I am searching for information on reactions to Risperdal and further information on how this medication works and would appreciate any information from anyone who has or has had their LO on this medication. Marv went into a NH on February 22 and on March 2 he fell and broke his hip. Since having surgery he has been very angry and combative and much more confused than prior to the surgery. We had to change doctors when he went into the NH and the new DR has put him on .50 milligrams of Risperdal twice a day. He is calmer but also not as functional. Has some rigidity of the neck and loss of some of ability to speak and feed himself and seems to be having some trouble seeing. Has anyone seen any of these symptoms in their LO on this medication? I know that some of the confusion is probably due to the Alz being worse from the surgery and or the anesthetic but the speech and other problems are not. I don't think so anyway. Thank you for any information you can give me. I am about at my wits end. If anything else goes wrong I don't know what I will do.

Paxil and Zoloft are for anxiety? I thought they were for depression. A lot of psychiatrists are afraid to prescribe the best drugs for anxiety, drugs like Klonopin and Ativan. The docs are too afraid that we are going to get addicted to them. But if you have bipolar like me, the anxiety is a lifelong thing so it doesn't matter if I get "addicted." It's not like it's heroin or alcohol.

Long Distance Daughter, very interesting.I know there are certain drugs I have taken for anxiet and they took me for a loop.So tired and no energy.I took Zolof for years , until it no longer worked.I , now, take a low dose of Paxil with no problems.It helps my diverticiulitis.

The weird thing about Seroquel is that the lower of a dose you take, the more sedating it is. For instance, when I took 25 mg it was more sedating than when I took 400 mg!

Long Distance Daughter, you are right about some of these meds.My husband , at one time, was on 125mg of seroquel.It would make him imobile for an hour, at night , and then he was fine and it quelled his agitation.Now, since being ill, he is only taling 25 and not every night as it causes him to go into a prolonged, deep sleep.That is the worst thing for anyone.My mother took it and it did not affect or or do what it was intended.Thank you for giving us the heads up on these meds

Having to take those kind of psychiatric medications myself, I can tell you there are lots of kinds, so don't stop trying. I think the anti-psychotics are rather harsh, like the risperdal will cause one to drool or have stiffness; the Seroquel will knock a person out to the point where they just can sleep 24 hours a day. How about trying Depakote? Or something else for agitation like a benzodiazapine?

Resperidol causes the stiffness.

We have already tried the Seroquel, Lynne and it is also too strong for him. Makes him unable to communicate very well, walk and he hallucinates so that doesn't work either. I have gotten the DR to lower the dose of Risperdal to .25 and he seems to do better on that.

Ask the Dr about using Seroquel.It's not as strong as Resperidol.