hayduke: coming off olanzapine / Zyprexa

[hayduke]

Good to hear you're gradually able to cross over @morgana.  And wise to give it time if you're noticing the difference!

[hayduke]

Have been trying a bit of NAC some days after @Hopela mentioned it in the general 'tapering olanzapine' thread.

 

Some days when I take some it seems to help lift mood, others I don't notice it.  Doesn't seem to hurt.

[NNhope]

Hey hayduke. I just joined and wanted to ask. When switching from solid pill to liquid do we have to cross taper somehow

[hayduke]

Hi @NNhope

 

I didn't.  But each time I'd been on the same dose of tablet for about six months or more.

[NNhope]

@hayduke thank you for the reply. Hope everything is going well with your taper. I think it will be a few month before I even try to taper.

[Carmie]

Hi Hayduke, 

 

Thanks for popping around to my thread. How have you been doing?🤗

[hayduke]

On 6/1/2021 at 7:47 PM, Carmie said:

Hi Hayduke, 

 

Thanks for popping around to my thread. How have you been doing?🤗

 

Pretty good thanks Carmie.  Taking some time to re train and take stock after getting retrenched.  Amazing how busy I seem to find myself even without a job!

 

Just accepting that my brain isn't working as well as it would without the drugs for now, and not that worried.  What's worse is sometimes my hands feel a bit twitchy, TD style I suppose, as my brain gets used to getting pretty much all the dopamine again.  I hope all that will pass.

 

Overall my mental health is way better, still continuing with bouts of therapy when things come up.

 

On the more upbeat side, down at 0.3mg now and starting to look at how to jump off. 

 

Good to hear from you 🙂

[hayduke]

Adding a note that I had my second pfizer coronavirus vaccine shot last week.

 

The first one gave me a headache and fatigue overnight then eased.

 

The second I was fine that day, but the following evening was in bed with considerable muscle tension, headache etc.  Better the following day but the muscle stiffness hung around for days.  After 7 days my stiff neck was pretty much gone.  Overall I'm pleased to have had the shots.

 

Coming down with a cold now, ugh.  Heh

[BadMedicine]

On 6/6/2021 at 1:41 PM, hayduke said:

On the more upbeat side, down at 0.3mg now and starting to look at how to jump off. 

Great to see you have got so low and that you feel really good on it. You have done so well. This is such a hard process even tapering by small amounts. I’m 4 days after my 2nd 2.5% cut and the withdrawal symptoms have started ramping up again - sleep is OK but hit with fatigue and headaches today. Hopefully it’ll settle down soon enough again.

Worrying as it is I’m sure the twitching in your hands will settle down. I expect it’s your brain still re-adjusting to normal levels of dopamine signalling.

 

How much lower do you think you’ll go before you jump off? 

[hayduke]

On 6/11/2021 at 12:10 AM, BadMedicine said:

Great to see you have got so low and that you feel really good on it. You have done so well. This is such a hard process even tapering by small amounts. I’m 4 days after my 2nd 2.5% cut and the withdrawal symptoms have started ramping up again - sleep is OK but hit with fatigue and headaches today. Hopefully it’ll settle down soon enough again.

Worrying as it is I’m sure the twitching in your hands will settle down. I expect it’s your brain still re-adjusting to normal levels of dopamine signalling.

 

How much lower do you think you’ll go before you jump off? 

 

Thanks BM.  Fatigue and headaches are very familiar.  Ibuprofen is something I find really helpful all round, I think there is an inflammatory component with these drugs.  I was given naproxen recently for my joint pain which is working pretty well all round too. 

 

Sleep quality is one of my major criteria for whether to cut or not, great to hear your sleep is ok.

 

I'm going to continue the slide taper down to 0.25mg next couple of months and see how I feel there.  @brassmonkey has mentioned a last stage taper profile with 6 weeks each at 100% of current dose, 75%, 50%, 25% then 0 as one way to get down.

 

He's suggested that might apply at lower dosages than what 0.25mg would be (that is 1/40th of my original prescription), but I might see how I tolerate a 25% cut at that level for a day or two and decide then if it's going to be viable to continue stepping down that way from here, or revert to the slide taper.

