Bokart: withdrawing from olanzapine / Zyprexa

[Emily02]

Hi @Bokart!

Thanks for the update.

I’m really happy for you! I’m glad things are going well. If you manage to work and study next to Olanzapine awsome. Also massive congratulations on your diet and loosing lots of weight. That’s a real success. 😊

I’m on 3,5 mg at the moment and tapering 10% a month.

 

I saw in your signature that you had a previous taper where you got down to 1mg. It looks to me that you were going down about 10% a month. Do you mind if I ask you what happened? Why did you have to go back to 15 mg?

[Bokart]

Hi @Emily02, no I don't mind at all.

 

You see, at that time, I was making my taper faster and faster: first 3-week taper, then 19-day taper, then 17-day taper. I soon went unwell and had a relapse and was admitted to a hospital. My last drop before being admitted was also larger than 10%.

 

I know now that I was going too fast.

 

And now I can't even taper 10%, or do even monthly drops. Something happened after the relapse that made my body unable to tolerate bigger changes in dosage.

It seems that there is a critical threshold when one is moving closer to 1mg dose. At least there was for me. Because I really felt that I was fine doing a faster taper.

I also felt that there was a threshold at 4.5 - 4mg. Drops in those doses were difficult for me.

 

But I'm happy with my current speed - I sleep well and function well. And I enjoy life. I do try to speed my taper, but it cannot happen at the expense of my well-being. So that's my plan in the moment.

So I really advice to be careful in the first round. Having another go might make things more difficult and the taper slower. The risks seem to be hidden and the speed is wonderful when you start out, but things might go south if you're not careful. Especially in these critical junctures when you're approaching lower doses, it's best to be careful rather than fast. Because being careful is being fast - compared to the time it takes to achieve the same dose again in the case of a relapse.

I wish I had been more self-aware back then. The signs were there, but I was so thrilled with the speed I really couldn't spot the signs. At least I learned that lesson.

Best Regards from me, and I hope your taper is going well.

- Bokart

[Venkat]

Hi Bokart 

you had once posted an encouraging post on my thread , thank you for that again. 

 

Just dropped in to say hi and to wish you the very best in your taper. 

 

It is really amazing how you are able to study and work while on olanzapine. I am finding it extremely difficult to do the same.

 

I have learnt to go really slow during this 2nd attempt at reducing olanzapine. 

 

Your experience has given me hope too.

 

Thank you once again. 

 

Regards, venkat 

[Emily02]

Hi Bokart!

 

 Thanks for your reply. It was really informative. I’m also tempted to go fast but I’ll try to be careful and not go faster than 10%

I’m so glad that you’re doing fine on Olanzapine. I can barely function but I promised myself that I’ll be strong for my family. I’m not working but have two small children to look after which most of the time is really hard.

 

can I ask you what were the signs of going fast?

 

many thanks

Emily

[Nicjk]

On 3/25/2021 at 10:42 PM, Emily02 said:

Hi Bokart!

 

 Thanks for your reply. It was really informative. I’m also tempted to go fast but I’ll try to be careful and not go faster than 10%

I’m so glad that you’re doing fine on Olanzapine. I can barely function but I promised myself that I’ll be strong for my family. I’m not working but have two small children to look after which most of the time is really hard.

 

can I ask you what were the signs of going fast?

 

many thanks

Emily

Hi Emily, I hope you don't mind if I butt in and ask a question. I have come across a few of your posts. What method are you using to taper? Are you dissolving the orodispersible tablets in water alone? Thank you 

[Emily02]

Hi @Nicjk

Actually I’m doing dry cuts. I’ve got the inspiration from @helloworld from the tips of tapering zyprexa forum.

I crush my normal tablet into fine powder with a pestle and make it into a fine line on a paper and using a ruler I take away 10%.

I hope it makes sense the way I describe it.

It works for me so far, I hope it’ll be good when I’m on lower dose as well.

