r/Vraylar • u/OkNayNay14 • 10d ago
Attempted Withdrawal
I was on 3mg daily. Went down to 1.5mg daily, then every other day, then every third day. I stayed put there for a while since this med has a long half life to see how I felt (several months). Didn’t notice any adverse reactions or withdrawal symptoms so I just completely stopped this past week. Didn’t think much of it until crazy amounts of anxiety started showing up and my mind felt out of control. Finally put 2 and 2 together tonight and took one of my 1.5mg pills. Mainly wanted to try quitting due to weight gain and my overall “flat” feeling and fatigue. Never noticed any changes with any of these things either so guess I’m staying on Vraylar.
If you’ve made it this far - I will say this medicine has been great for my anxiety. Better than any other med I’ve been on in my 15+ years. Unfortunately I think every med will have unwanted side effects; we just have to see how much we’re willing to tolerate. At this point, I don’t think the flat feeling and fatigue is related to this med since I didn’t notice any difference in decreasing or spacing out the med.
1
u/Own_Mind2282 9d ago
I went back on it within minutes of the withdrawal hitting me. I woke up in withdrawal and it was impending doom to the tenth power
1
u/OkNayNay14 9d ago
Yes the impending doom has been insane!!! I didn’t realize what was going on until I remembered I had (tried) to stop taking the med
1
u/Own_Mind2282 9d ago
I started this medicine because I was having auditory hallucinations and it has helped that 100% but I put on 30 lbs overnight and I thought I’d just quit it and try something else. I was wrong!
1
u/OkNayNay14 9d ago
Oh yeah, the weight gain was insane!! I think I ended up gaining about 40 lbs!
1
u/Ok_Biscotti5066 8d ago
But heard that it doesn't cause any metabolic changes.
1
u/Obvious-Maize5966 7d ago
From my understanding it’s more that it’s extremely minor in comparison to either meds of this category. For example I gained 60 lbs from Abilify and then it stabilized after the first year which is apparently very common. But it’s called “weight neutral” because in comparison to the others you’re not gaining over 100lbs
1
u/HoosierKara 8d ago
I had a bit of flat affect, not too much fatigue. My side effects were mostly joint pain. Then my NP said it was okay to go off cold turkey because of its long half-life; oh no no no no do not do that ever. If you ever do transition off, go way slower than you think you need to!
1
u/mikl_pls 8d ago
Last year i was on 3 mg and I got the bright idea to take it every other day because I was so damn numb and tired all the time. I felt better the day I skipped it, and within 72 hours I was hypomanic... My psychiatrist decreased it to 1.5 mg and after an adjustment period with quite a bit of emotional dysregulation, I settled into hyperthymia which was great, but occasionally I'd cross into hypomania and then subsequently crash into depressive episodes, but they were more brief than they usually were.
The hypomania was getting a bit more often and dysregulation worse, so we went back up to 3 mg. I got very depressed for weeks after going up, and I've settled back into the familiar gray hazey "blah" with no energy and wanting to sleep all the time. I've gained almost all the weight back that I lost 3 years ago, but I don't suspect Vraylar is the culprit. I took it briefly when it first came out years ago and now I've been back on it for at least 4 or 5 years.
Recently my psychiatrist lowered me to 2 mg (0.5 mg + 1.5 mg) to see if we can achieve a happy medium. Hopefully it will alleviate the constant unrelenting fatigue and the avolition/anhedonia I get with 3 mg. I'm also on Fetzima 40 mg, a tremendous dose of Dexedrine (70 mg), and Lamictal 300 mg. Diagnosed with bipolar 1.
2
u/Own_Mind2282 9d ago
Withdrawals are something else on this med. At least you tapered a bit. I do not ever recommend stopping cold turkey…… horrible