Wonderful.Cheese

It persists. The universe is against me.

Like utter crap. I'm a piece of crap too. I need to get my act together. I need to stop behaving so nasty to people and saying such awful things to everyone. I feel attacked all the time and anxious to the max and the voices aren't helping. I'm so done.

Just make it stop Please My marriage won't last I won't last

TD and EPS is unfortunately a dealbreaker for me. Otherwise I’d be trying one for sure. I did briefly try haldol but couldn’t get myself to take it after a week due to fear of TD, sadly. Sometimes I wonder if I could have gotten by with a much lower dose of clozapine and given it a chance like 6 months at that dose instead of 600 mg. My pdoc tends to max out doses of meds for me because of my history. She is already very worried with me being on “only” 10 mg zyprexa. Even though I’m beyond maxed out on Abilify too. My pdoc ramped the dose up rather quickly of the clozapine because understandably I was very psychotic and still depressed because of the death messages and voices. She rapidly increased it to 600 mg. I wonder if I would have stayed at like 200 mg or so or even less maybe if I could have gotten by and had less side effects maybe? The only worrying thing was my high WBC count that was happening but I don’t recall if that only happened once I got to such a high clozapine dose. But is lower to mid dose clozapine safer than mid dose zyprexa overall? Or no? Thanks for the great info! @argh @the maze runner what dose of clozapine are you on and do you know your target dose? Just wondering what your experience is. Thank you!

Because I was on Seroquel, invega, and abilify and still very psychotic and depressed. So pdoc said clozapine would miraculously cure me. But no. Then vraylar then zyprexa again. All with abilify still on board. I don't know what is best anymore. Sorry. I don't want to thread hijack either. For me, clozapine was a no go. But ymmv. Good luck with the cloz to the OP!

Is Seroquel any better than olanzapine? Do I just stop olanzapine? I've been on it for 2 months, 10 mg only. Weight loss. Labs were all just fine. Clozapine paradoxically increased my WBC and caused severe drooling that impacted my CPAP machine and caused weight gain and more. I gave it 6 months. I even took a high dose of a med that supposedly helped reduce the drooling. Plus cost. Lab work and weekly fills and the drooling med. It wasn't doable for me. I feel like I have no options. I hate being treatment resistant.

@CrazyRedhead To swing back to your topic, I'm sorry you feel so bad with the depression and OCD and more. I hope finding a new doc will be helpful and that the new doc will be willing to try new meds. But I know how stressful and anxiety provoking that can be too. Best wishes for your search. I too stay alive for the sake of others. It's really come down to this for me. Well that and fear because I've been there with an ER doc saying they found me just in time after an OD and I just don't want to have a huge fail again. But I also just can't do that to my parents after they already lost my brother/their son at a young age. Or my husband, even though my brain says they would be better off without me. I can't hurt them anymore than I already have. And I personally think that is a perfectly valid reason for staying alive especially since no one is guilting you into it. Fingers crossed that finding a better doc will really help you out.

I have toggled between paranoid SZ and SZA bipolar type too diagnosis wise. It’s mostly been SZA bipolar type for me though as I do have clear manic episodes that do come and go over the years. Anyway, when I was on seroquel for those 10+ years, I didn’t really have many full blown manic episodes. Mostly hypo episodes. I did have a handful of full blown manic episodes though during that period. But nothing like when I tried to come off seroquel or before I was put on seroquel. Now I'm on zyprexa and have less depression symptoms and it squashed a pretty bad recent hypo episode before it got to a full blown manic episode. So I’m hopeful that this will also help me ward off full blown mania for longer periods of time like seroquel did. It doesn’t stop it from occurring, but it lengthens the time span between manic episodes. Ymmv. But this is my experience.

@confused If you want to search by location for clinics, this site is decent. It has a map even that shows location. My county clinic is on there even! You just put in your zip code and how far out you are willing to search in miles. But still, double check with your insurance to make sure that whatever provider you choose is a preferred provider. https://findtreatment.samhsa.gov/

That's amazingly good you got your apartment cleaned! I haven't really cleaned in months. Our home is filthy. It makes me sad. I'm ok but very suspicious and worried over this new private clinic. I don't know what to make of their discrepancies in paper and language/ what they have said verbally. They seem to want things from me. To get info and money and more from me to report me to the government for "stealing" from the government. I don't like this. I don't want to go elsewhere for therapy. I want to stay where I was, at the county clinic. I don't want my tdoc to leave.

@Iceberg i had a day and night time sleep study done. If you have any questions let me know. Some docs want you to med wash out for the day time one , which is absolutely ridiculous for people with severe MI. Luckily my sleep specialist thought it would be ridiculous for me to do that too. But still had me do a day time sleep study because it would help her prescribe certain meds without needing total Prior auths. Anyway, that’s how I got on nuvigil and it works wonders. It lasts for a long time and I can get out of bed and not really nap much anymore. I technically didn’t hit REM during the day sleep study but that’s due to certain psych meds I was on. She couldn’t officially dx me with narcolepsy but that’s a kind of acknowledged dx that she has given me, just doesn’t write it down officially I guess. Another thought. Have your thyroid levels (TSH and T4 and all the rest) been tested recently? Are they within semi normal range and not too high for the TSH especially? You may want to have that done. Your GP should be able to order the tests unless you’d prefer to see an endo dr right away. But I’d recommend that if your thyroid levels are off at all to see an endocrinologist dr for sure. Best decision I ever made. My levels are within normal range finally. He even listened to me when they were high, but still “normal” and I was having symptoms still so he increased my levothyroxine very slightly and I feel better. Anyways, good luck! I used to sleep that much. I know how much it can wreck a person’s life. I’m sorry you are going through this.

I see stuff when I shut my eyes but I really don’t think it’s a hallucination. I think it’s just memory/imagination or what have you. I think it’s normal. But I guess when in doubt, ask your dr?

@clinic I take olanzapine (zyprexa zydis) and abilify (not sure how to spell generic name arip something?) and this is a great combo for me. I really find olanzapine ODT or zyprexa zydis very helpful. Abilify too. It’s a great combo. I found Invega (paliperidone) very helpful too though which is very similar to risperidone. If Abilify ever craps out on me I’ll swap it for paliperidone. Good luck with your med switch! I just came off of clozapine too and switched to olanzapine. Clozapine was rough on my body in many ways and it also was expensive and the labs were expensive and it didn’t even work all that well. I’m glad to be off of it.