Mental Health stopping antipsychotics treatment and moving to lithuim

[Evolva]

My friend was diagnosed as bipolar 1 he has been 6 years on zyprexa 5mg (olanzapine) and a year 7.5mg and then back to 5mg and then switched to geodon 1st he was prescribed 80mg with zoloft 100mg to treat also hes ocd
after 2 months the dose was increased to 120mg geodon and 150 zoloft he experienced tardive dyskenzia for a short term of about 5 hours then on and off he experience sometimes excessive chewing etc he became manic with the treatment and couldnt sleep for 2 months he has about 2 hours of sleep per night.
the doctor gave him a lithium and promised him that in time shes gonna get him off everything and leave him only on lithium.
now he takes all the 3 and he feels contraction in hes legs feeling restless also in hes neck feeling like he cant keep hes head steady.
hes father claims that hes contraction to hes neck and head is duo the air conditioner he sleeps with but he claims its from the pills he takes.

he lowerd the dose of geodon by himself to 80 from 120 and a day after he felt again tardive dyskenzia syndroms like jaw moving unwanted face movments and sticking out hes tounge and that lasted for a few hours and it always happens to him when he feels anxieus.

what do you think causes the contraction in the neck and the TD symptoms?

will he survive geodon withdrawl?

 

[whazzah]

Hang in there.
Is your friend actually a Schizophrenic by any chance?

 

[sean107]

I was diagnosed bi-polar fucking everything, also took zyprexa, geodon, Zoloft, ryspridal, Latuda etc you fucking name the antipsychotic/antidepressant and they had me on it. It took me years to get myself off them and it was absolute hell (the psychiatrists were never any help with getting me off medications, only gave me more) antipsychotic withdrawal is no joke and can cause rebound psychosis short term too. But now that I'm off all medications for more than a few years I feel better than ever, what's best is that I now have no diagnosis for bi-polar or anything of the sort, no symptoms for any diagnosis they had tried to give me while on heavy duty prescribed medications. It's almost like the medications caused/prolonged the supposed 'symptoms'. They never helped me.

 

[Evolva]

Hang in there.
Is your friend actually a Schizophrenic by any chance?

i dont understand what does it have to do with beeing schizophrenic?

are you asking this because you think you know him?

 

[whazzah]

i dont understand what does it have to do with beeing schizophrenic?

are you asking this because you think you know him?

I'm just asking because I knew a friend of a friend of mine who was Schizophrenic and had the exact same symptoms you described here.
And he was also prescribed big dose of Olanzapine augmented with Lithium and some other meds I can't remember.

Is your friend also suffers from visual or/and auditory hallucinations and paranoid behavior?

 

[Evolva]

I'm just asking because I knew a friend of a friend of mine who was Schizophrenic and had the exact same symptoms you described here.
And he was also prescribed big dose of Olanzapine augmented with Lithium and some other meds I can't remember.

Is your friend also suffers from visual or/and auditory hallucinations and paranoid behavior?

My friend is not schizopren.

hes psychotic only when he is on mania or when he smokes weed and then he hear voices

what he wants to know is if hes neck contraction is from the air conditioner or from the use of geodon?

 

[whazzah]

Hearing voices because of weed is very uncommon, but sometimes weed can exaggerate hidden mental issues so if your friend hearing voices because of it, he might be schizophrenic.

I don't know about geodon, but I don't think air conditioner(wtf?) has anything to do with your friend's neck spasms.

By the way Evolva, your friend sound very sick, does he have any extrapyramidal symptoms?

 

[amzam]

what do you think causes the contraction in the neck and the TD symptoms?

will he survive geodon withdrawl?

Uhm, the neck stuff reminds me of torticollis, it wouldn't be as common with recent antipsychotics, but not impossible. Geodon withdrawal is not likely to be fatal. Up-regulation and down regulation of neurotransmitter pathways tends to have effects both positive and negative. I'd mostly expect mood and cognition to be the areas where you'd experience effects, and none likely to be fatal.

 

[Mmp85]

I'm bipolar and my doctor was very insistent on not using lithium and giving me depakote instead.
I'm happy with although I've never tried lithium and can't compare.

 

[oliveoyl]

my mum was on it for 10-15 years lithium carbonate, fucks your teeth

 

[cr33py]

tardive means these symptoms persist well after ceasing the drug. Thats a bit more common with the typical antipsychotics than the newer atypicals and clozapine. EPS like facial tics and other unusual muscle contractiions can be addressed with benztropine if needed. in a pinch even the antihistamine benadryl can help a little. Lithium treatment has a lot of downsides to it, but from what Ive seen those are small compared to long term treatment on AAPs for someone IF their psychosis can be controlled with just lithium.