deathly afraid of invega

[subject]

im on 6 mgs invega and 2.5 mg invega sustenna injection once a month. The nurse missed my muscle 2 months in a row with the injection so I'm going through withdrawl. When i told my pdoc, she said that there is no withdrawal from it. Does that make sense? If there is no withdrawal then why are there a a bazillion testimonies on here about it? I see her tomorrow and i'm gonna see if i can just get rid of the shots all together. She's gonna ask me if i just wanna go up to 9mgs in pills (i think)) and I'm really afraid of going up any farther on it because of all the horror stories about trying to get off of it. I'm really scared and I will have to make a decision sooner than later. I'm in really bad shape too. Gut busting anxiety, and depression all throughout the past month and a half or so. I can't see the light and I'm losing hope.

 

[jt07]

I see no reason why 9 mg would be too much Invega that it would give you a really hard time coming off as long as you came off slowly and not all at once. Though to be honest, I came off 4 mg of Risperdal (parent of Invega) cold turkey and didn't really suffer much withdrawal.

Testimonials are just that  - testimonials. They aren't studies and they don't give you an idea of the statistics involved. People who have problems are more motivated to come online and bitch about it than people who have no problems at all. This is the bias of the internet. Also, keep in mind that some of the people are anti-psychiatry and they post testimonials in order to demonize meds.

[notloki]

The injection has a half life of  25 days - 49 DAYS, that is the main reason there is no withdrawal. It takes forever to entirely clear your body, though. That is why people complain for so long after stopping the injection.

Edited March 29, 2017 by notloki

[notloki]

5 minutes ago, San said:

I had the loading doses and one dose of Invega Sustenna but had intolerable side effects (cognitive, made heat intolerable, and I weld, so its a thousand times hotter for me, and also, my blood pressure tanked so if I as much as thought about standing up I'd almost pass out.. I could drive, it was standing that was the problem, and walking) so my pdoc stopped it, changed over to something else... it took a LONG damn time to get back to baseline. No withdrawal.

Basically, it takes 4-8 months (according to my pdoc, the nurse that gave me the injections, and the PI sheet I had) for the injection to clear your system. The half life is ridiculously long.

You might notice the million testimonies on withdrawal are NOT from peer reviewed sources. That shit sticks with you forever. Technically, it hadn't even peaked in my system when we stopped it. I had 3 injections over a month, 1st loading dose, a week later, 2nd loading dose, a month later, first injection of normal dose. The doses are different in Canada. I was on 150mg.

I also don't see how a nurse can "miss" muscle. I give myself IM shots of testosterone weekly and its damn hard to hit anything but muscle. I give them to myself in my thigh. If she's a nurse, she knows how to give a proper IM injection, if she can't do something to a patient that I was taught to do to myself in an hour (then was supervised doing 3 times, and I had to explain everything, my nurse never said a word unless I asked, or to offer a suggestion, such as "PUSH HARDER, "T" IS REALLY THICK!"), that she went to school for years for.. I'd find someone new, and call her boss. It's all done by feel. 

Agreed on all points.

[subject]

Thanks for your support guys. I went up to 9 mgs paliperidol pills today and stayed with the shots. Hopefully I will improve. Only time will tell. Here now, as always, i have to power through any shortcomings in my cocktail. Send me some good energy.