I had ppp 2 years ago and I was put on 50mg of Olanapine and it got very slowly lowered. I am now on 5mg, I tried stopping the 5mg 6 months ago and symptoms of intense paranoia and anxiety returned. I’ve been going to therapy for a few months now and I feel that I’m in a good place to try and stop the olanzapine but I am worried my symptoms will return. I just want to know if anyone has successfully stopped olanzapine without any symptoms and fully recovered from ppp?
Daniella
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DaniellaCharlotte
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I had PPP back in 2020, which started 8 days after my sons birth.
I started on Haloperidol but it didn’t work well for me at all.. so I got switched to Aripiprazole which suited me much better. I started on 20mg and after about 6 months went down to 10mg then down to 5mg. I was off all medication after about 10 months and luckily didn’t suffer with any side effects.. but I only came off it due to forgetting to take it most of the time!
I just gave birth to a little girl and she is 11 weeks old and have luckily not needed to take medication this time, but we had it prescribed just in case. But it is 100% treatable and I am so pleased to say I went on to full recover and haves successful 2nd birth.
Hello Daniella, 50mg is very high. I would imagine that you were experiencing a lot of side effects.
I'm so glad that the dose was tapered down to 5mg! There is a strong probability that you are experiencing a rebound effect when stopping (although not everyone does). This is primarily an effect of the drug - where an opposite effect to the drug itself is experienced during withdrawal.
However, it may be that there is an underlying condition as well. The only ways to find out really are to stop completely and see whether the high anxiety and paranoia goes away after a few weeks (this may not be tolerable) or to taper the dose down further to 2.5 and downwards still and try to observe what happens.
The key is to find the lowest dose which can prevent the anxiety and paranoia (give 2-3 days), then a bit later try a lower dose again which can do the same - eventually reaching such a small dose you should be able to come off completely.
I wish you the very best! Do people stop medication and recover completely? Oh yes they do!!!
Thank you so much for reaching out to the APP community here. I'm so sorry to hear that you experienced PP two years ago, but it's really good to hear that you feel in a much better place through recent therapy.
I thought it might be useful for you to read this post from about 2 years ago, where lots of people have shared their experiences of successfully reducing and stopping Olanzapine. I know from my own episodes of PP in 2005 and 2011 that it can be a long journey taking things very slowly and steadily to withdraw fully from Olanzapine - but with the right support it is absolutely possible.
Hope you find the other experiences shared here helpful
I had PP 10 years ago and was also on olanzapine for a 1 1/2 years as it took me 6 months to slowly withdraw from Olanzapine. I went from 5mg to 2.5 and then lower and then every other day as suggested by my Dr. I initially suffered from insomnia, but with my Dr support I was able to come off completely and have been ok since.
Take it slowly and be kind to yourself you will get there!
I too had PP and two other episodes of stress induced psychosis. I have been on and off olanzapine at a treatment does of 10mg.
I reduced this to 5mg and then tried further to reduce to 2.5mg but the sadness came back. I wanted to come off it as I found myself craving sweet foods and putting on weight.
I returned onto the 5mg dose and got my weight under control through diet and exercise and now happily take the 5mg dose knowing that it is likely to prevent any further relapses.
I guess your situation is slightly different as I have had other episodes but these days I'm just grateful to stay well!
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