Olanzapine Withdrawal

Having said that, it is advocated that the withdrawal will take equal to how long you've been taking the drug. If you wanna be really safe, taper for 1 year.

Hi, thank you, it really helps to talk with other people going thru this, this is my third attempt to get off and got hit with insomnia every time, now I am in the middle of house relocation and new job starting, and I just didn't feel like going thru this alone.

That's cool. The olanzapine is water soluble so you can do some chemistry experiments trying to get how much you need every night you'll be sleeping well for a year, it's about as gentle a slide as you can get.

Hi Clara I was on it for 20 years and stopped a year ago. Try taking 5htp it will help with your mood and help you sleep. It converts to serotonin in your brain and also helps elevate melatonin levels. It's completely herbal and non addictive. Be careful what you take with it though it can react with antidepressants

HI, thank you for your suggestion, unfortunately I am on celexa and I cannot take 5htp, because it causes a dangerous reaction. Celexa is very good for me, it helped me completely with sleep and mood before, it is only zyprexa that I wanna stop. Unfortunately I feel I am relapsing this time again, because I don't wanna be on melatonin until I develop tolerance

Have you tried meditation? That helped me a lot too. To start off with I was doing it 2 or 3 times a day but didn't need to so much after a while. Also exercise helps and not drinking alcohol also helps you to sleep and helps with the withdrawals

And kalms are quite good too. Completely herbal and don't react with anything. Very good for anxiety

Hi all,

 Sorry I started this post and has not been active on it as I should be due to the high withdrawal I experienced and also I travelled to visit family. 

Sadly, I had to go back up to 10 mg as my consultant advised. I could not take the side effects of withdrawal especially the psychotic symptoms. The consultant advised me to stay on 10 mg until he meets me again in August and maybe then try a more careful withdrawal plan. 

 I am thinking of taking 10 mg one day and 7.5 mg the other day for six weeks before I go down to 7.5 mg. Then stay on 7.5 for another six weeks before I take 7.5 mg one day and 5 mg the other day. So on so forth until I stop it completely. The process will take about seven months to complete but I don't know how it will go until I try. 

Has anyone tried such reduction plan and what do you all think of it?

I don't really know. Best thing to do is Google the ingredients to find out

That sounds pretty good. Maybe every 8 weeks though. It doesn't matter if it takes ages to get off it as long as you eventually succeed

I have heard of these clinics where they do a detox. Anyone knows if there are clinics of such kind in Europe or how much is the cost? 

Clara, how did you try to come off, did you stop cold turkey or cut the doses down? 

I tried cold turkey, my mistake. Last time I tried to reduce to 2.5 and I still couldn't , the same insomnia hit me

6 hours of sleep is not too bad that's about all i ever get now and I've been off it for a year. I think you end up sleeping far too much on olanzapine so you'll have to get used to sleeping less. I can function on 6 hours

That's the same time on Olanzapine, June last year. My second attempt to come off the medication hopefully it will be next month or in August as that's when I will see the consultant. 

When you cut down to 2.5, did the symptoms hit you straight away or it took a while for them to come?

 Have you tried to come off the medication while alternating 5 mg one day and 2.5 mg the other day? 

That's what I read the company that makes it recommends. Decrease by 1/10 every 2 weeks or so. Good luck to you.

The one in Utah is very expensive and they told me they can't deal with violence?  So how can they do withdrawal programs for Olanzapine when a lot of people become aggressive during the withdrawal?