Zyprexa (olanzapine) Side Effects - The Good, The Bad and The Funny. From People Who Have Taken These Crazy Meds...and SCIENCE!

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Side Effects of Zyprexa (olanzapine)

Even though it's class action lawsuit city with Zyprexa (olanzapine) and other atypical antipsychotics these days because of their side effects, the side effects really aren't that bad! But if you're into that sort of thing, we have a page to help you find a lawyer.

For tips on how to cope with these side effects, please see our side effects page. The only proven med-based solution I've found to date for Zyprexa (olanzapine) and weight gain is Axid (nizatidine). Everything I have to help lose weight on Zyprexa on the side effects pages.

In addition to the usual short-term side effects for atypical antipsychotics

Zyprexa's Typical Side Effects: Headache, nausea, dry mouth, sleepiness or insomnia, diarrhea or constipation, not giving a damn about anything (a.k.a. the zombification effect), loss of libido and a host of other sexual dysfunctions. Most, if not all of these will go away in a couple of weeks. Except for the excessive sleepiness (up to 16 hours a day!), which could hang around for as long as you take Zyprexa. The sexual dysfunctions could also stick around if you're taking a high enough dosage of Zyprexa. What Zyprexa is absolutely notorious for is weight gain. Almost everyone who takes Zyprexa gains a significant amount of weight - on average 7% of their initial body weight, or about 20 pounds (9 kilos). Zyprexa is a potential triple threat when it comes to weight gain, as it could slow your metabolism, may make you want to sleep 10 or more hours a day, and often make you want to eat more. And since it hits the H1 histamine receptor, it's going to make you crave carbohydrates like there's no tomorrow, so good luck sticking to that Atkins diet. But, hey, at least it's the goddamn med's fault and not any lack of willpower on your part.
These aren't all the side effects possible, just the most popular ones.

Zyprexa's Not So Common Side Effects: Diabetes. Accidental injury. Tremor. Irregular heart beat. Like any antipsychotic there is a slight, but real risk for extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS), tardive dyskenesia, and neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS). Please see the page on these risks. Zyprexa (olanzapine) tests as having one of the lowest risks for EPS and TD and has been used to treat people with TD. Everyone is also flipping out over pancreatitis, when 64 people out of the thousands taking Zyprexa (olanzapine) developed pancreatitis through 2003. But don't let that stop anyone from filing lawsuits.
These may or may not happen to you don't, so don't be surprised one way or the other.

Zypexa's Freaky Rare Side Effects: Getting intoxicated from water (score!) and getting hung over with no previous intoxicating effects (bummers!). Fecal incontinence. Priapism (i.e. the never-ending hard-on) from an overdose along with Neurontin and at a high dosage all by itself. There have been other reports of this freaky rare side effect when mixing Zyprexa with other meds, including lithium. Kids, don't try this at home as a Viagra substitute. Although who can honestly resist the temptation of being constantly drunk, hard and taking a dump whether you want to or not? Zyprexa is a med for manly men.
You aren't going to get these. I promise.

For all side effects, read the PI sheet.

Zyprexa's Suicide Risk: The use of Zyprexa (olanzapine) has had a few documented suicide attempts. But all psychiatric and neurological meds have a potential suicide risk. It actually tests rather well as a suicide preventative, and in that respect its use far outweighs any suicide risk.

Interesting Stuff Your Doctor Probably Won't Tell You: Smoking clears Zyprexa (olanzapine) out of your system 40% faster. While Lilly doesn't recommend a dosage adjustment for smokers, I wouldn't be surprised if smokers ultimately need either higher dosages than non-smokers, or at least a modification in dosage scheduling. That smokers need a difference in Zyprexa (olanzapine) dosage isn't surprising. This drug is metabolized by two enzymes, CYP2D6 and CYP1A2, and it's the second that nicotine induces. That is, when you smoke you get your liver to pump up the volume of certain enzymes. Most meds inhibit the action of enzymes as they get greedy with them, so that's why you often have to reduce the dosages when you mix drugs in a cocktail.

Also men clear it out 30% faster than women. As usual, women always take longer to do anything.

The only differences found in ethnicity is with Japanese patients, where they seem to get twice as much out of Zyprexa than the rest of the population.

And, as is typical with these crazy meds, the med has a half-life that is 1.5 times longer in those over 65 than those who aren't.

Putting it all together, all things being equal as the economists like to say, a non-smoking elderly Japanese woman may require a dosage of one-sixth that of a smoking hakujin male under 65.

Because it works your liver pretty hard and needs two enzymes for metabolism, there are going to be plenty of drug-drug interactions. Check with your pharmacist and double-check at my preferred Drug-Drug Interactions site if you're taking any other medications, either prescription or over-the-counter. I'd also recommend an annual liver function panel, just to make sure your liver is always up to snuff.

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If you still have unanswered questions about this or other medications, including which one is, or combination of meds are the best for you, your best bet is to ask on Crazy Meds Talk. Better yet, if you want to let the world know how they worked out for you and want to help out others in their quest for the correct meds, join the party.
If you want to discuss your issues, I suggest checking out one of the various support groups online.
Otherwise, if you're letting me know about how much you like or hate the site, or need to let me know about medication effects in private, then just drop a note to jerod23 at gmail dot com Honestly, I usually don't have a lot of time to answer e-mail these days. The snide autoresponse message that may or may not hit your mailbox is going to tell you the same thing.
Another problem is that you may not get a response even if I wanted to send you one. You see, so many dickweeds with malicious intents and too much time on their hands have appropriated the crazymeds.org domain name to use for their spam, viruses and the like. Subsequently some lazy-ass e-mail protection software authors just go by the domain name, and not the IP address. So I've been blacklisted because of the actions of others. Or the software just doesn't like the domain name because of the "crazy" and/or "meds." Or your question about a particular medication will set off spam flags. So the e-mail just wouldn't go through regardless. Sorry.

Dead tree references:

End of books used for this article.

Created Monday, November 10, 2003

Last updated Saturday, May 15, 2010

Almost all of the material on this site is copyright Â© 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 Jerod Poore. Except, of course, the PI sheets, those are the property of the drug companies who developed the drugs the sheets are about. And any documents that are written by other people which may be posted to this site will remain the property of the original authors. You cannot reproduce this page or any other material on this site outside of the boundaries of fair use copying without the express permission of the copyright holder. That's usually me, so just ask first. That means if want to print out a few pages to take to your doctor, therapist, counselor, support group, non-understanding family members or something like that - then that's OK to just do. Go for it! Please. As long as you include this copyright notice and the following disclaimer, I'm cool with it.

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