After 13 years on olanzapine

I recently found this site when I was looking for information on withdrawals from olanzapine and I thought that maybe I should share my experience with others because it might just be of help. I live in Australia.

I was on antidepressants for 7 years. As they didn’t help my doctor suggested trying olanzapine. I took it for 13 years. I went from 5 to 15mg over the first few years. I ended up taking 20mg a day. During the last two years I was prescribed fluoxetine as well.

Four months ago I decided that I had to stop taking all those medications because they were not helping. The last two years I had problems sleeping. I wasn’t getting much sleep at all. And I also realised that the really bad case of OCD I was suffering from had started around the time I started taking olanzapine.

No doctor, neither general practitioner nor psychiatrist, had specifically warned me not to stop taking those medications without tapering. The first few weeks were not too bad but after that I started sweating uncontrollably. The sleeping resembles torture. Unable to sleep for very long and having disturbing dreaming patterns. I am also having some really unpleasant sensations in my mouth. I generally feel extremely unwell.

I usually have codeine and diazepam as well which have been prescribed to me for the last 15 years for chronic pain and anxiety not relieved by anti-depressants. I am not sure those medications are much help with the withdrawals. I have found no help from the doctor I’ve had for the last six months. (I moved to a new city two years ago.) All he was trying to do was refer me to a new psychiatrist who wouldn’t be able to help since I actually suffer from ‘existential depression’ (as I’ve recently found out it can be referred to) and there is no cure for that.

The last psychiatrist I saw asked me why I hadn’t gone through committing suicide yet since suicide ideation had been mentioned in a referral from another doctor. He had no idea what he was talking about. All he could do was listen to himself talking non-stop and get overpaid for it. I only saw him because I had to find a new doctor when mine retired and the new one had issues prescribing diazepam without back-up from a specialist. I don’t think psychiatrists are of any help unless you want more psychiatric medications.

I am trying to get through this but it’s a really horrible thing to experience. What’s making it even more difficult is that at this particularly difficult moment, when I need medication for pain, I am being harassed to see a pain management clinic when codeine is the only thing that has helped my pain issues so far.

I would advise anyone not suffering from psychosis triggered by actual ‘schizophrenic’ conditions to avoid olanzapine at all cost. I would also advise people not to take anti-depressants unless they really think there is no other option and to make sure they don’t take them for too long.

These drugs are too easily prescribed by people who appear to be quite ignorant when it comes to what they are actually doing to your brain and your body. And then when you realise you are just fattening up big pharmaceutical companies’ pockets you can find yourself in a very painful, lonely, place.

Good luck to everyone going through a hard time without any help from the medical profession.

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