Writing about the Geodon/Antipsychotic Withdrawal Experience

Heyy everyone. I was put on Geodon earlier this year and experienced the hellish withdrawals once I went off it. It forever changed my view of prescription psych meds. Anyway, I'm a writer and I occasionally do articles about my personal experiences. I wonder if I could get into any legal trouble for writing about going through Geodon withdrawal? I honestly don't think I could bring myself to mask my disdain for this drug.

Am I the only one with such strong feelings about the horrid withdrawal symptoms of these drugs? I want to share it with others who may not know what they're getting into. Although drugs impact each person a little differently, this drug did a number on me and a whole bunch of other people. Sigh.

I just searched "geodon withdrawal" on Google and of course nothing but desperate posts from sick people and ZERO information from the psychopharmaceutical industrial complex like the American Psychiatric Association, the pharmaceutical industry, public relations and advertising firms, patient support organizations, the National Institute of Mental Health ect ect.

Try it, http://www.google.com/search?q=geodon+withdrawal

Seems that withdrawal reactions are systematically ignored in psychiatric drug treatment or research, I realize that FDA approval of Geodon is likely based upon very short-term studies (usually 6 to 8 weeks) which are designed, paid for, and supervised by the drug's manufacturer. I further realize that the FDA does not require or expect that a drug's full range of adverse effects will be known prior to marketing and prior to lengthy exposure of ordinary patients to that drug.

livvyivvy wrote: I wonder if I could get into any legal trouble for writing about going through Geodon withdrawal?

Freedom of speech is the political right to communicate one's opinions and ideas using one's body and property to anyone who is willing to receive them and is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

They tried giving me Geodon after Zyprexa withdrawal got so bad I went to the ER, I was like what the F_ after making me sick in the first place with disabling Zyprexa for insomnia that sucked the motivation and life out of me 24/7 and the best thing they can think of to do is to give me more dangerous chemicals from the same class that also produce withdrawal reactions from hell ?

They never ask "what where you like before taking psychiatric drugs?"

I now understand that all psychiatric drug withdrawal reactions will most often closely resemble the original symptoms for which the drug was prescribed , and are likely to be taken for a return of these symptoms (a "relapse") or a new disorder, rather than for withdrawal effects. I realize that my doctor or the hospital is likely to interpret these reactions as a sign that my so called "illness" is chronic and that the drug is "effective."

Thanks so much for your reply, Copy_Cat. I think I am at my wit's end with psych drugs in this country. There is enough to deal with with everyone I know being on meth without seeing Adderall and hard antipsychotics thrown at kids. I legitimately am just so upset I don't know what to do anymore. My friend abuses and is addicted to her Klonopin and I'm scared for her with benzo withdrawals.

I am a head case right now. I'm lucky that I got out of the psych world as soon as I did, was on lithium and lamictal and geodon.

I am in no way judging people who are on these drugs, but they have done nothing but terrible things for the people in my life and myself.

What was Geodon withdrawal like ?

Did anyone warn you about these reactions before you took the stuff ?

I was only on it for 5 days, and here's what happened.

During the time I was on it, I had horrible reactions to it... restlessness, coma-like sleep with drooling, and severe panic attacks that I've NEVER in my life had before. When I told the hospital about this, they insisted I was just nervous about being in a new environment and having anxiety. I don't have anxiety issues at all and I had NEVER experienced anything like that in all my bad life situations. So instead of taking me off it, they added an anti-anxiety medication. Woot.

Anyway, as soon as I got out of the hospital I cut it off cold turkey, because honestly, I did not want to live another day with how Geodon made me feel. I didn't care if I needed to taper off; I did not see a point to living anymore with this drug in my system. Combined with the Lithium, I was immediately turned into a girl with such bad hand tremors that I couldn't carry grocery bags safely or even eat yogurt without it dripping off the trembling spoon. The Geodon acted as a mega-anxiety giver and gave me hot flashes. I could barely breathe. I begged my boyfriend at the time to help me vomit so I could get the "poison" out.