 

I've actually been making my last couple of slide taper sets with a 4x 2.5% reduction every 4-5 days rather than 7, between the full 3 week holds.  I am ok with this right now because I don't have the pressure of my old job any more, so I'm availing myself of the conditions to make a steeper descent without much extra pain.  As always this requires listening to your body and not getting too gung ho :-)

 

This cold kicked my arse 10 days after my second pfizer shot.  My back and neck and shoulders had real muscle tension and ache, just like after the shot.  I couldn't get warm no matter what (my body temperature was normal though to my relief), and I tossed and turned for a very poor night's sleep.  It was the coldest day in 25 years which would be glorious if I hadn't been sick!  I might've popped up to the snow for a day.  After 24 hours it just feels like a normal cold.

 

I was talking to a friend about that cold last night.  Their partner is a doctor and was reporting similar symptoms 2 or 3 months after their second pfizer shot.  I'm pretty sure my immune system was busy working on the vaccine, then the cold was a second front for it to deal with.  Lots of rest, warm in bed, good food...great time to cut out the grog for a while.  My liver wants a rest anyway after dealing with 18 (!) years on these drugs, I am keen to have it not finish turning to pate.  Been eating a ton of healthy fresh veggies, garlic, spinach, turmeric, ginger, chilli, onion etc...there is a great grocer up the road.

[hayduke]

Updated graph, thanks @Shep

[rupa]

@hayduke

Congratulations on your success.

Great.

Happy days ahead.

 

[Venkat]

Hi @hayduke

 

Congratulations, you are almost there.

 

You strongly deserve it for you have endured so much in your life including your childhood traumas as well. You have been helping so many of us on SA , thanks hayduke. 

As rupa said , happy days ahead.

 

Regards, venkat 

[hayduke]

Thank you @rupa and @Venkat :-)

 

Update - the flu eventually took off after 10-11 days, though I did spend most of a week in bed with chills etc. 

 

Been continuing to eat pretty well, lots of fresh veggies etc.  Happily still not drinking at all, will try and keep that up.

 

Easy cuts lately, down to 0.27 now.  Noting that my fight-or-flight has been a lot more settled after the recent time off, family boundaries and therapy.  That is really great, not to have hair trigger anxiety in my baseline.  I'd be happy if that persists!

 

I'm very conscious now of when I do have a limbic system moment, and what to do about it. 

[hayduke]

Down to 0.26mg after the last set of four cuts.  It was pretty easy till the last one, but then a row of nights with just 6hrs sleep, and today had some slumped and anxious moments that would be hard to pin on anything but wds, though reading the news didn't help a bit.  I did get 7 3/4hrs last night, at least.

 

This isn't unusual for me after four cuts, and should pass before long on that basis, but it looks to me that even at these low levels the drug still has a considerable grip.  I was curious to see if I could start making bigger cuts, but it doesn't look like I'm at quite low enough a dosage yet.

 

It's the time in the slide taper schedule to hold anyway.

[BadMedicine]

Can’t believe how potent these drugs are! You are at nearly 1/100th of the maximum dose yet you still need to taper cautiously! Still at least at these levels i suspect it is most likely just having an anti- histamine effect so at least your serotonin and dopamine systems are most likely healing/back to full signalling capacity. 
You’re nearly there (although it may not feel like it). Don’t lose heart. Even if you still have to go a bit more cautiously than you anticipated in the grand scheme of things it won’t be long till you can be drug free. 

[hayduke]

17 hours ago, BadMedicine said:

Can’t believe how potent these drugs are! You are at nearly 1/100th of the maximum dose yet you still need to taper cautiously! Still at least at these levels i suspect it is most likely just having an anti- histamine effect so at least your serotonin and dopamine systems are most likely healing/back to full signalling capacity. 
You’re nearly there (although it may not feel like it). Don’t lose heart. Even if you still have to go a bit more cautiously than you anticipated in the grand scheme of things it won’t be long till you can be drug free. 

 

Thanks BM.  I'm in pretty good spirits, just marvelling at reaching about 1/50th of the original prescription and still not feeling it would be wise to 'jump off' yet.  I was hoping I could look at it from here, but I can feel it would still be fairly brutal at this stage and there's no sense being hasty at this stage of the taper :-)

 

There are encouraging signs though - 0.30 to 0.26mg in four cuts over 16 days is between 13 and 14% so one down day is really not bad.  Enjoying the hold now.

