Animus: Recovery from Risperidone

[Animus]

2014 the beginning of November I went to a psychiatrist and got misdiagnosed with psychosis and depression and was prescribed Rispolept (Risperidone) 3 mg and Cipralex (Escitalopram) 10 mg. I took these drugs at home, then in the psychiatric hospital until around the end of December, so for about 1.5 month, until I was discharged, then cold turkeyed. Antipsychotic - 3 mg/day, SSRI - 10 mg/day. I felt very bad, suicidal that whole time, at first not even realizing it was the drugs affecting me and in fact almost committed suicide. While on medication I experienced akathisia, severe fatigue, anhedonia, weak emotions, almost non existent libido that gradually got worse, slowed reaction time, thinking, talking, moving, poor memory, what I'd call derealization, zombie like state, frequent urination, dizziness , headaches, one side of brain, frontal lobes especially, abnormal gait, strange feeling in frontal lobes, increased appetite, too high body temperature, especially after running, nerve pain in left leg, arm, numbness in left arm, leg and left side of face I think.

After quitting the drugs I thought everything would go back to normal, but it didn't.

After about a month drug free I had: severe sexual dysfunction (post antipsychotic sexual dysfunction-PAPSD), my left hand was somewhat numb, and to a lesser extent, my left leg. I also started noticing dystonia in my left cheek and eyelid. Slight tremor in left arm fingers. Dizziness when turning head. I also noticed I had developed slight gynecomastia.

After two months the painful tingling in my left arm was very severe some days lasting the whole day. Very bad pain. Dizziness disappears.

Month 3: painful dystonia in middle of back, left side of spine appears, more pronounced in the evening. Weak morning erections appear.

Month 4: (2015-04-09) tingling in left arm subsided, but it's still numb. I think the tingling is the nerves recovering.

 

Hoping for recovery. Will update.

I'm optimistic about the dystonias, paresthesia (but probably won't recover sensation fully), sexual dysfunction, as far as I know my new man boobs should also reduce in size with time. But I heard that the neuroleptic induced parkinsonian tremor does not always disappear, and I'm not seeing a reduction in the tremor, so I'm worried about that. Also, obviously worried about the sexual dysfunction. I used to be very sexually active, but now have very infrequent orgasm, because they're so very difficult to achieve and not so rewarding. My pre-neuroleptic emotionality has fully returned after stopping the drugs, I think. I also heard Risperidone can permanently reduce testosterone, but I haven't seen a reduction in facial hair growth.

Been drug free for 4 month now. Never took any psych drugs before in my life. Now only taking fish oil, multivatamin and mineral tablets, sometimes magnesium 300 mg. I tried Vitamin B Complex but I think I'm allergic to it. Psychiatrists truly are ignorant.

[Petunia]

Welcome Animus,

Thank you for posting.  I'm sorry to hear you are still having some symptoms after stopping Risperidone and Escitalopram four months ago.  Unfortunately, this is quite common, all psychiatric drugs need to be tapered, otherwise withdrawal symptoms can occur.

 

But it sounds like you are recovering slowly and I'm sure you will continue to do so. 

 

Please would put your drug and withdrawal history in your signature. Putting a short version of your drug and tapering history in your signature helps people understand your context, it appears below each of your posts. Here are instructions for how to do it:

 

http://survivinganti...your-signature/

 

Here is the link to our symptoms and self care section, you may find some useful ideas to help manage symptoms as you recover.  Especially read the topics pinned at the top.

 

Please feel free to write whenever you want, you will find a lot of friendly help and support here.

 

Petunia

[WiggleIt]

I also have dystonia.

[westcoast]

Hi Animus, has anything changed?

[oskcajga]

4 months in is still very early, if you've achieved this amount of success in 4 months I have a strong feeling that you'll recover fully within a couple of years.  you're extremely lucky that your emotional numbness disappeared completely.  Some of the lingering symptoms will miraculously, and slowly disappear over time.  I'm not sure about the gynomastica, those are newly laid down fat cells, which might make recovery less straightforward.  I'm sure there are success stories around the web.  I can understand how this might make you feel uncomfortable, as I personally developed a pretty bad case of vitilligo due to psych meds, and it's just very frustrating to have a PHYSICAL side effect that everyone can see. 

