lauraishere Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 (edited) . Edited December 9, 2020 by lauraishere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dusk Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 Geodon helped me a little bit and I really didn't have any side effects from it. As far as side effects go, Seroquel was by far the worst for me. Geodon doesn't even compare to what I experienced while on Seroquel. Granted, I was prescribed a ridiculous dose. I was 15 then and I can't remember the mg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dumerili Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 I was on Geodon for a few months at one point. I got off it the minute I had the chance because of the side-effects. I was put on it to stabilize my mood but it completely got rid of my emotions. It also made me gain a lot of weight. I can't remember the exact dose but I think it was fairly high so the size of the dose may have been more of a problem than the medication itself but that said I wouldn't try it again even at a lower dose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6o9o6 Posted March 10, 2013 Share Posted March 10, 2013 I took it nightly for a couple of months. It was okay -- the only thing I couldn't stand was the restless legs and not being able to withstand heat (I'm already sensitive to hot weather, so it made that worse.) x.x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WinglessFaery Posted March 10, 2013 Share Posted March 10, 2013 I just took my first dose of 40 mg last night and it knocked me out for about 18 hrs. I hope it goes away. I took it for a week about three years ago at a higher dose and had too stop because of muscle stiffness. My new pdoc wanted too try again at a lower dose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lwp273 Posted March 10, 2013 Share Posted March 10, 2013 (edited) I've taken it for 3 years and I really like it. I was given it in a PHP program for what I thought was depression and bad OCD and BPD but now believe was a mixed episode. Whatever it was, Geodon killed it completely. I remember being amazed after my first couple doses that I could THINK, like, clearly, slowly, reality came back. It helped with my depression too, first thing that ever touched that. I continue to take it now, at a higher dose, and my psychiatrist describes what she thinks it does to me as just general calming of my mind. I started wellbutrin and changed around the dose time of geodon to keep wellbutrin from making me hypomanic. So it's been generally really helpful for me. The only side effect I have had was sedation/needing to sleep for many hours. Wellbutrin has canceled that effect, and now I take 20 mg when I wake up, 20 mg in the afternoon (recent to help decrease OCD thoughts), and 80 mg at night. I've really only ever heard bad reviews of Geodon, people seem to hate it often, but for me it's been literally a lifesaver. Edited March 10, 2013 by lwp273 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaashii Posted March 10, 2013 Share Posted March 10, 2013 My experiences with Geodon are pretty much in the same vein as Dumerili's. I gained a RIDICULOUS amount of weight on it, I was dumber than a box of hammers and couldn't be anything warmer than a refrigerator without sweating. (That might go with the weight gain?) I hated the stuff so much I did something really stupid and quit my entire med cocktail cold turkey because I was so sick of that shit. (BTW, this goes without saying, but don't EVER do that. I learned my lesson.) And naturally, it didn't actually do much for my moods - it just made me sleep 75% of the day and so out of it for the other 25% that I wouldn't know what kind of mood I was in. My verdict? I won't ever take Geodon again. I actually have that explicitly stated in my advance directive right along with Prozac in the "stick them where the sun don't shine" category. My experiences with it were just that negative where I never want to touch that crap and would go great lengths to avoid it. Obviously, this is only my opinion based off my own experiences and everyone reacts differently to different medications, so take it all with a very large grain of salt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfranco92 Posted March 10, 2013 Share Posted March 10, 2013 Just to let you know, you need to eat about 450-500 calories each time you take Geodon to properly metabolize the medication. I took geodon for about 6 months. It made me very sedated and I had a very flat affect. I took 160mg (80 am, 80 pm) but it was just bad. I was falling over in the snow, out of breath, and my head was very unclear. But I wonder if it were different if I did eat as much as I was supposed to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoenix_Rising Posted March 10, 2013 Share Posted March 10, 2013 I took Geodon for several months and felt sedated and numb much of the time I was taking it. I didn't feel as depressed or as hypomanic but, then again, I didn't feel much at all. I do know that a lot of people have had success with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savannah Posted March 10, 2013 Share Posted March 10, 2013 I took 160 mg of it alon g with lamictal for years with no sidenffects. It worked well and I had no issues. Until last year when all hell broke lose and we had to add seroquel and prolixin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dtac Posted March 10, 2013 Share Posted March 10, 2013 My standard disclaimer: I am hypersensitive to APs, even at minimal doses. I took Geodon for less than 2 weeks before I stopped it cold-turkey. 20mg at night sedated me for a couple of days, then triggered insomnia. 