 

I feel like serotonin is probably driving this frustrating log (or parabolic) effect here, whichever applies.  We don't have usable data to make graphs of serotonin receptor occupancy vs dosage with olanzapine, but can extrapolate there are big deltas with it close to 0mg.

 

I found a small amount of 5-HTP helped on that hard day.  It's generally advised not to take this with olanzapine because of serotonin interactions, and I had found when I tried it at higher olanzapine doses it would bite me back after first providing some relief.  At these low levels now I didn't get a crash after a small amount.  Still something I reach for very rarely.

 

I've taken to making a kind of mud shake most days in the morning for brekky - a finger of water, juice of half a lemon, a dash of magnesium L-threonate, a dash of NAC, as much hemp protein powder as I can get into the water, and a big dash of turmeric.  I mix it with a spoon and chug it down - it doesn't taste good, but it's not totally foul...just kind of muddy.  It really helps, especially the omega-3 from the hemp.  Still doing regular foot baths with MgCl or epsom salts, since I don't have a bath tub here.

 

We've all been quarantined here again...good chance to catch up on the housework :-)

[Carmie]

On 6/6/2021 at 10:41 PM, hayduke said:

 

Pretty good thanks Carmie.  Taking some time to re train and take stock after getting retrenched.  Amazing how busy I seem to find myself even without a job!

 

Just accepting that my brain isn't working as well as it would without the drugs for now, and not that worried.  What's worse is sometimes my hands feel a bit twitchy, TD style I suppose, as my brain gets used to getting pretty much all the dopamine again.  I hope all that will pass.

 

Overall my mental health is way better, still continuing with bouts of therapy when things come up.

 

On the more upbeat side, down at 0.3mg now and starting to look at how to jump off. 

 

Good to hear from you 🙂

Hi Hayduke, 

 

I’m so happy to hear that you’re doing pretty good. You’re doing so amazing with your taper, Well done, a gold star for you⭐️😁

 

I’m still on 4.40mg and it’s going to take me many, many years still to taper, I’m holding the tapers for three months at the moment as my body doesn’t seem to let me go any quicker. 
 

Take care🧡

[hayduke]

@Carmie thanks so much!  :-)

 

Good to see you pop by. 

 

Your strength in continuing the taper even though you have to go that slowly at the moment is really inspiring!

[Miko789]

its good that everything goes well Hayduke

 

 

my last adventure with fatigue nearly faded out. after lots of exams,

currently having prescription with ppi protein for acid reflux , which  have to taper accordingly.

 

 

[hayduke]

Less fatigue is good @Miko789 - grats on getting through your exams, that stuff is super hard during wds!

 

I posted over your in your thread about your reflux - I hope you can sort it with diet instead of those chemicals :-)

[hayduke]

Holding at 0.25mg.  I squeezed in one more cut last week just for the satisfaction of being at 1/10th of the smallest tablet they issue.

 

Have done another 7 day fast and shed a good amount of lard.  It was much easier than the last one as I learnt to make my own veggie broth for nightly nourishment.  My energy levels were high and I could comfortably have continued.  Will see about another round while we have quarantine's silver lining of not having to show up outside anywhere for weeks at a time.  It's really important for me to get rid of this belly and liver fat, a lot of disease risk comes with that.  It's also good for morale, discarding the reminder of what this drug has inflicted on my body.

 

Staying comfy, in a pretty good mood.  Missing my socialising but we're getting pretty used to this.

[Venkat]

Hi @hayduke

You are sounding great. Happy for you. 

Keep it up. 

 

Regards, venkat 

[Altostrata]

Good to hear, @hayduke. How did you do that long fast??

[hayduke]

Hey @Altostrata.  Five or ten years ago I was feeling very fatigued, got a blood test and was told I was prediabetic.  A web search for context suggested fasting can reset or reduce insulin response.  I started with 24h fasts and after my first 3 day fast, my blood test showed resting blood sugar back in the normal range.  I was sold.  Another occasion I tested prediabetic and again a 3 day fast restored my blood sugar levels.

 

It's better to build up to longer fasts, learn to keep electrolytes balanced (1tsp 'lite' salt and 1tsp baking soda in 2l water jug works well for me) and just get the hang of it.  The more you do, the easier it becomes.

 

It's not recommended for weight loss in general, but when improving diet at the same time can be effective.

