If You Experience Akathisia (side effect..).

Like I tell people, I first experienced akathisia in 1984, with my first psychiatrist. He claimed to not even know what I was talking about. I told him, in vivid detail, how it obviously was akathisia. And that it was severely impairing my functioning and that the medicine wasn't even helping me in the slightest way. Yet he kept me on it for over a month. All these years later I still wonder why. No one has ever told me why. As far as I know, he really never heard of the side effect. Fortunately the next year, after a bad reaction again, my mother told me all about it. She called it "motor restlessness".

Actually I think motor restlessness, akathisia and a number of other things I was going thru then were separate side effects. Akathisia is described as an inability to sit still. It seems to be partly coming from your muscles themselves. And your mind. It also is a feeling of terror. Patients have gone to the emergency room to be treated for it. And then in a panic, even left the emergency room, jumping out of a window or something. Because it makes you panic. It is also often mistaken for anxiety. Almost all the old class neuroleptic antipsychotics cause it. And since it really does no direct harm, doctors are often impatient with patients that complain about it. Telling them they are complaining too much. In Russian it's used as a form of chemical torture on political dissidents, it's sometimes that bad. Cogentin, and other anti-Parkinson's drugs can treat it. (Cogentin never worked in the slightest way for me though, in 1984.) Also, something simple like taking your medications before bed can make a difference. Because you can literally sleep it off. When you're asleep, you really don't experience it at all for some reason.

Some newer class neuroleptics like Abilify cause it. Atypical antipsychotics like Risperdal and Olanzapine don't. But they raise your blood sugar. And they make you sleep a lot. They don't sedate you per se. They just interfere with your sleep pattern, making you sleep a lot more. Needing more sleep can be a problem if you are working long hours at your job.

If you experience akathisia with any medicine, just tell your doctor you are feeling restless. He'll know what you mean.

 

I was just going to add. About akathisia, and pain in general. When you are in pain, the worst thing anyone can tell you is either they don't believe you. You're making it up, in other words. Or sometimes just as bad, it's all in your mind. I'm in terrible pain you tell someone. And they say, yes, it may seem that way to you. But it's all in your head. I had an aunt with severe pain in her face caused by neuralgia that had a doctor tell her that.

I am not saying the pain ever went thru life was ever that bad. I like to think I may in many ways be more lucky than the average person, from some of the stories I've heard about people. But I have been dealing with doctors for years telling me the same thing. I am complaining too much, the pain couldn't be THAT bad, they tell me. And I always say the same thing. It's bad enough to me. Isn't that all that matters?