Discussing my experience with Latuda.
Hello everybody so in this video i am going to talk about the medication latuta i am not exactly sure what the generic name for it is um it might be lorazedone do you not quote me on that but it’s latuta um i have been on it since november december of 2017 now it is an atypical anti-psychotic it is used for bipolar depression but it’s also according to my
Psychiatrist um a mood it helps to stabilize your mood i don’t know if it’s technically a mood stabilizer or if it just has that effect um but that’s what he said so i want to talk about some of the side effects that i’ve had from it and also how it has worked for me so i’ve tried several atypical and typical antipsychotics over the years none of them ever
Took away my symptoms completely and the latuta does not take away my symptoms completely but they never took away my symptoms completely they cause weight gain even when you’re watching what you eat and exercising i gained a ton of weight on some of them um debico it was like the first medication that my first psychiatrist ever wrote for me and it caused really
Bad hair loss so that was kind of when i switched and started trying other medications so right before the latuta i i was on a trilophon and was having side effects from it and like a bad mentally ill person i weaned myself off of it and quit taking it um because i just didn’t want to take it anymore and a few months later i ended up having a physical illness
That caused me extreme anxiety unbelievable anxiety and i was just not doing well and i kept ending up in the er with just like major anxiety major depression but especially major major anxiety as we tried to figure out what was going on with me and my primary care doctor i had a follow-up with her after one of my er visits and i was just sitting there crying like
I barely made it from the waiting room to the room i almost asked them if they could just go ahead and put me in a room no matter how long i had to wait i just couldn’t be out there with other people but they called me thankfully and this doctor she kind of always ran late because she took the amount of time she needed with everybody um she comment she came in i
Was just sitting there crying she knew me really well for years now and she just said you know i think you need to go back on a mood stabilizer so i just like could not even wait until i had my next psychiatrist appointment so she actually wrote me my first prescription started me at 20 milligrams went to the psychiatrist and he bumped it up to 40 like immediately
And i’ve been on varying doses i think the highest dose i was on was 80 milligrams and it has definitely helped with my depression and my moods but i used to have times where i was like really really happy and smiled and laughed all the time and just like was super goofy and happy and like super super happy um especially if i was hypomanic the latuto really
Suppressed all that and i feel kind of like it’s taken away a lot of my emotions um like i don’t cry as much as i used to even like good cries like when you’re watching a movie and you see like an emotional or sad part and you start crying i don’t really do that anymore but at the same time it has been the best thing for my depression for me personally and
Remember that all meds work different on different people you just have to keep trying until you find something that works for you so it has helped my depression i’m still always depressed at least a little bit but i don’t i haven’t had the kind of depression where i’m just laying in the bed wanting to die or even having suicidal ideation since i’ve been on it
It has caused a side effect side effect called akathesia that i do have to take um another medication to counteract the akathesia um but we’ve lowered my dose progressively i’m only on 10 milligrams right now and um it only comes in 20 or above but my psychiatrist told me i could cut the 20 and a half and the pharmacist confirmed that for me even though on their
Website and everything you can find online it tells you you can’t cut it in half and not to do it but you know they told me i could so i did and um my akathesia has gotten a lot better and it’s still like some of my emotions have kind of came back a little bit like i noticed i was just like bawling at some scene in a movie and it actually felt really good to be
Able to do that i’ve been having issues with low blood pressure which kind of goes into another diagnosis that i have now called pots which i will make a video on soon but um we were afraid that maybe the latuto was actually helping to lower my blood pressure so that’s why we cut it in half and like mentally i feel good on that dose and my blood pressure has come
Up a little bit so i don’t know if that was a side effect when i first started taking it for about two weeks i had really bad abdominal pain like not the kind where you’re gonna have to go to the bathroom or have diarrhea or anything like that not gas pain it was just weird random abdominal pain i just hurt in my abdomen like from the bottom of my breast all the
Way down into my intestines like it just hurt it was like a weird kind of hurt that went away um i was super super drowsy after i took it you have to take it with um i think it’s 350 calories of food to properly absorb it but like as soon as it kicked in i could not stay awake i mean this went on for months could not stay awake no matter what no matter how hard i
Tried even if i stood up i just could not stay awake um but after being on it for years that has went away i can take it and actually stay awake so for me it’s worked really well i haven’t had my hair fall out from it i haven’t gained weight from it i’ve been exercising and on diet for over a year now and i’ve been able to lose weight while still taking it so for
Me it has worked i would say it’s successful it’s the best antipsychotic that i’ve been on so far and it is really expensive um my insurance does cover it thank god but we always have to get prior authorizations for it well every so often and every time he changes my dose so i will keep you updated on that but if you have any more questions feel free to comment
Down below and i will reply to you and as always please like my video and please subscribe and click the bell to see my new videos i am going to be doing at least one video a day all right and thank you so much and i appreciate all of you and thanks for watching bye
Transcribed from video
Latuda Medication Review By Iva Marie Gutowski
