u/IKHK

▲ 1 r/Latuda

latuda withdrawls or new meds ?

hello all, i've been taking latuda for about a month now and just got switched out and onto abilify yesterday. the fatigue was too much for me to handle despite it working super well for me. i've been off of the 20mg latuda for about two days now, and my first dose of abilify (5mg) was yesterday night.

i've been on abilify before, but that was several years ago and i didn't stay on it for long enough to notice anything significant. i took it before bed last night and had no problems except for some restless sleep, which i think is likely the lack of latuda since it was so sedating for me.

today i've been experiencing some crippling anxiety, which isn't like me at all. i do suffer from severe anxiety and OCD, but both have been extremely well managed for two years with luvox. today was just strange. i felt sweaty all day, very on-edge, jumpy, and panicky. i had about three panic attacks today and i'm just exhausted. i feel shaky and uneasy. i feel my OCD thought patterns coming back and the racing thoughts i thought i silenced with the luvox. i know that it's always an external source causing anxiety when i feel my thought patterns coming back because the luvox is so effective for me. i just can't tell what.

my main symptoms are anxiety, trembling, sweating/hot flashes, loss of appetite, nausea, and pounding headaches. i don't know what's going on since i could be in withdrawals, but it could also be the abilify. anybody have experience with latuda withdrawals, and did it feel similar ?

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u/IKHK — 17 hours ago

coming off latuda - any alternatives ?

hello everyone, i've been on latuda for about a month now and am beginning to wean off of it due to debilitating fatigue. i began taking it during a severe depressive episode and it managed to work so well it brought me out of it and back to baseline. it's a huge bummer that i have to quit it, but the fatigue has become so obstructive that i feel like i'm not really living my life anymore. i'm booked for a psychiatrist appointment on wednesday but i'm still terrified to go off of it. i've been on a handful of different medications throughout my mental health journey and nothing has ever worked as well as latuda. i'm curious if anybody else has had experience with latuda and/or other atypical antipsychotics that have worked for them. i suppose my biggest worry is about my depressive episodes since those tend to be very severe and antidepressants and mood stabilizers don't touch them. i'm currently on lamictal but it doesn't do much outside of preventing my mood episodes or slowing the onset of them. many of the other atypical antipsychotics are FDA-approved for bipolar 1 specifically, so i have no idea if they would do anything for me.

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u/IKHK — 4 days ago
▲ 3 r/Latuda

i can't tolerate the fatigue anymore :(

making sort of a goodbye post to my latuda because i finally made the decision to switch meds. i started latuda about a month ago and it has been the best medication i've ever tried. i've been on a total of 7 meds in my lifetime for my mental health, but this is the first bipolar-specific med for me. i have bipolar 2 and i go through really intense depressive episodes, but i've never found a med (until now) that actually brings me out of it. the latuda brought me out of it almost immediately. it's been an absolute lifesaver. but unfortunately i can't tolerate the sedating effect anymore.

it's pretty ridiculous how common it is. i'll take my meds at 6:30 with my dinner and about an hour to two hours later, i'll be horrifically sleepy. i have to drop whatever i'm doing so i can scramble to get ready for bed. i'll sleep for 12 hours uninterrupted. if i sleep any less than 10, i'm fighting sleep in the morning on my way to my lectures. i'll fall asleep in the lecture hall and walk through the day like a zombie. sometimes i'll take 2 hour naps, sometimes they turn into 3 hours. on a lucky day, i'll take my meds late enough that i can stay up until about 10:30. most nights it's 9:30. i feel like i'm sleeping through my life and i can't take it anymore.

i've heard a lot of people improve after a few months. it's working so well for me that i genuinely thought i was willing to wait it out. but my current lifestyle requires me to be way more present than i currently am and unfortunately i have to find something else. plus, i tend to be someone who reacts better to higher doses of meds, and i can't increase at all if it's making me this tired on just 20mg.

i'm terrified of slipping back into a depressive episode after weaning off, but i'm not willing to wait and see if the fatigue goes away. off to another atypical antipsychotic, i guess !

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u/IKHK — 4 days ago

planned parenthood iud experience

i've been wanting to switch from the pill to a more low-maintenance option for a few months now. i originally thought about the implant but felt more like getting a lower-hormone iud. i chose kyleena over the course of a few appointments with my ob/gyn and decided to rip the bandaid off today.

i chose planned parenthood because they offer pain management. my ob/gyn does not. and based on how my procedure went WITH pain management, i am extremely glad i chose it. i wanted to document my experience because i feel like planned parenthood and other neighborhood clinics face a lot of stigma, but they're still good sources to go for reproductive health topics. i definitely felt weird about going before i went, but they sure know what they're doing.

planned parenthood offers a couple options, and personally my clinic offered cervical blocking (lidocaine injection) and nitrous oxide. i chose the cervical block because i was going to drive myself home afterward.

the procedure itself was quicker than i thought. i thought the lidocaine would pinch or burn like it usually does on my skin for other procedures, but surprisingly it wasn't very painful. slightly crampy, but no burning or anything. from then on i felt nothing crazy, quite a bit of cramping as expected but nothing outrageously painful. when it was over i sat back up, but started feeling nauseous and faint. my doctor noticed and laid me back down with my feet up. she gave me an ice pack for my neck and the nurse brought me a heating pad for my stomach. they were very kind and attentive and let me lay down for a while until i was ready to get back up.

overall it was super quick, it definitely wasn't painless but it wasn't bad. the cramping afterwards is definitely a factor, but if you experience severe periods like i do, personally i've felt much worse. with the ibuprofen they offer, it makes it very manageable. i love to go to specialists for my health concerns but i definitely recommend planned parenthood for procedures since they do them all the time and offer options for the pain. i haven't heard of a lot of ob/gyns that offer anything but ibuprofen. had i not gone with the cervical block, i think it might have been a lot more painful for me. overall it was totally worth it and i feel great now !

