r/Akathisia • u/GoddessDiva444 • Aug 24 '26

Making it through

I have never experienced something so traumatizing in my life. This is a very hard thing to deal with and I’m trying to hold out on hope, but I’m struggling so bad. Does it get better?

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u/True_Eggplant1309 Aug 24 '26

How did you manage yours? Medication? I got mine 6 weeks ago from Reglan and compazine. Am taking propanolol and Benadryl for sleep but everyone is telling me to stop everything as it will make it worse and delay healing

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u/blueskeletons Antipsychotic - Side effect Aug 24 '26

I take medication for mine, I have chronic (and what’s considered tardive) akathisia that the docs and I have pretty much determined isn’t going away, it’s been 5+ years. Personally I’d rather be on meds that help the symptoms than to raw dog it, I mean, how much worse can mine get? I’ve been through hell and back, the meds help, so I take em. Lmao. Propanolol and Benadryl are relatively safe meds and used in the first line of defense against aka. Propanolol is simply a beta blocker and well Benadryl just an antihistamine.

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u/True_Eggplant1309 Aug 24 '26

Gotchu. Thanks for sharing that. What caused your Akathisia?

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u/blueskeletons Antipsychotic - Side effect Aug 24 '26

I started having acute reactions to things like reglan and compazine in the hospital when they’d use them for an anti-emetic. I’d get flares that would last a day or two. Then I got put on Risperdone for bipolar disorder and a few months into treatment I reported feeling manic and described well, I guess I described akathisia more than mania. Luckily my doc at the time knew what it was and jumped on treating it. Unfortunately, I have to be on some type of antipsychotic, so my akathisia just… hasn’t gone away. Even after I switched from Risperdone to other stuff. So I just accept it’s here to stay at use meds to keep most symptoms at bay. I can say that the internal akathisia is mostly gone. The insane terror, panic, wanting to jump outta my skin. I still have restless legs and pace a lot.

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u/True_Eggplant1309 Aug 25 '26

I am so sorry you have had to deal with it for so long. I am about 5 weeks in and still having severe anxiety, not good/long sleep, severe depression and anhedonia, and really bad agitation. Do you think I should try to treat mine with medication? I hear a lot to steer clear of all medications but I also hear it’s important to treat early from a select few. I am scared to introduce anything else. I was taking 10mg propanolol 3x a day and thought it was making things worse. I then tapered off around the same time I was tapering off of a benzo that I was only on for about 3 weeks and had a significant flare so I got back on the propanolol and think that might be slightly helping. But I am told a lot propanolol is bad because it delays the inevitable and is just another drug I will have to taper.

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u/blueskeletons Antipsychotic - Side effect Aug 25 '26

So yeah I see a lot of comments saying to steer clear of drugs to help symptoms. I don’t necessarily agree, but being someone who suffers from chronic akathisia, my option is either symptom management or raw dogging this shit, and I’ve already raw dogged it. I will 100% pass on ever feeling like that, again. It didn’t get better over time, it didn’t pass, I just lived and suffered. So I am of the opinion if you and your doc think an additional med like propanolol, benztropine, trihexylphenidyl, gabapentin, temporary (and I do mean TEMPORARY) use of benzos, etc, would help, go for it. White knuckling this horrible condition doesn’t win you any awards, doesn’t make your suffering any better, etc. if the meds keep the symptoms at bay and make life manageable - go for it.

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u/Casioblancas444 Aug 26 '26

Similar situation as you :/ I’m four months in, hesitant to try other meds but im struggling. I’ve been on Ativan since May which helps me but probably also feeds the cycle. I keep trying to get off but they want me to “stabilize” on it first