 

Daily exercise, good diet, and self care - AND NO EXPOSURE TO ANY MORE DRUGS (LEGAL OR ILLEGAL) will see you through this.  The best mindset that I've found to recover from all this horror is to accept that fact that my old self may never completely return, and my old hedonic lifestyle may not totally come back - therefore, it's best to just avoid many of the stressors that most people pursue in their lives because it might affect my recovery.  Exposure therapy during WD is not that effective, it just stresses out the nervous system.  Treat this like cancer, and you should be in decent shape in the long run.

 

I didn't know what dystonia was until I saw this youtube video: 

 

 

Is your case this severe?  What a tragic side effect!!!  I pray for our recovery.

 

Stay in touch and let us know how you do as the months proceed.

[Animus]

Thought I'd update. Thank you for your interest people. I'm not too good. The physical pain I had from the peripheral neuropethy is gone, and the dystonia (which was very mild compared to your video) largely subsided around the 6 month mark, although I can still feel it in my cheek and back, just not painful. So that's good. The gynecomastia is very mild too, basically, the change is only noticed by me. But what bothers me the most are the psychic issues. No changes in PSSD, I still can not feel aroused, sexually excited and the like. Very devastating if I have to live like this for the next 60 years, I'm only 21 (male), don't know how I'd make it. I'm bothered because I've been getting comments from people close to me that my personality is not like it used to be. I've become more outgoing, obnoxious, restless, energetic, touching, hugging too much, less laid back as opposed to the reserved, shy, introverted, calm pre-drug me. These changes bother me and it's hard to tell if they're really from the drugs. I also have extremely frequent anger at the psychiatrist who prescribed me this poison, how could she not know about PSSD and other permanent changes of these drugs, after spending 10 years learning about it? And she's doing the same to other innocent people right now. I hope I won't do anything stupid.

I know that all of this is partly my fault, I know I should have done extensive research before ingesting a drug, after all, you research a program before installing it on your computer, and this is a person's brain that we're talking about. I'm very internet research savvy otherwise, should have been one of those people who know about PSSD and therefore won't ever try an SRI. I even read this person's story about PSSD like a month before ingesting the SSRI for the first time, it was like a warning from above, but my stupid head somehow did not connect the dots. I was fooled by psychiatry's aura, like many others, having never heard about it before.

I don't think I will wait for the PSSD to heal, cause that could never even happen, there are people who have waited for 20+ years, like Sonny. I will try to reverse it with Mianserin like LouisSyfer did. Or alleviate the symptoms with aphrodisiacs like dopamine agonists, marijuana, buspirone, GHB or even meth to be able to feel horny again. As soon as I have the money, because I live in the Baltic States, the money's not too great here.

Again, thanks for your concern, wish you all health.

[crimsonking]

Man don't turn to drugs, its a road to nowhere. Our only chance for healing PSSD is patience and healthy lifestyle - diet, exercise. To be honest I tried Trazodone to try and reverse PSSD because its a 5-HT 2A/2C antagonist and all it did is damaged my d*ck to the point of no return I'm afraid, changes in shape, colour, gross stuff really. Before that I tried cocaine and mdma, nothing. Don't damage yourself even further, stay away from viagra cialis and other **** for a while. Give it a year or two and then make this kind of decisions. Thats just my opinion

[Altostrata]

Animus, it's good to hear your healing has progressed.

 

PSSD also tends to heal, very slowly.

 

Many people do better with fish oil and magnesium supplements, see
http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/36-king-of-supplements-omega-3-fatty-acids-fish-oil/
http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/1300-magnesium-natures-calcium-channel-blocker/

[oskcajga]

Man don't turn to drugs, its a road to nowhere. Our only chance for healing PSSD is patience and healthy lifestyle - diet, exercise. To be honest I tried Trazodone to try and reverse PSSD because its a 5-HT 2A/2C antagonist and all it did is damaged my d*ck to the point of no return I'm afraid, changes in shape, colour, gross stuff really. Before that I tried cocaine and mdma, nothing. Don't damage yourself even further, stay away from viagra cialis and other **** for a while. Give it a year or two and then make this kind of decisions. Thats just my opinion

 

That's really a good testimate for why NOT to try to use drugs to treat changes created by SSRIs

 

I'm so sorry about your situation, my friend.