Lithium and Olanzapine

[KayHarker]

I'm thinking of coming off these as I'm royally sick of the side effects. Any advice?

I take Olanzapine only 2.5 mg & no side effects. Lithium gave me a metal taste in my mouth & headaches. I would say to speak to your Dr to devise a plan of dosage on how to wean off.

Yes, talking to my doc seems standard advice. :) He wants me to stay on them :sigh:

I'm on 20mg of Olanzapine and My Lithium dose escapes me atm. I have weight gain, a tremor, memory loss, sleepiness and an almost constant headache. I've just about had enough of it, tbh.

Have you had your bloods done recently? Are you lithium levels ok?

Yes, regular bloods done. Lithium levels fine :(

Not helpful I know, but side effects like yours are pretty common. Only thing I can suggest is speak to your psych again, take a list of your side effects and write a list of the benefits you have had next to it. Talk it through, maybe a dose tweak would be the answer but don't do it without the dr say so. Good luck.

My 17 year old DD is on these 2 meds. she is now on 10mg Olanzapine and 1000mg Lithium[ blood level 0.5].

She is drowsy most of the time and honestly only gets her personality back for an hour a day at around 7pm before she takes her meds again. She has put on weight but it has been pretty stable for the last 6 weeks.

They worked well to bring her out of a manic psychotic episode but she seems overmedicated now. 20mg seems like an awful lot. My DD has had her dose reduced to 10mg and we will keep asking about her meds to see if she can eventually reduce the dose or try something else so she can have her personality back!

I'm sure you can ask for a med review. If we hadn't asked my DD wouldn't have had her dose reduced at all as she kept saying she was OK.

Thanks for the replies. I think I'm going to gradually reduce my dosage, particularly th olanzapine. My doctor won't like it, but he doesn't have to live with it.

I've been on both of these but not together. Olanzapine made me gain huge amounts of weight and lithium buggered up my thyroid. Won't take either ever again.

Kay love, you really should speak to your dr, not least because you will need a prescription for lower strength tablets. If you are going to reduce, I would go for a small reduction in the olanzapine, by 2.5mg or max 5mg and stay at the new dose for at least a week to see how you feel. Hope you feeling better soon.

I've got a appt. with my psych in a couple of weeks, I'll talk to him then :)

been on 15mg for three days, feel fine. Fingers crossed.

Oh good, hope it stays that way!

Still going strong. Had a migraine today, and it doesn't help that Dd1 has a friend to visit, but I'm not hearing any voices and I'm not overly anxious.