 

It seems to be coming back into the mainstream in the west, where we've been bombarded with 'three square meals a day', 'don't skip breakfast' etc by companies with dubious food to sell us.  In the same way we're evolved to walk 30km a day not sit at desks, we're evolved not to have a constant food supply. 

 

Keto diet (wouldn't do that all the time) and intermittent fasting have some of the same benefits apparently. 

 

Autophagy is a really interesting benefit, I have definitely felt better after fasting for that.  Cellular "janitor mode" feels very called for after what my body's had to cope with.

 

Lots of info out there, some people like Dr Jason Fung's book.  Lots of faddish info too, pretty sure you can pick the wheat from the chaff if you're interested :-) 

[Altostrata]

People are different, fasting may work for some but not others. Good to hear from you.

[hayduke]

Update - keeping weight coming down with diet and exercise.  Started rowing on the machine for 30 mins a day (podcast time) and long walks a few times a week.

 

Getting impatient to finish the taper and be done with the drug, but beyond that knowing to keep a sensible pace and especially not to nibble at the three week holds on the slide taper - probably the most crucial part of the process.

 

Quarantine is a drag as I was really enjoying starting to socialise again, but taking the silver lining of down time to exercise, meditate, work on this and that, cook, potter etc.

[BadMedicine]

Good work with your diet and exercise programme. In addition to improving your weight it will also be really beneficial for your mental health going forward with minimal drugs at the moment and in the not too distant future hopefully with no drugs.

 

And Well done for being patient with your taper schedule. It is so tempting to try and speed it up. I am finding 5% a month quite easy and every so often think about speeding it up. But I know what happened last time I tried to go too fast and how long it took to stabilise so it keeps me from doing anything rash! As many have said before slow and steady wins the race!

 

sorry about your lockdown. I am in the UK and we have the delta variant in our country and new cases are quite high everyday.However a high proportion of the population have been vaccinated and I think they are hoping that the vaccination will prevent severe disease so they have continued with the unlocking of the country. I guess we are one big experiment at the moment. We will see how it pans out!

[hayduke]

Thanks @BadMedicine :-)

 

Took a stroll on the beach earlier and my board shorts were falling off!  Just about 10kg down now.

 

Really glad to hear your taper is going comfortably.  You could try say a 6% cut and see how that feels in comparison.  Having a good sense of where the edge of comfort in the taper sits is empowering I think.  I doubt it would be anything like the huge cuts you made before.  On the other hand there's always something to be said for leaving well enough alone.

 

Yes I've seen that the UK doesn't even count infections in people who've been vaccinated, but I have to admit I don't want to experience even that.  Stay safe!

[NNhope]

@hayduke hope all is going well with you.

I was just wondering, when you do 2.5% cut are you doing the original dose of the first 4 cut and not doing 2.5 of current dose. That makes it so its still 10% cut a month?

 

[hayduke]

Hey @NNhope.  Yes, I work out a 10% compound cut in one go, then spread it over the 4 weeks for the brass monkey slide taper.

 

Cheers

[NNhope]

Sorry for bothering but I have another question. So I have switched to liquid and notice that when I stir the mixture and wait, the fragment tend to settle in the middle bottom. I was wondering will stirring be okay before drawing out the dose, or how would I evenly suspend it before drawing out the dose.

[hayduke]

1 minute ago, NNhope said:

Sorry for bothering but I have another question. So I have switched to liquid and notice that when I stir the mixture and wait, the fragment tend to settle in the middle bottom. I was wondering will stirring be okay before drawing out the dose, or how would I evenly suspend it before drawing out the dose.

 

No sweat

[hayduke]

And another one for you @NNhope

 

[NNhope]

Thank you for the quick reply. The pipette it up and few time to mix it better sounds like a great idea. I will try that when I'm ready for reducing. I guess I'm just nervous that I won't get a consistent dose each time, as I haven't tried it yet.

[Miko789]

On 8/1/2021 at 5:41 AM, NNhope said:

Sorry for bothering but I have another question. So I have switched to liquid and notice that when I stir the mixture and wait, the fragment tend to settle in the middle bottom. I was wondering will stirring be okay before drawing out the dose, or how would I evenly suspend it before drawing out the dose.

 

 

 

Need to stir    so mixture is evenly suspended  before drawing out your dose

cut the trileptal dude  is making you fatigue, from your sig

your diet is your priority lots of good fats omega 3s.6s,9

 

miko