Posted by Dinah on August 12, 2003, at 3:20:29
In reply to Risperdal PRN for Anxiety?, posted by fachad on August 12, 2003, at 2:16:28
I was on Risperdal as needed for anxiety and agitation. It works extremely well for me. It's not for nothing that the antipsychotics were called major tranquilizers. One dose often sets my emotional level back to an acceptable level since anxiety and agitation seem to feed on themselves.
My pdoc has since switched me to Seroquel, but I'm so afraid of sedation from it that I haven't tried it. I still have Risperdal on hand and I still take it if I really need it (very seldom).
Which is not to say there aren't possible problems. Once I was on it for a bit over a week and I think I had a tongue thrusting incident, so I decided not to take it longer than a day or two. And it was while I was taking Risperdal as needed (and without gaining any weight) that I shot into Diabetes II without even being pre-diabetic three months before. There might be a relationship there. But it's hard to tell because I was also under a large amoung of stress at the time which might have elevated my blood sugar.
In short, in my experience it has its risks, but it's darn effective. But everyone responds differently to medications.
(Incidentally, I was on Thorazine as a child for severe anxiety, depression, and what the doctor called sleep terrors. It worked pretty well as a tranquilizer as well.)
poster:Dinah
thread:250182
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030807/msgs/250193.html