[Nicjk]

2 minutes ago, Emily02 said:

Hi @Nicjk

Actually I’m doing dry cuts. I’ve got the inspiration from @helloworld from the tips of tapering zyprexa forum.

I crush my normal tablet into fine powder with a pestle and make it into a fine line on a paper and using a ruler I take away 10%.

I hope it makes sense the way I describe it.

It works for me so far, I hope it’ll be good when I’m on lower dose as well.

Thanks for sharing your method with me! How do you ensure that your crushed powder is the correct height each time? Measuring length of the line would be easy but height is more tricky 

[Emily02]

I just even it out with a knife or a blade. It’s bit of a meticulous work but I’m used to it now.

[Bokart]

Hello everyone. It's time for an update.

My tapering is going well. Right now I'm taking 2.8 mg. I'm still on a slow taper, reducing 0.1 mg every 3 months. Next reduction will be at the start of December.

I don't have much problems with this speed. I have noticed differences in sleep (from 12 hrs to 10 hrs) and sexual desire (fluctuating heavily). Also there might have been irritation. I think these symptoms started at the end of September and they were gone 21st. of October. The sleep was back to normal much sooner (if you can consider 12 hrs of sleep "normal"). It goes to show 3-month waiting time between reductions is needed for me.

I have been thinking of my current speed. I started dropping 0.1 mg since hitting 4.4 mg. Now I'm still dropping 0.1 mg. This means that relatively my drops are now over 50% higher. They're still less than 4% drops though.

I will monitor my symptoms just in case. I could switch to 0.09 mg drops. The formula for that is to dissolve 5 mg olanzapine to a 5.5 ml solution. Then every 0.1 ml will hold ~0.091 mg of olanzapine, and I can reduce 0.1 ml with each drop.

I think I might be approaching  more difficult drops. I just read this thread again and at some point it was mentioned that the taper becomes harder at lower doses (perhaps around ~2.5 mg). I feel I'm not in a hurry anymore, so if the taper becomes harder I think I will make smaller drops rather than to tough it out. I have more to lose than to gain now. My life is pretty normal, except that I sleep more than I used to.

I'm seeing a doctor tomorrow. I hope I don't have to answer difficult questions, but I might just have. But I still intend to keep my current taper, and I hope the doctor sees value in it.

Hoping everyone has much success with tapering!
-- Bokart

 

[Venkat]

Hi @Bokart , happy to hear that you are doing so well. True , it doesn't matter how slow and how long the tapering takes provided we feel normal as you are feeling now. 

Take care 

[Bokart]

Hi again, everyone.

I've had some problems with my taper lately. Actually it started last night, when I wasn't able to sleep as much as before. I got 4 hours of sleep. My condition has been deteriorating before this, but last night was the first night when I had real sleeping difficulties.

 

This all, I think, is the result of my latest dose reduction on the first of August, where I reduced my dose by 0.1 mg.

I think I'm hitting some barrier here, and I will need to slow down my taper from now on. I'm thinking of doing only 0.075 mg drops, a 25% reduction. Or maybe even smaller drops.

 

I will have to monitor my situation. I think I can manage with 4 hours of sleep, but not in the long run. I have two choices here: to hold the current dose or go back to the previous one... Or, of course, to upscale a bit and go to 2.8 mg, for example (hopefully I don't have to do this).

 

I'm thinking now that seeing how the situation evolves will not cost me much (or will it?). I do have emergency sleeping pills on the ready, but I hope I don't have to use them. But 4 hours is still okayish and survivable. I happen to have a vacation this month so I don't have any work responsibilities, which helps things. Working would be hard with this amount of sleep. I can now focus on pampering myself and avoiding any stress.

 

If any of you have any opinions about this I'd gladly hear them. I feel that I shouldn't risk my progress, I'd rather do 0.05 mg drops than to take 0.1 mg drops and be unstable, even if it means my taper will last 2x the time. No problem. I can deal with that.

