my experience with Risperidone

[ShadowEmperor]

I have bipolar disorder and my doctor prescribed me 1mg, said schizophrenics take up to 8mg, so it's not much, but I still had negative effects, it has prolactin which can cause impotence and man tits, it's harder to ejaculate, and when I do my semen is sort of clear, which indicates a reduced sperm count. I think I will ask him to prescribe me just Anxiar for the high phases and Adderall for the low phases.

[ShadowEmperor]

I'm smoking heavily during manic phases btw, during depressive phases I don't.

[LazyXrayEyes2255]

My son was given option but he now on other medicines

I think these really work for him

Olanzapine

and Lorazepam

[ShadowEmperor in reply to LazyXrayEyes2255]

all anti-psychotics have side effects, I'd rather not take any.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olanz...

"The principal side effect of olanzapine is weight gain, which may be profound in some cases and/or associated with derangement in blood-lipid and blood-sugar profiles", which on long term can cause diabetes (my father has it, so I'm genetically predisposed)

[ShadowEmperor]

interesting, since with manic episodes the lack of sleep causes the conscious and subconscious to blend together (btw, following the onset, in my case, there were at first months of "normality" between manic episodes, now following a depressive phase if I feel normal I recognize that it's the beginning of a manic episode, it's important to remember that it will pass)

osnews.com/story/30710/crea...

"His name was Dan. He was a coder, like me. He wasn’t full-on schizophrenic; instead, he had schizophreniform disorder, in which the disease manifested episodically.

He’d shown signs that his perception of the world wasn’t “normal” since childhood. The first full-blown instance was a result of someone putting PCP, a.k.a. “angel dust,” in his drink at a party. (The perp went to prison for it.) Over the next week, Dan suffered some wild hallucinations, mood swings, and obsessive-compulsive behavior. When all other options were exhausted, his parents had him committed to a reputable mental hospital, where the goal was treatment, not isolation. Eight months later, he was stable enough for release, although he still wasn’t normal by any measure.

Regarding his illness, he always answered any questions I had, honestly & directly. He described the symptoms of a schizophrenic as the inability to distinguish between sensory perceptions and the bubblings of the subconscious mind, when drugs aren’t involved. His own case was latent, before his drugged drink at that party. After that, he had to learn nothing less than a new way of life.

I asked him to describe an incident that best illustrated what it’s like for him, to explain it to someone with a “normal” (i.e. normally cognitive) mind. He told me this story.

I’d been in [the hospital] for about 5 months. They were finally letting me brush my own teeth, which meant they could trust me to understand what a toothbrush was, and what it was for. That’s no small achievement. (laughter)

One morning, I was doing exactly that. I rinsed the toothpaste from my mouth, bent over to spit into the sink, and stood up. It was no longer me in the mirror. It was the devil, the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I was paralyzed with terror.

As I stood there, a beautiful angel descended into my right peripheral vision and said, “Dan? I’m not God; I’m not an angel. I’m the part of your brain which is still working properly. Close your eyes and turn around, and it will go away.”

It took every bit of courage to follow those words, but I finally did. And yes, it did go away.

Fifteen years after that episode, as he was telling me about it, his narration was totally calm, even finding humor in small points that the rest of us take for granted. But he had accepted his situation.

His hospital regimen boiled down to a few basic points:

— avoiding excess stress

— recoginizing the onset of an episode

— learning how to remind himself, in an episode, that it will end eventually

— learning how to spot the tricks a schizophrenic mind imposes on sensory perceptions

One of the things he learned later, was how to deal with employers who had to deal with his week-long absences a few times per year. When he was my colleague, the project management team all knew, but it wasn’t always the case with other employers."

[ShadowEmperor]

btw, I have a problem with overspending (besides buying a pack of cigs per day) during manic phases, on Christmas I walked into a pawn shop and walked out with a laptop, two tablets and a wristwatch, I didn't really need them.