Soo fast forward to when I went off of it cold turkey. I had prepared myself by reading about Geodon withdrawal. The first 6 hours I was experiencing minor discomfort, by the 12th hour I was sweating profusely, could not stop shaking my leg, felt my heart skipping beats, etc. I felt like I was dying. I spent the weekend with my family trying to stay cold turkey. I did not sleep once. Literally. I could not stop moving around because of the restlessness, so 3 AM I was up and walking as fast as possible to get a level of comfort that I couldn't know anymore. Not to mention the nausea, ohh the nausea.

There would be little periods of the day where I would think I was recovering; I would still feel extremely weak just because my body had been up and trashed for so long but the heartbeat would go back to normal and I would stop the major anxiety. But nope, two hours after I'd get my hopes up on that, the withdrawal was back and with a vengeance.

My withdrawal was luckily short and I don't think had any lasting effects on me other than making me wiser. This is mostly due to the fact that I was only on it for 5 days; but still, I had a 5 day withdrawal period. And it was such hell on earth that the only thing stopping me from killing myself was the fear that I would fail and be put back into the hospital with more meds. I was in so much physical pain.

I didn't feel fully "normal" for about 3 weeks, but the major withdrawal symptoms were gone by the end of the first week. This experience was... it was like seeing my last moments while being tortured, it felt like a near death experience.

And to answer the question about anyone warning me of this; NO. I visited the hospital doctor, we discussed my symptoms, and he told me he would put me on Geodon and a few other medications. This was the weekend doctor; when the weekday doctor rolled through he changed up my meds, but kept Geodon. Funnily enough, they gave me an informational packet about both Lamictal and Lithium, but no informational packet about Geodon. I remember that specifically. All I knew about it was that its name sounded like a Pokemon. Legitimately. The hospital and the doctor's office themselves seemed so clean-cut and professional, I couldn't dream that the medicines they put me on would do this.

i know the geodon zeldox #######4, its known to cause problems even after a short time using it....I had a problem with my quack trying to give me higher and higher doses when it was interfering with my sleep and causing chest pains and palpitations, they sore my sleeping problem as a symptom of schizophrenia and thats why they were giving me more...getting more and more irritable, seemed so irate and agitated with it...lump in the throat that made me gag sometimes..that was while on it..when I got off I would sometimes take one tosettle the things with insomnia, It hought it would help coz the insomnia was making me trip about hostiloe alien forces...I managd to sleep after running from my house to find peace at a police station, they didn't even see me walk in...got some sleep after that, walked about 10km into town, pretty dumb slept and felt fine the next day although pergatory was still creeping its head in, I was the god of pergatory and they were bothering me...so silly me didn't sleep again until I helped my sister get out of some dodgy place and opened a portal, which was my couch and ran from house again this time i missed the main road and \wound up running through car park with post office workers...I back tracked and found two women in my gut with the lump in the throat and them trying to kick there way out of me...I reported to the police that I wanted to be exterminated for opening the portal It was a stupid thing to do

so thats about my experience with eldox, it rubbe off bad and I certainly got the return of symptoms and ignored that the zeldox caused me so much grief with insomnia...thats all it was, those trips are like that at night an then in \morning all settled...probably not the best example of what could happen if someone took zeldox, I am very sensitive to astral plane...the celbrity came back when I got off the $#%^ too, that was good...this time around the celbrity was not so good for me and bad trips because of her, thats when I refused treatmetn on different antipsychotic..just trying to say that I am sensitive and make the astral important part of my life...I doubt I would be running from my hpuse if not for the eldox and supersensitivity psychosis.

to back you up about this drug, it has a short half life so that is gonna be worse for withdrawal...yeah I had nausia too..but I was taking it sporadically throughout the whole witdrawal so that is a no no I think, its best to detox and never go back to such a #######5 drug.

and about your initial point I thinkk you should get your story out there , they should be sued if anything,drug manufactureers are the ones that shoulld be hiding.

One thing thaat was a bonus however from my experience is it was inneffective at sedating me so that was good to a certain extent until the irritablity and agitation got the better of me at night plus I was super keen on forums about conspiracy threories and looking into 9-11...I called angels to be with me and they insisted I detox and give up cigarretes and alcohol..alchohol was a contributer to my situation become so hostile and disaterous with hostile astral forces and a kind of delerium...sleeping after sunrise was having weird effect on vivid lucid dreams.

I think the message is out their about how bad witdrawals are on this drug, I almost think it was given to me coz they knew I would withdraw being a compliance risk and be used for further evidence that I am schizophrenic and ruined my case to ever get off a CTO and they use this $#%^ against me when overalll it waqs just a #######5 eperience on a very dangerous drug, more peo9ple should know about it, the FDA it is dangero8us and this $#%^ happens all the time on this drug, IMO it should be treated with the same respect as clozapine when starting someone on it... I had lots of contributing factors plus only getting off respiridone injection some months before taking zeldox...there are actually few contributing factors since zeldox seemed like it wasn't doing anything, wasn't feeling like I taking an antipsychotic, just made me edgy and anxious and maybe even a bit manic...withdrawals was just more of the same $#%^ although the times I slept seemed like I slept deeper then I was when taking it...i tried tryptophan for sleep but that might have contributed to becomeing more manic...my batch of HTP does nothing so can't recreate that feeling...that was a good feeling I remember from my keen interest in conspiracy like it held some pocket of truth and I remember that feeling, but technically that is being on an atipsychotic that needs dose increased as the situation was proving to be but I wasn't taking m\ore just taking say one at night if anything or sporadic use so I was probably experiencing withdrawals on it all the time, since short half life..I have read a guys blog and there is lots of comments about it, maybe its still there. look up "zeldox workers antipsychotic"...include zeldox name in your writing and searches about it....

Hi there - I'm wondering if any of you have ever had your p. doc just take your child off of a mood stabilizer cold turkey, and if so, what kind of reaction did your child have to it? My p. doc. took my son off of 200mg Seroquel cold turkey and in it's place started him on 40mg of Geodon. Within 24 hrs. he was bouncing off the walls, felt like he wanted to crawl out of his skin, was pulling on his skin, is feeling super hot and then super cold and getting waves of nausea and his mind is just racing. Some of what he's going through almost seems like a withdrawal but it is really hard to tell. I feel SO stupid that I allowed this, I just assumed that they knew what they were doing. And I"m really frustrated with the nurse because she keeps telling me that my sons behavior is just because he's "still not well", that it isn't possible for him to have a reaction to Geodon or to go through a withdrawal from the Seroquel, that just doesn't happen she says. Common sense now tells me it definitely could happen!!! I've talked to 2 seperate pharmacists who have both told me that these are strong doses of antipsychotic medications and that a reaction is absolutely possible. One pharmacist even said he can't believe that the p. doc would have just taken him off one without tapering it. I feel so bad for my son, I should have listened to my gut.

Found the above searching google http://www.google.com/search?q=Geodon+and+Seroquel...Withdrawal

Sick how they torture these kids with these 'meds' . Think this dad figured it out.

The scary but true thing is if this parent posted here in the anti psych forum they would get better answers than they get from the so called "experts" that create the dangerous misery like above with there reckless clueless prescribing.

The kids was having some Seroquel withdrawal and the Geodon reaction like the O.P described, these incompetent quacks should have there scrip pads revoked if they can't see that .

I took Geodon for day and it was garbage. Tightned my throat to a point where it hurt to swallow food.

All these drug companies have the majority of the population fooled, pushing these neuroleptics on people and then having the shrinks do the dirty work of lying and comparing it to diabetics and insulin to convince you to stay on them.

You should see the stupid look on the face of my old shrink when I told him "ohh yeah? Excuse me but insulin is produced by the body, drugs like these are not, so how can you tell me we "need" them?

This drug Geodon has intended effects for mood disorders however, it doesn't take away from the fact it is like poison which you take to make you feel good but the results is the chemical makeup or certain chemicals for your body change reception and the likelihood of returning originally is very difficult. The effects are lasting.