep. Now of course we still want to get her completely off the saphris, but at 1.25mg its such a low dose, she has no side effects (and prob no therapeutic value either, its just to curb the withdrawal) .. so our plan now is to keep it at 1.25 for prob a month and then take maybe 3 months to go from 1.25 to zero much more slowly... we are going to look for a compound pharmacy who can create micro-doses for her so she can go down maybe in quarter mg increments, 2-3 weeks per incremeent.. and see how that goes.. and if she gets the insomnia again we'lll just go back to the prior microdose level for a little longer before going down again. anyway still a work in progress but thought this, as a case study, might be useful to someone.

Two years ago I was imprisoned, tortured and chemically lobotomized. Psychiatrists convinced me I needed to take neuroleptics or risk brain damage from another psychotic episode. I believed them and I took ziprasidone 160mg for almost two years until I developed tardive dyskenesia. I was switched to Saphris in Feb 2017. Since then I have been tapering from Saphris 5 mg at night. I was tapering 10% every two weeks, which I realize after being on this forum is too fast. Since I started the Saphris I have had a terrible time eating. My last reduction was a week ago. Two weeks before that I had reduced to 4 mg and I got really sick for two days. Other people at my work had been sick, so I didn't think it was necessarily withdrawal and I reduced again after two weeks. I became unbelievable ill. Even though I have bumped my dose back up I have still been ill. The mornings are pure hell. When I was in the hospital I was absolutely terrified that I would never get out. I look back at what has happened to me and I realize that I never have. Any hope, encouragement or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I know this is a site for ADs but I noticed there were a few neuroleptics posts. I hope that's ok. I just really need some help and encouragement that this will get better. The only thing keeping me going is that I usually feel ok by the afternoon. I've lost 30lbs since I started the Saphris and although I have plenty of extra weight to lose from gaining so much on the neuroleptics it is also starting to concern me. Should I switch drugs and start my taper over again once I find one I can eat on or should I just slow down my taper and hope things get better? Thank you all so much. It is an inspiration to read stories of people getting off these poisons.

Hello, I had a history of depression, moving randomly, quitting jobs randomly, etc. Eventually this culminated in a suicide attempt at age 30 (hotline saved my life, thank you to all who contribute). I was diagnosed Bipolar 2 shortly afterward thanks to family history (depression and anxiety diagnoses for mother, vague diagnoses but committed half her life mother's mother, suicidal death of mother's mother's father) and my behavior. I rejected this and self-medicated for years, volunteered overseas, used St. John's Wort (which was surprisingly effective) and other things but had a manic episode and went out of work for a while, which led me to finally getting psychiatric help long-term. I had seen around seven therapists and all diagnosed me bipolar 2, but the psychiatrist says I am true bipolar since I had at least a handful of real manic episodes. He seems more worried about mania than depression, which is my real issue on a day-to-day basis. He first prescribed me 10mg Saphris, which made me woozy 24/7 and super sleepy. When I complained about being tired all the time with no benefit he quickly switched me to 5mg Abilify without much discussion. It also makes me super sleepy, plus I have insomnia (weird combination, always half-tired) and I feel more anxious, irritable and suicidal. I cannot see him again until Thursday but I think I might stop the abilify today, it's making me feel really on a knife's edge. Reading it really seems like he is prescribing me all wrong. I feel I need an anti-depressant and a balancer, but he is just giving me antipsychotics. I don't know how to impress upon him depression is my main problem any more than I already have. Thanks to anyone who read. Any advice would be appreciated and I will peruse the abilify threads for tips on how to handle how it's making me feel.