Medication: Olanzapine
Symptoms: Akathisia, emotional blunting, sexual dysfunction, cognitive impairment, anhedonia
I was originally told I’d only need olanzapine for 12 months and that getting off the low dose I was on would be easy. I wasn’t warned that it could take years, how difficult withdrawal could be, or that long term use of the drug could cause cognitive impairment.
After multiple failed psychiatrist led abrupt tapers, I became stuck on the drug for 7-8 years. Slowly, over that time, my cognitive, social, emotional and sexual functioning began to deteriorate. Until I was eventually diagnosed with a mild cognitive impairment by my GP, and given a geriatrician referral (at just 41 years old), it was a frightening wake up call.
Despite the harm I was experiencing, I had no safe and supported way to come off the drug — until I discovered slow gradual tapering. I’ve now been tapering for a little over 12 months. The withdrawal has been brutal (dizziness, nausea, head pain, fatigue, irritability, akathisia, along with allergy type symptoms). I’ve needed to have several month long taper pauses to restabilise myself throughout that time, but I am very slowly beginning to regain some of my cognitive, social and emotional functioning the more the drug is reduced. I’m not sure yet how much functioning I will get back and if I will regain all of what I have lost — I still have a couple of years of tapering ahead — so I will just need to wait and see.
I was never informed or warned that any of this was a risk prior to being started on the drug. This is why I now share my story.
If you would like to see a longer more detailed version of my story, I share it here in this YouTube video: