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Risperdal- a psychotropic drug offering relief from schizoid symptoms.
How does it work? Why does it work? Does it work?
Anybody have any anecdotal, personal, or secondhand experience?
http://www.risperdal.com/consumer/risperidone/index.jsp
It’s a heavy-duty anti-pyschotic drug with many side effects. Better than schizophrenia, however, in most cases.
There are MANY such drugs on the market now, so take a look around and talk to your Dr. about side effects, etc.
Also, generics are now available for many drugs. Good luck to you or whoever is in need of this.
This is a cite from the official website you have directed me to.
How can it be that they (The drug company and the FDA) don’t know “how” a medication works nor its basic catalyst and properties of interaction, yet still allow and approve its use?
A case of immediate benefits outweigh possible long term risks?
Will there ever be a scientific, medical, or technological breathrough that will explain Risperdal’s chemical and molecular subtleties and its interaction/interference with brain chemistry?
Does anybody have a plausible cutting edge theory of what might occur neurologically/chemically or at a quantum level within the structures of the brain when Risperdal is introduced?
I took resperdal from 1995 until March 2003. I had been diagnosed bipolar in 1994 and received a traumatic brain injury in an automobile accident in 1995. Resperdal kept me from doing things like beat my wife and show my ass in public. Early last year I discussed discontinunig it because of cost problems and it made me sleep 10 or 12 hours a day. She helped me learn mood altering exercises. She is belives that drung should be used to control your moods while you learn to “think” yourself sane. I agree. Feel free to e-mail me if you ant specific thoughts.
Better living through chemistry!!!
I quit it after 3 months…it caused massive weight gain, and I was perpetually tired.
I took Risperdal for approximately one year several years ago. While it did (to a degree) help me get my head on straighter, it caused weight gain (which I still have not managed to get rid of), perpetual sleepyness, and a general fuzziness of thinking and apathy towards everything.
My son has taken it for about 6 years, he’s almost 15 now. It’s been great for him, no side effects to speak of (maybe slight weight gain, but it’s hard to tell when they’re growing anyway).
Risperidone is an “atypical” as opposed to being a butyrophenone, phenothiazine, or MAO inhibitor; it is specifically a Benzisoxazole, a class not otherwise filled with other psych meds.
But “we don’t understand how it works” is sort of a euphemism. As with all neuroleptics, it works by interfering with the underlying biochemistry of nerve synapse, so that neurons fire less readily. Sensory neurons, motor neurons, neurons you think with, central neurons, peripheral neurons…doesn’t matter, it does its stuff everywhere.
But insofar as they aren’t making the claim that Risperidone helps you deal with unpleasant mental conditions by partway shutting down your entire freaking nervous system, and are instead claiming that it has a specific use for combatting the symptoms of schizophrenia, it’s kind of awkward to say that that’s how it works.
They can’t explain exactly how it works with specific regards to schizophrenia because schizophrenia itself is a diagnostic phenomenon without a specifically understood etiology and mechanism.
Risperidone appears to be less inclined to cause cardiac problems, more likely to precipitate or worsen diabetes, less likely to cause extrapyramidal side effects, more likely to persist and build up in the brain, than prolixin, haldol, thorazine, etc.
The people I know who’ve been on it say that subjectively it works the same way the others do: it turns you into a zombie with cotton wadding where your brain used to be.
If it gets you through the night (or day) and helps you cope with stuff you need help coping with, make use of it.
But don’t believe anyone hyping it as a “magic bullet” that will make your unwanted mental and emotional states “go away” and turn you “normal”, or claiming that it fills a chemical-imbalance deficiency in your brain the way Synthroid addresses hypothyroidism or insulin addresses diabetes. It’s just Yet Another All-Around Nerve Dampener, which is pretty much the only thing they’ve got.
This is a good read:
The Creation of Psychopharmacology, David Healy, Harvard, 2002