I was given Risperidone as a 'mood stabiliser' after becoming bipolar. Initially I was in a mental health ward and I noticed a few affects right away. I was playing chess on a palm pilot and the game seemed to slow up and speed down. It wasn't actually the game slowing down and speeding up it was what I believe to have been my 'conceptualisation' of the game. I would feel a build up of expectation when having made a move to the move which would be made in response by the chess program. Then it seemed to flip and I would have a build up of expectation of making my own move and then release. It was a build up of tension which seemed to be linear in response to the game I was playing. Then I noticed that I was salivating while eating. Also I was eating as I could only describe at the time and did relay to the pyschiatric doctors 'like a cat'. I was eating with ravenous hunger. Mealtimes were hellish.
I was then released from the mental ward and allowed to go home. They had given me a course of risperidone consta which is a 25mg shot that lasts two weeks. They did not trust me to take the drug in pill form. I got back to my abode and automatically started drinking (a bottle of whisky). Halfway through the following morning I woke up - I was freezing cold. I ran a hot bath and put the heating on. I spent the next two days wrapped in blankets next to a heater and I could not get warm. I did not feel heat.
I had to phone the mental health people to tell them of my situation. They got back to me after a few hours and said that I was having a 'physiological reaction' which meant that I thought hot was cold and cold was hot from what I understand this can be a concept. The feeling of cold was accenuating my arthritic pains. They took me back onto the ward.
During the next week due to the addition of drugs I know not what the problem with hot and cold went away. They kept me on Risperidone, 25mg every 2 weeks. Then I felt that my whole body was slowing down. I was playing a lot of table tennis in there. I felt that the arthritis was giving me real problems and I seemed to be reacting a lot slower to stop or pre-empt any pain. Then I noticed my speech started to get slurred. Then I noticed that everyone elses speech was slurred (including the nurses). Eventually I was let out.
I found I could not relax. For 15 weeks after that I was in the situation where I could not sleep I was permanently pacing (all day) and I was becoming severely depressed. I ended up with suicidal ideation (every waking minute). At this time I was telling the psychiatrist who was prescribing me this drug that I was not getting well at all on it. He told me that I would be on it for years he said that all the symptoms I was having were due to my bipolar disorder and not the risperidone. Eventually I got to the stage where I tried to kill myself. Luckily I failed. Very soon after that I phoned up those people again and said I am really Ill and having problems I must be re-admitted. I was still eating like a cat my speech was effected but now It was just me (sounding like a dummy). I was having a real crisis of confidence.
Thats it. I think the sequence of events can be expanded a bit I try not to think of those days. When they finally let me out again I was still suicidal. Also I can remember if I got too relaxed I would wake up with a twitch I was twitching constantly in my sleep which would halt it. One other thing that I can remember happening in the midst of all that which makes me realise what risperidone does to me - It's used as a mood stabiliser so it will make my emotions go one way or another. I remember telling a friend who was round at my abode I can't cry and then I started crying. I felt some release in just bawling my eyes out for a time then I stopped crying. The few hours after stopping crying I experienced the worst depression I have ever experienced I got really black depression. It was the way the drug works. It doesn't allow me to have extremes of emotion. If I do actually have an emotional extreme it will counteract heavily in the opposite direction. When I cry I am happy to be crying, I felt some release in tears. It bit me back. After a few weeks the Risperidone got out of my system and I started feeling better. They prescribed me seroquel instead which is extremely sedating.
Now I feel completely fine that is the drug for me. I explained at one stage I remember to the psychiatrist that sleep is something you learn to do, I felt I had lost the idea of how to sleep and that Is why I was suicidal. I was convinced I would never get well again. I remonstrated with this psychiatrist at least once - I said these atypical antipsychotics come with a list of side effects and also details of the dose etc. Not much information at all. I said that these drugs must come with an understanding, an explanation of how they will effect your mind and what physiological effects are. I am convinced that If I had not had relatives who were medically astute and this information had not been relayed to me I may never have got over it. That bad phase of my life. I would say that for me at least it was a very dangerous drug.