 

Here's a description of my symptoms at the moment:

•  Anxiety (at least today I seem to have constant low-grade anxiety going on)
•  Pounding heart (I feel my heartbeat more clearly)
•  Bowel irregularities, loose stool
•  Lack of sexual desire
•  (Over)sensitivity to stress
•  Heightened emotions, for example if I get worried about something the emotional reaction I have is really out of proportions to the actual scale of the problem
•  I'm not as hungry as before

Other things that might still be affecting me:

•     Started on a new (keto) diet last Sunday, it probably affects my digestion so it might be a cause for loose stool and perhaps also partially for reduced hunger
•     I had covid-19 at the end of July. It was not a pleasant experience and I had a lot of fear back then, and couldn't sleep for 2 days. Definitely a destabilizing event. The disease was very hard for me, my mother had much easier time with it than I did.

Some of these problems can be mitigated to a point, but there's only limited things I can do, which is to avoid stress and reassure myself and be kind to myself. I'm not even stressing about the sleep, for mulling over it only makes it worse. But I still should know when to 'pull the plug' and make corrective action.

 

Hoping you have a success in your taper,
-- Bokart

[ChessieCat]

6 minutes ago, Bokart said:

Other things that might still be affecting me:

•     Started on a new (keto) diet last Sunday, it probably affects my digestion so it might be a cause for loose stool and perhaps also partially for reduced hunger
•     I had covid-19 at the end of July. It was not a pleasant experience and I had a lot of fear back then, and couldn't sleep for 2 days. Definitely a destabilizing event. The disease was very hard for me, my mother had much easier time with it than I did.

 

These are two major stressors on your body, especially if you have changed to keto without doing it gradually.

[Bokart]

10 minutes ago, ChessieCat said:

 

These are two major stressors on your body, especially if you have changed to keto without doing it gradually.

 

Yeah, I did not change to keto gradually, mainly because last summer I also went to keto and had no problems. But of course things might be different now, due to accumulating circumstances. Do you suggest I drop keto? That would be easy to do. I can try it again when I feel better.

And corona, well, it's still an unknown how it affects me right now... I don't have any symptoms anymore, but it took a lot of time to completely shake it off (I had stuffed nose for a few weeks after the illness).

[ChessieCat]

1 minute ago, Bokart said:

Yeah, I did not change to keto gradually, mainly because last summer I also went to keto and had no problems. But of course things might be different now, due to accumulating circumstances. Do you suggest I drop keto?

 

You've already been on it for 4-5 days.  Because low carb/keto is a proper human diet (instead of the low fat and grain diet which is supposed to be good for us - yer right!) and therefore worthwhile being on I think it would be silly to stop it now.  Especially since it can help with many things.  I've reversed my diabetes in only 3 months (now 10 months on low carb).  I've lost weight without trying, stopped my BP medication, sleep quality has improved, cholesterol numbers have improved, I can think more clearly, I don't get hangry or get cravings like I used to.  From what I've been listening to it can also help with brain function as well.  A recent video:

 

Dr. Chris Palmer - 'The Ketogenic Diet in Neurology and Psychiatry'

 

From the video description:  Dr. Palmer has been pioneering the use of the ketogenic diet and its applications in psychiatry. He has published case studies, pilot clinical trials, and is actively conducting research in this area. He is also working with researchers from around the world to further explore this treatment in clinical populations as well as pursuing more basic science research.

[Nicjk]

1 hour ago, Bokart said:

 

Yeah, I did not change to keto gradually

Hi @Bokart, when I switched to keto without doing it gradually I started waking up at 3am and I didn’t get back to sleep. Sorry that you are experiencing difficulties with your sleep. I would hold for another few days and only updose if sleep didn’t improve. How are you making your reductions? Are you cutting and weighing your pills?

[Bokart]

34 minutes ago, Nicjk said:

Hi @Bokart, when I switched to keto without doing it gradually I started waking up at 3am and I didn’t get back to sleep. Sorry that you are experiencing difficulties with your sleep. I would hold for another few days and only updose if sleep didn’t improve. How are you making your reductions? Are you cutting and weighing your pills?

