Posted by chess on February 13, 2004, at 12:59:05
In reply to Best Of The New Anti-Psychotics?, posted by Torrey on February 13, 2004, at 6:18:34
i work as a counselor in a psychiatric rehab group home, no med backround but i can tell you what i've seen with my clients:
clozaril is amazing, i've personally seen it help people in a terrible state (similar to that movie with deniro and williams, can't think of the name of the movie right now), but it can cause low white blood cell count and many clients refuse to try it because they don't want to go for the weekly blood draws
seroquel is good, more sedating than others, clients take large dose at bedtime
zyprexa and risperdal seem to be liked equally well by clients, but i've seen zyprexa be more helpful
jury is still out on geodon and abilify, they seem to help clients who have more "mild" schizophrenia
some of my colleagues consider geodon and abilify "sugar pills" because of the stronger efficacy we see with clozaril-seroquel-zyprexa-risperdal, but i think this might be unfair due to the relative new introduction of geodon and abilify and because every individual reacts differently to different meds, so don't give up trying different meds at different doses if you have to until you find one that helps you and that you can tolerate, btw cogentin seems to be favored by all my clients to control the side-effects caused by antipsychotics
poster:chess
thread:312720
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040210/msgs/312867.html