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u/IKHK — 11 days ago

i feel like a medical mystery

for context, i became sexually active approximately one year ago. a few months into being sexually active, i began to get UTIs. those were easily cleared and didn't come back. then my first yeast infection came, which was treated otc. then another, and another, and another. for around six months i dealt with yeast infections that went from once a month to twice a month, to almost weekly. i was running through monistat like crazy and getting fluconazole from my doctor every now and then when it got bad enough. i adjusted my lifestyle (no underwear at bed, not sitting in wet clothes, no douching, scented products, no overcleaning, no wiping back to front, etc) and also ended up becoming abstinent. it continued for two more months before i had enough and scheduled an appointment with my ob/gyn.

my ob/gyn ended up swabbing me and found both bv and a yeast infection, which was likely the source of my massive discomfort. i told her about the frequency of my infections and she kind of gawked at me. apparently you're not supposed to have more than four in a year. oops ! try two per month. she told me it could be a resistant yeast strain and put me on both metrogel for the bv and terconazole. that cleared up my issue fantastically, but only for about a month and a half before my problems returned again.

i started getting yeast infections again despite my incredible carefulness. they would resolve with treatment for about a week and a half before resurfacing again. two or three weeks if i was lucky. about a month later i became sexually active again (with ONE partner) and we were both tested extensively for sti's and infections. we were both cleared for the whole panel (including mgen for me). i also got my glucose and a1c tested for diabetes, both of which came back normal.

i wanted to get an iud during this time to replace the pill because i was getting tired of taking so many oral medications. i went to planned parenthood to get it done and upon putting me in the stirrups, the doctor paused and chose to swab me. she came back telling me i had a lot of white blood cells in my discharge and that i had cervicitis. she obviously didn't proceed with the procedure, but she told me she didn't know why i had it since i tested negative for all std's and was being careful with my lifestyle. she prescribed me doxycycline but i felt unsure and went to a different planned parenthood. that doctor swabbed me and told me i tested positive for yeast, and having already gone through this ordeal before, i told her my frustrations. she put me on weekly fluconazole and told me once the infection fully clears, i can come back for an iud.

that was three weeks ago. two weeks into the fluconazole i didn't feel much relief, which was very concerning to me. my ob/gyn ended up fitting me in for an urgent appointment that week and got me terconazole to use. i used it and while i do feel somewhat normal now, my discharge is still white and milky. my iud appointment is tomorrow, and if i get denied for it one more time im giving up. i honestly don't understand what's wrong with me and it's really wrecking my brain. i don't need reassurance or anything, i guess ill get my answer tomorrow at planned parenthood and if they find abnormalities again ill try my ob/gyn again. it's just so weird, ive never known another woman with the same issue as me. it makes me feel dirty even though im doing everything my doctor could have possibly told me to do.

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u/IKHK — 12 days ago

not looking for advice or anything, i'm just frustrated. i (19F) have bipolar 2 and was previously in a severe depressive episode. two weeks ago i was prescribed latuda (lurasidone) after i hit the 200mg wall for my lamictal. after just a couple days i was feeling better, and a week later i was back to my regular self. it has by far been the most effective med i've taken for my depression. lamictal has always been effective for preventing episodes, but the latuda felt like it actually brought me out of one.

i'm on week 3 and i noticed that last week i started experiencing fatigue. it wasn't like any fatigue i've ever felt before. i take my latuda at around 6pm with my dinner. it would hit me about an hour or two after taking my meds, and i'd be in bed by 9. this fatigue absolutely floors me. once it hits, i feel like i have a short amount of time to clean up for bed before i knock out for the next 12 hours. yes, 12 hours nightly. i've been sleeping from 9:30 to 9:30 pretty much every night for the past week.

it's super frustrating. i'm usually relatively productive after dinnertime leading up to bedtime. i like to get some things done before i go to bed so i can sleep soundly and have less to do in the morning. i'm in college, so sometimes i have to stay up a little to get work done, but not on latuda.. ever since i started it, it genuinely annoys me how tired i'll get so early into the night. it makes showering, changing, cleaning up, and taking my other meds feel like a chore. getting into bed even takes up so much of my energy. i'm really upset because this is the first medication i've felt really good about, and there's a strong chance i'll have to switch. real bummer.

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u/IKHK — 17 days ago

not looking for any advice, just wondering if this is a common experience or not. i've been on latuda (lurasidone) 20mg for about two weeks now following a severe depressive episode. it's been helping significantly, and i've finally leveled out and am back to functioning. the first week was chill, but i noticed during the second week i began to feel some significant fatigue. i thought it wasn't connected to the latuda, but i'm beginning to think it is.

i take my latuda with dinner, which is usually around 6pm. i notice myself becoming horribly exhausted at 8-9pm. it gets to the point where i feel like i need to drop everything just so i can go to sleep. it's a heavy, persistent tiredness that really bothers me because i can't seem to shake it. i've been sleeping for up to 12 hours nightly, and i feel refreshed in the morning but it's a bummer that i know the same cycle will happen again by nighttime. i've heard about akathisia with latuda, but not drowsiness like this. i guess i'm confused because i've been on a handful or two of psych meds and have never experienced side effects like this before, even on meds that are labeled as "sedating". i will speak to my psychiatrist about this, but i'm just wondering if this is a common experience. it would be a bummer if i had to switch because it's been working wonderfully for me.

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u/IKHK — 17 days ago