 

Hi @Nicjk. My sleep has been that - at least last night - I was feeling anxious and couldn't get to sleep. I was taken aback because it has been relatively long time since it happened last time (apart from covid). I was finally able to sleep when I managed to calm myself down with audio material I know has a calming effect. That was 4 am. Usually go to sleep between 12 and 1 am (at least now, with vacation and all). I slept 4 hours.

 

The anxious feeling was very strange and at first I didn't realize it was that - it was my heart beating faster, feeling hot (which might also be because the horrible weather) and this baseline sensation that I know understand as anxiety (physical feeling which was felt in the left chest right around the heart). But I didn't really feel anxious in my head, but the body was definitely having some kind of fight-or-flight reaction.

I'm making my reductions by diluting my medicine into a liquid compound (more info here). I have a 10ml and a 5ml pipette which I use to make my specific dose. This time I'm using 15mg tablet and a 5mg tablet combined to make doses for 7 days. I'm trying to get rid of 15mg tablets. All the tablets I have dissolve in water (you can get them if you have a prescription; they are expensive, though!).

And thank you for the advice. A few days of wait-and-see sounds like a good idea.

---

 

You know, before last night I was thinking that all this trouble came back to my covid illness, because back then I had extreme stress and lack of sleep. But I think It's only part of the answer, because I've had hard drops before. That was back when I instated 0.1mg drop routine, the events leading to that were basically increased stress and lack of tolerance for larger drops. I don't know exactly what changed back then that made me unable to follow a 10% per month drop routine, but the results of 0.1mg drop routine have been great - it made tapering to be barely any inconvenience for 3 and a half years!

The point I'm making is that perhaps now is again the time to adjust drop dosage. I'm thinking of 0.05mg. It will take 13 years to taper off completely, but it is worth it. The alternative seems to be 0.1mg reductions with a chance for severe trouble, if we judge what has been happening so far in this dose reduction.

 

[Bokart]

6 hours ago, ChessieCat said:

 

These are two major stressors on your body, especially if you have changed to keto without doing it gradually.

 

Thinking this through more, there might actually be a third stressor. That is that I took my medicine 5 hours too late on Sunday. I have previous experiences of that, and on one such case I suffered withdrawal symptoms because of that. There has also been a case when nothing bad happened.

You know... If I read your reply between the lines (tell me if I'm wrong!) I might just had too many stressful things happen to me recently. I did wonder how my previous drop went so well on March 2022. Usually, if you're dropping too much, the drops will slowly feel worse and worse...

Well, time will tell. I got myself better today, with help of exercise, classical music and sauna 🙂. Let's see what the night brings...

[Bokart]

Hi all. A small update.

I'm feeling fine now. Sleeping problems & anxiety have subsided. I now sleep 8 to 9 hours a night. Latest night was the first night without any anxiety, though the night before also was almost without any anxiety.

 

What helped me deal with this was a complete change of environment. I travelled to my relative's place and the same evening I barely had any anxiety. I've had much fun here. I also had other survival strategies that helped a ton, but certainly the most effective one was to travel to my family.

 

It seems being alone with these hard emotions/feelings make it harder to deal with these problems... It certainly would have been possible to make it through alone, but I think it would've taken a lot longer. The power of relationships, right?

 

---

 

On 8/18/2022 at 1:08 PM, ChessieCat said:

 

[...]

 

Dr. Chris Palmer - 'The Ketogenic Diet in Neurology and Psychiatry'

[...]

 

Thank you for the video. I watched some of it, plan to watch the rest later.

You know, the problem with keto diet for me has been that I get bored to it. I think it mainly has to do with the lack of variety in my everyday meals. So now I'm trying to learn new recipes (bought 2 cookbooks already). Hopefully now I can stick to this. I really love the lack of hunger & cravings! It counters very well the heightened cravings & hunger that olanzapine / Zyprexa causes.

 

Hoping you all that your taper goes well,
-- Bokart

[Bokart]

Hi All.

 

I hope you're well and enjoying the (hopefully) beautiful autumn weather.

