Antipsychotics can cause the very symptoms they relieve, including depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety, poorer cognition, agitation, mania, insomnia, and abnormal movements.
They can cause movement disorders such as twitching and restlessness, sedation and weight gain, and lead to diabetes. Because of these side effects, antipsychotic drugs are usually only used to treat severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
Both typical and atypical antipsychotics commonly cause side effects like drowsiness, dizziness, blurred vision, constipation, nausea, and vomiting, per the NIMH. These often go away. But the drugs can also cause serious long-term side effects.
Previous research has also shown that the use of antipsychotics may raise the risk of metabolic syndrome in patients with schizophrenia. Metabolic syndrome has, in turn, been associated with heart disease and diabetes.
What happens if a normal person takes olanzapine? Olanzapine is prescribed for people who have chronic schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. In ordinary people, intake of olanzapine increases weight by at least 2–3 kgs over six weeks. Other side effects include dry mouth, tremors, restlessness, and muscle contractions.
For neurological, neuropsychological, neurophysiological, and metabolic abnormalities of cerebral function, in fact, there is evidence suggesting that antipsychotic medications decrease the abnormalities and return the brain to more normal function.
Second-generation antipsychotics, such as quetiapine and olanzapine, are often abuse for their sedative and anxiolytic effects. Addicts seek out the calming and hallucinogenic effects caused by quetiapine and olanzapine.
If you experience psychotic symptoms, your doctor may offer you antipsychotic medication to help you with your symptoms. Antipsychotics can help manage your symptoms of psychosis. This can help you feel more in control of your life, particularly if you are finding the psychotic symptoms distressing.
Agitation and sedation: Some people feel “wired” and unable to stop moving when taking antipsychotics. This effect may be mistaken for a worsening of illness rather than a side-effect of the medication. These same drugs can also have the opposite effect, making people feel tired.
Some people may be able to stop taking antipsychotics without problems, but others can find it very difficult. If you have been taking them for some time, it can be more difficult to come off them. This is especially if you have been taking them for one year or longer.
Most antipsychotic drugs are known to block some of the dopamine receptors in the brain. This reduces the flow of these messages, which can help to reduce your psychotic symptoms. Affecting other brain chemicals. Most antipsychotics are known to affect other brain chemicals too.
Studies have suggested that psychiatric drugs may do more harm than good, especially in the long-term. Antipsychotics have numerous serious and debilitating side effects including: Movement effects: Tremors, muscle stiffness and tics can occur. The higher the dose, the more severe these effects.
Atypical antipsychotics such as quetiapine, aripiprazole, olanzapine, and risperidone have been shown to be helpful in addressing a range of anxiety and depressive symptoms in individuals with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders, and have since been used in the treatment of a range of mood and anxiety disorders ...
Risperidone can affect your hormones and sometimes causes sexual problems (in men or women). It can also affect periods. These effects are not common and happen in less than 1 in 100 people. If you would like to start a family then talk to your doctor if you have any of these problems or if you are worried.
Quetiapine can cause changes in the way your body functions. You may have hyperglycemia (high blood sugar), increased cholesterol and triglycerides (fats in the blood), or weight gain. High blood sugar can occur in people with or without diabetes.
Identifying Antipsychotics
People who use the drug don't seem to be getting high directly from it. Instead, quetiapine is most commonly used to enhance the effects of other drugs, notably cocaine and heroin.
Whichever method you use to take antipsychotics drugs, they may work quite quickly to make you feel calmer. But it may take days or week to reduce your psychotic symptoms.
Factor analysis of these items revealed three main effects of antipsychotic medication related to doubt and self-doubt, cognitive and emotional numbing, and social withdrawal. Antipsychotic treatment appears to be connected to a number of negative subjective effects on cognition and emotion.
Clozapine and olanzapine have the safest therapeutic effect, while the side effect of neutropenia must be controlled by 3 weekly blood controls.
Meyer-Lindberg himself published a study last year showing that antipsychotics cause quickly reversible changes in brain volume that do not reflect permanent loss of neurons (see 'Antipsychotic deflates the brain')7.
This is consistent with the reports from case studies. Two of the published case studies describe a euphoric feeling or a 'high' from olanzapine. A quarter of those who engaged in NMU of olanzapine used it to 'get stoned'.
Although hypersexuality has been acknowledged as a possible side effect of antipsychotic treatment with partial dopamine agonists, including aripiprazole, only very few cases of olanzapine-associated hypersexuality have been reported in the literature.
Although possibly less frequently misused than quetiapine (Hussain et al., 2005; Reeves and Brister, 2007), the use of olanzapine for recreational purposes is usually linked to its relaxing/anxiolytic actions and is frequently implemented together with other substances and/or alcohol (Mead et al., 2008; Sani et al., ...
Results: Antipsychotics, as a group, increase weight and may lead to dry mouth and bad breath, cataracts, hirsutism, acne, and voice changes; they may disturb symmetry of gait and heighten the risk for tics and spasms and incontinence, potentially undermining a person's attractiveness.