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

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Risperdal Basics How to Take Risperdal How Risperdal Works & Compares with Other Meds Comments Where to Buy Risperdal / Ratings

Even though it's class action lawsuit city with Risperdal (risperidone) 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.

Risperdal's Typical Side Effects: The usual for atypical antipsychotics - headache, nausea, dry mouth, sleepiness and lethargy or insomnia and way too much energy. Most everything but the sleepiness & lethargy or bouncing off the walls usually goes away within a couple of weeks.

For tips on how to cope with these side effects, please see our side effects page.
These aren't all the side effects possible, just the most popular ones.

Risperdal's Not So Common Side Effects: Loss of libido and other sexual dysfunctions, but those are mostly at the mid-to-higher dosages. You know, the amount you need to treat schizophrenia, psychosis and bipolar. A large Spanish study has Risperdal (risperidone), the standard antipsychotic Haldol (haloperidol) and Zyprexa (olanzapine) the worst offenders for sexual side effects. They all seem to be dosage-related, so the higher the dosage the worse the sexual dysfunction will be. Risperdal (risperidone) tends to mess with your hormones at those dosages, so you might get all sorts of hormonal stuff involving estrogen and prolactin, including wacky periods and lactation issues. It does mess with the girls more, but sexual side effects are prevalent at dosages required to treat schizophrenia or as the only medication to treat bipolar. Oh, and guys, you may learn more than you ever wanted to personally know about lactation.

Also heart palpitations, tachycardia and other cardiac weirdness that I honestly don't have a clue about what is scary and what is annoying. So you'll have to ask your non-head-shrinking doctor about the heart issues. Like other antipsychotics Risperdal (risperidone) can also mess with how you process sugars, but it's nowhere near as bad as Zyprexa (olanzapine) or Seroquel (quetiapine) in that regard.

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. If you start twitching, kicking, jerking, or in any way any part of you moves and it wasn't your idea - and it happens more than once - it's time to call your doctor. Just don't freak out. Rather, you have reason to calm down. None of this stuff is permanent. I've now twice had mild symptoms of EPS, including TD with Risperdal (risperidone), and lowering the dosage took care of it at one point, but eventually I had to stop taking this med because the TD symptoms wouldn't go away. And that sucks. I don't have any hard numbers on this, but a lot of anecdotal evidence is pointing at Risperdal as being the worst of the popular novel / atypical antipsychotics when it comes to people getting EPS.

Restless Leg Syndrome - not to be confused with the twitching of the above, but only a doctor can determine the difference. Believe me, my doctor grilled me for an hour and a half when I started twitching. It turned out to be a pinched nerve, and not EPS. Only later at a much higher dosage of Risperdal (risperidone) did I start getting real EPS. But at a lower dosage the symptoms went away. No big deal that time! However Risperdal can start or aggravate RLS, so you may have to deal with that.
These may or may not happen to you don't, so don't be surprised one way or the other.

Risperdal's Freaky Rare Side Effects: Rabbit Syndrome. Duck syndrome! Rabbit syndrome! Duck syndrome! Sorry. Plus discolored feces, and increased pigmentation. Hey, maybe we can tan after all! And, as always, that priapism.
You aren't going to get these. I promise.

For all side effects, read the PI sheet.

Risperdal's Suicide Risk: The use of Risperdal has documented suicide attempts in the clinical trials for schizophrenia (1.2% for Risperdal vs. 0.6% for placebo). But all psychiatric and neurological meds have a potential suicide risk. It actually tests extremely 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 About Risperdal: Risperdal is extensively metabolized by your liver using the enzyme CYP2D6. About 6-8% of Caucasians, and a very low percentage of Asians, have little or no activity of that enzyme, and are known in the trade as "poor metabolizers." Risperdal (risperidone) and other medications, including Strattera (atomoxetine), Prozac (fluoxetine) and Paxil (paroxetine) are flushed out of your system by that enzyme. As such you have to be very careful if you are a poor metabolizer, as I am, and you combine Risperdal (risperidone) with one of those meds, as I do. Hell, even if you aren't a poor metabolizer you need to watch out if you mix meds that use the same enzymes. The most recent case of EPS I experienced came after adding a new med, Reminyl (galantamine HBr) that is also extensively metabolized by CYP2D6. My system was suddenly flooded with a higher concentration of the active metabolite of Risperdal (risperidone) and it decided to hang around for a longer time than usual.

Because it works your liver pretty hard and does a double 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:

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Created Thursday, October 14, 2004

Last updated Saturday, May 15, 2010

Almost all of the material on this site is copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005 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.

All rights reserved. No warranty is expressed or implied in this information. Consult one or more doctors and pharmacists before taking, or changing how you take any neurological and/or psychiatric medication. Your mileage may vary. What happened to us won't necessarily happen to you. Nobody on this site is a doctor, therapist, or a pharmacist. We don't portray them either here or on TV. Only doctors can diagnose and treat an illness. Some doctors tend to get pissed off by patients who know too much about medications, so tread lightly when and where appropriate. Diagnosing yourself from a website is like defending yourself in court, you suddenly have a fool for a doctor. Don't be a cyberchondriac, thinking you have every disease you see a website about, or that you'll get every side effect from every medication. Self-prescribing is just as dangerous. All information on this site has been obtained through personal experience, the experiences of my friends, the experiences of people reported on online support groups, and from sources that are referenced throughout the site. Know your sources! As such the information presented here is not a substitute for real medical advice from your real doctor, just a compliment to it. No neurologists, psychiatrists, therapists or pharmacists were harmed in the production of this website. All brand names of the drugs listed in this site are the trademarks of the companies listed after them in the pages about the drugs, even though those companies may or may not have been acquired by other companies who may or may not be listed in this site by the time you read this. Always read the PI sheet that comes with your medications and never ever throw them away. If you didn't get a PI sheet, demand one. Loudly. Crazy Meds is not responsible for the content of sites we provide links to. We like them, or they're paid advertisements, or they're something you should read to make an informed decision about a particular med. Sometimes they're more than one of those things. But what's on those sites is their business, not ours. Very little information about visitors to this site is collected or saved. And from time to time I do look at search terms used to find it in an effort to make the information I present more relevant. Use only as directed. Void where prohibited.

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