 

I'm feeling fine now in regard to my tough times I experiences in August. It seems there were many factors in play there. I was already feeling slightly anxious in August: I had notes about this starting from the 5th. day. It also seems that switching to keto might have been the ultimate trigger to my sleeping problems. I theorize this because there was a day last week where I ate much carbs (willfully broke my diet), switched back to keto next day and had sleeping difficulties the day after switching to keto. The problems went away after one night.

So definitely switching to keto can have problems, I just assumed I wouldn't have them because I haven't had them earlier.

But, back on topic. I have one question I hope somebody has good advice for. I am planning to visit USA somewhere in the future and I'm trying to solve how to continue my taper while I'm there. I decided to use my diamond scale and measure my dose that way... but I'm wondering if having the scale in your luggage will seem suspicious to border officials. It should be more inconspicious than pipette and everything else I need for liquid taper, but will it still raise questions?

 

I hope some of you have some answers for this and I'm grateful for any advice you might have. It might also be that I'm worrying too much, but I think nothing beats careful planning and I'm willing to swear by it 😜.

Wishing you all a nice rest of the day and an easy time with your taper.

-- Bokart

[Bokart]

Hi again, everyone.

 

I got my scale problem sorted out. Moving on to another (sort of) issue I'm thinking, which is... Is changing your medicine schedule for a short while doable or does it cause serious problems? Thinking of this with my trip. I have to take my meds about 12 hours later due to timezone difference and I'm worried about how my body would react to this. Anyone have any experience about this?

 

Related to changing your dosage schedule, I'm now taking my olanzapine at 6 pm, and it has been a great change. I now naturally wake up to be at work at 8 am. No more groggy mornings! But I think I experienced a transition period there... Or I think so. But I've been having so many things going on (like switching from liquid taper to solid taper) which could be the culprit, so honestly it's hard to tell. Still I think I had a transition period of 3-4 weeks before my body was accustomed to this new schedule.

That is the reason why I'm worried now. I only moved my schedule 2.5 hours, and it wasn't easy at times. Of course my trip is not a long one, so the problems wouldn't even start to appear before my trip was over half done - or so I think. It's usually at least 5 days after a change that symptoms begin to appear.

 

I appreciate your any of your advice very much.

Wishing you a sunny day and an uneventful & easy taper,
Bokart

Edited September 21, 2022 by Bokart
Mention of switching to solid taper

[brassmonkey]

I hope you have a great trip; we are just getting back to traveling after the pandemic. Luckily, I'm off all meds now so it isn't a problem. While I was tapering the travel really played havoc with the dose scheduling. On travel days I would usually set an alarm for the proper time interval between doses and then take them wherever/whenever I happened to be. We try to take a rest day after the travel days just to adjust to the new time zone. That day was usually haphazard on dosing. Then as things settled down, I would follow my normal schedule according to the local time. I found the travel to be an excellent distraction and not worried about what the drugs were doing. There are too many exciting things going on to be bothered paying attention to symptoms. Keep your schedule as best as you can, get into the moment and enjoy the trip. Do expect a bit of a crash for a few days when you get home.

[Bokart]

Hi again everyone, posting again after almost a year...

My life lately has been occupied with working with stress. I had a burnout last spring, which really required me to pause my taper and work on my self-care skills. I was unemployed for a while, but now I'm back at work again.

 

I don't know what exactly it is, but I've been having more stress and greater stress responses starting from somewhere around the beginning of the last year... I'm thinking that maybe it's due to me approaching lower doses of olanzapine? Anyone else taking olanzapine / Zyprexa experiencing this?

I'm also feeling anger more often. And as for the latest drop - I am already feeling low grade anxiety since the drop (which was only 2 days ago!) I'm genuinely interested of how this drop goes. I'm willing to face some anxiety and loss of sleep, but not in excess.

I seem to remember people mentioning in this forum that things will become more difficult around the 2.5 mg mark. That might be what this is...

Happy (or at least bearable 🙂) tapering, all!
Bokart