low dose Rispéridone works against fatigue

[tgb]

Dear all,
After being diagnosed CFS by 2 specialists in hospital, I have spent the last 2 years in very good shape thanks to the following treatement : rispéridone à 0.5mg/day.
Risperidone is an antipsychotics, I am not psychotic nor depressed. But it works.

The pharmacological aspect of this treatment is the following :
at low dose, antipsychotics drugs like rispéridone boosts the dopaminergic neurons, leading to nearly full reduction of fatigue (physical and cognitive fatigue).

The subtility of this treatment is to find the efficient low dose : not to low to have an effect, not to high to avoid sedation & sleepiness.

Feel free to discuss & ask question if you need to know more or if I am not clear enough.

[alicewoolf]

My cousin went out with a woman who had CFS for yrs and found great relief from her symptoms with the use of anti-psychotics. Has it cured you? and how long have you been on the risperidone? details please!

[Chronicfatiguetreatments]

risperidone

I used to go to a dr name jay goldstein and he prescribed different types of psychiatric drugs to treat cfs.
I tried it. It didnt really do anything for me. Actually it made me really tired.

[gu3vara]

Does it take a long time to know if it's effective? I wouldn't mind trying it if I could stop it after a couple weeks if it doesn't work.

Also, are you having a typical case of CFS (according to Canadian consensus) with neurological symptoms and pain?

Some patients are diagnosed with CFS without having much muscular symptoms, only severe fatigue (which could be purely a psychiatric condition).

[tgb]

Hello,

to reply to your questions : I am not tired any more now.
I've been in good shape for nearly 2 years now without any trouble.

Nethertheless, you need to know the following :
- this treatment does not "cure" the illness, it just "patch" the symptom as long as I take my half-pill of Risperdal (0.5mg/day) every morning.
- if I miss it one day, I get tired within 24hours.

- to talk about pharmacologica issue around this subject : you can get roughty the same effect by taking other psychotropes like modafinil, amphetamins, dopaminergic agonists.
Roughtly th effect you are looking for is to push the dopaminergic neurons to work at nominal level, compared to a level below normal when I were exhausted.

- most of people who tried it without positive effect took too high quantities.
To explain : Risperdal can be prescribed from 0.5mg/day up to 16mg/day. Quite a large window isn't it ?
I take 0.5mg/day and am in good shape.
The trick is that :
* at 0.25mg/day, the dose is too low, and the effect negligeable
* at 1 mg/day, the dose is too high, I am facing sedation, which is roughly the artificial means to obtain the symptoms of CFS.
Thus, as you can see, the efficient window is very small : from 0.3mg/day up to 1mg/day. The right dose is depending on the person, everyone has to try and find its more effcient dose.

To reply to Gu3vara, this treatment do not work only on people with fatigue without muscular symptoms or pain.
I belong to an association of people having CFS & fibromyalgia, I talk about my treatment to women having fibromyalgia. Only a few of them managed to get prescription of my treatment and they found much better with it ! Nearly all fatigue (physical & cognitive) was over. It helps them a lot in their every day life. Nethertheless, the effect on pain is very variable as a function of the persons : some found no effect on pain, some found reduction of pain, some found slightly higher level of pain.
But, if the treatment is not efficient, you jsut have to stop it to avoid side effects.
As well, you need to knwo when taking antipsychotics, you do not risk addiction ; addiction as side effect is often an issue, non risk with Risperdal, while this risk is very hight with amphetamins for instance.

If I am not clear, feel free to discuss or contact me by mail.

[billoddie]

I can get this from my psych...but i am really worried about side effects. have a look att he site "askapatient"...even those on low doses say this drug is the devil. Horrific side effects, sometimes permanently. The weight gain is also apparently astronomical. i would like your feedback on this please.

[sharonbaker]

Wow... Nice to find this information. I always enjoy reading such posts which provides knowledge based information.

[gusaniljo]

In common with other antipsychotics, risperidone enhances prolactin release, but some central effects such as catalepsy and blockade of motor activity occur at high doses only. Risperidone is 4-10 times less potent than the conventional antipsychotic haloperidol as a central D2 antagonist in rats