Tardive Dyskinesia

In 2022, I was hospitalized and put on a new medicine because the one I was on, Abilify, wasn’t working anymore. I’ve been told that it never truly worked, but I was able to lose weight so I was sticking it out. Antipsychotic medications cause obesity and sometimes diabetes. I think Abilify was actually aggravating my symptoms though and I would compulsively spend all my money on material things and was really dysfunctional. The new medicine I went on in 2022, was called Fluanxol. It was an old antipsychotic, a first generation made in the 1960’s that had a lot of symptom coverage but that came with some heavier side effects. Side effects like weight gain, trouble reading, sleeping, not being able to be creative and a serious one, TD, Tardive Dyskinesia. It completely changes the brain. I was able to finish my TEFL, Teaching English as a Foreign Language course, and I thought that was a good sign. But TD means that you get facial ticks and I started getting TD. I would involuntarily move my tongue in my mouth and didn’t notice myself doing it until I looked in the mirror. The thing about TD is that everybody will know that you have a broken brain. It sends a signal to everyone that you’re crazy/ are definitely not normal. And I don’t have time for that. I’ve got things to do.

I’ve been avoiding research on this topic of TD, but I hear you can find people living with schizophrenia on YouTube who were prescribed way too much medicine that got TD. It’s usually older medicines, I’m scared to look like I’ll be hit with some sort of curse.

I’d like to be off medicine for the reasons of side effects. I would get so much back with my creativity and ability to read, lose weight, etc, but the reality is that I’d probably got through tactile hallucinations of (trigger warning) genocidal rape again. This is the worst thing I’ve ever been through. I went through a war on Abilify and can’t cope with with the PTSD it gave me.

I got a new doctor and he has been very understanding of my want to switch medicines due to TD. Since I was stabilized, he agreed to let me go off Fluanxol and I recently titrated off. This went really smoothly because it was done gradually and now I’m on a brand new medicine called Vrylar. It’s a 3rd generation antipsychotic. I’m also on a secondary medicine called quetiapine which actually treats TD and also the mood component to my diagnosis. Other doctors in the past, did medicine transitions wrong. I went on the complete dose right away, and I’ve read since then that that can cause psychosis and aggravate schizophrenia. So, I’ve basically been suffering psychosis for years feeling sideways and upside down.

Since switching medicines, my TD has lessened. Sometimes it never goes away but I’m feeling lucky. We are getting somewhere with antipsychotics.