20mg in the day caused horrible drowsiness, akathesia, and I saw random stuff out of the corner of my eye. I had 2 episodes where my blood pressure dropped suddenly and I almost passed out. It also caused horrible body aches like the flu, and constipation. On the upside, I felt very balanced mentally, and I started to lose weight. In short, it is the worst AP I've taken, and I will never touch it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amosleigh Posted March 10, 2013 Share Posted March 10, 2013 I've taken Geodon for about a year and a half and I am ver happy on it. I take 120mg with my dinner and no longer find it very sedating as I first did when starting the med. I find it very calming after I take it but it doesn't produce sleep. I have found it pretty weight neutral and have actually lost a bunch of weight through calorie control. The Geodon didn't hamper weight loss for me. I feel lucky that it has been a good med for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odetta Posted March 10, 2013 Share Posted March 10, 2013 I'm on 40 mg, and have been fine on it. I tried higher doses, but had the restless leg thing, and went back down. It takes care of the hypomania that can be a side effect of lamictal. It reduced my appetite a little, and I lost about 10 pounds at first, and then my weight stabilized. I have to make sure I get enough of the right carbs, though, because I've been hypoglycemic a few times on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lauraishere Posted March 11, 2013 Author Share Posted March 11, 2013 (edited) . Edited December 9, 2020 by lauraishere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluechick Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 I was on it for nine months. Ultimately, though, Geodon and I did not get along. Day one: prescribed 40 mg to take for 3 days before going up to 80. First pill - pdoc instructed me to take it at dinner time. I took it at 6:00 with dinner. By 7:00 I was unconscious. Not asleep. Unconscious. I could not revive myself. I was on the couch and despite having four children to care for, I was incapable of caring for them. If it weren't for DH, those children would have been left to their own devices and would have called an ambulance. Right after the ambulance, CPS would have arrived. I am positive of that. I slept on the couch that night because nobody could physically get me off the couch. The next morning I awoke at 4:00 a.m. in the midst of a manic episode that would last two days. At 4:00 in the morning I was totally euphoric and wrote pages and pages of letters to family and friends telling them how much I loved them. At first I thought that Geodon was AMAZING! After two days, I started having problems. The doctor moved me up to 40 mg twice per day. I immediately got hardcore akathesia. And I also quickly learned that I could not take the morning dose. Far too much sedation After a while, we moved up to 120 mg and then 160 mg, to all be taken at night. I had to time it just right. I wanted to take it early enough in the evening so I had minimal hangover in the morning. But at the same time, I couldn't take it too early because it would knock me out. I typically took it at 8:00 p.m. By 10:00 I was gone. If I fought to stay awake, I would literally turn into a zombie. My mouth would slack, I would slur my words horribly, and I would start drooling uncontrollably. The following morning I would wake up with with the worst possible medicine hangover. I would still be slurring my words and I would fight to stay awake. At the time, I had to drive my kids to school around 7:00. I will tell you that doing that was one of the dumbest things I could have done. I would have had a better shot at driving drunk than driving with a Geodon hangover. It would take me hours and hours for the sedation to wear off. During that time I would be non-functional. When the hangover finally wore off around 11:00 or noon, I would have about 4 functional hours before the exhaustion set in and I would start the process all over gone. Geodon also had the added problem of completely eradicating all emotions. I couldn't smile. I literally did not smile for 9 months. I couldn't laugh. I couldn't cry. Although I attempted sex, it was absolutely lousy. When I tried to tell my pdoc that the Geodon got rid of my emotions his response was, "that's how you're supposed to feel. At least you're not manic." After nine months of tolerating that shit I finally told my pdoc that he was going to help me get off of Geodon or I was taking myself off all meds. He finally listened. Of course YMMV but my experience with Geodon was just not good. I would never go through that experience again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larkspur Posted March 12, 2013 Share Posted March 12, 2013 I took Geodon for about two months last year. I think I started with 40mg. The first few nights I had terrible insomnia. I noticed that my thoughts were moving fast (especially as compared to Seroquel) and I was talking a mile a minute. In my opinion, low dose Geodon induced a hypomanic episode. My pdoc then rapidly increased my dose to 160mg. We played with the dose, trying out 140, 120, 100 over the next few weeks. About half the time, I would stay up for hours and hours, trying to sleep but failing. On other nights, I was out cold an hour after dinner. The weird hypomanic symptoms went away, and lent to depression. I went IP due to suicidality and had a week of fun withdrawing from Geodon cold turkey. I did have days where I felt close to normal on Geodon, and it did an excellent job at blocking out my hallucinations, but it couldn't stabilize my mood worth a darn (even with lithium). So, take from that what you will. I wasn't a sedated zombie, but I didn't have a fun time either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WinglessFaery Posted March 12, 2013 Share Posted March 12, 2013 Im so very very discouraged I hate this medicine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lauraishere Posted March 13, 2013 Author Share Posted March 13, 2013 (edited) . Edited December 9, 2020 by lauraishere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluechick Posted March 13, 2013 Share Posted March 13, 2013 Non-sedating?!!!! What a joke! Course, everyone is different. However, for those for whom the drug is sedating, it is outrageously sedating. What an irresponsible thing to say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lauraishere Posted March 19, 2013 Author Share Posted March 19, 2013 (edited) . Edited December 9, 2020 by lauraishere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts