coming off meds have questions

Hello

I am new to the board and have some questions. First a little background. I have had schizophrenia since I was 9 but was not diagnosed until 26. It's very mild and I can hide it most of the time. I did have one breakdown when I was 26 that required hospitalization. I have since then grown a lot and have learned stress management and anxiety management and do not feel I will be in that place ever again.

When I was diagnosed at 26 they put me on meds and told me the meds would make everything better. It didn't make everything better. Three years later I have gained 120 lbs and I still have schizophrenia symptoms! I have tried everything to lose weight and the weight refuses to come off.

I made the decision this weekend to come off of Risperdal. I have to do this in secret since of course my family wants me to continue to take the meds. I don't blame them since that's what the doctors tell them. They are just doing what they think is best but it's not what's best.

My question is what should I expect coming of Risperdal? Will the weight just come off when I am off of Risperdal or will I have to work really hard at it? I wasn't overweight before the meds. Thank you for your responses.

Good that you're taking control of your life. Make sure to taper really slowly and watch your own responses carefully. If you have symptoms, wait until they have past before further taper. I made the mistake of tapering too fast because I was so desperate to come off and I pay the price now! I have a lot of horrible withdrawal symptoms and had to go back on meds and try again. Read carefully about withdrawal before you start and make sure you have a stable life before tapering.

I have been on Zyprexa for a relatively short period of time (months). Weigth gain was not my most concerning problem, but in the first weeks I gained 10kg. I have always been slim and now I had a belly and people would ask me if I was pregnant! When I started tapering after a few weeks, I noticed when I came below 5mg the everlasting hunger and craving was finally gone. I did not gain more weight. The weight also did not come off. Until I started to feel so bad (my taper was way too fast) that I stopped eating. I've now lost about 5 of 10 kilo's.

Please make sure you do a slow and careful taper, it increases your chances of succeeding!

I'm now tapering off Risperdal. I also haven't told my family and my doctor doesn't know either. I tapered to .5 mgs. now and it wasn't until my last taper 14 days ago that I had relatively mild w/d symptoms, nothing too bad but now riding out the waves and windows. Sometimes the waves feel intense but I think I'm just sensitive to w/d. I plan on tapering this small portion over the next 1-2 years, very, very slowly with less than 7% cuts each time. I don't want w/d syndrome or anything else so I'm being very careful with this.

Thanks for your replies. I will taper off slowly then. Oh and by the way I told my mom and she is actually very supportive. I am on two meds for schizophrenia, wellbutrin and Risperdal. The Wellbutrin helps with my negative symptoms, helps me focus and disorganized thinking ( it is sometimes used as an ADD med), and takes away my depression. I would like to stay on that but not on Risperal which is supposed to help with psychotic symptoms but doesn't.
I have learned that my psychotic symptoms get worst when I am under lots of stress. So I avoid putting too much on my plate at once. Just breaking that habit helped me so much. I can't tell my doctor either because he won't agree. I don't think he is a bad doctor like some of the people on this part of the forum have experienced. He actually doesn't specialize in schizophrenia so he's just making his recommendations based on the current literature of the day, which says give anti psychotics.
My mom told me to still fill the prescription and have them on hand. That's good advice since the doctor will know if I filled them or not so best to keep filling it every 30 days.