Has anyone taken Rexulti?

Can I ask whether SSRIs also give you akathisia? My daughter gets it from anti-psychotics, and it looks like the Luvox he just prescribed her for OCD is causing it.

I take Pristiq and gained but I had family drama so I ate everything. I lost all the weight. I have leg stiffness in the morning and hate it. I can barely walk some days. I am on 2 antipsychotics .

Has your depression and inertia increased since you started the current antidepressant?

I was put on an antidepressant to deal with the panic attacks that I was having due to my Fibromyalgia. It worked and I haven’t had another panic attack since starting them.

Then when I turned 65, my doctor told me the kind I was taking was not to be used by people over 65 so he prescribed another type. Slowly over time I became depressed. I had never dealt with depression before and truly thought I was just feeling the effects of the pandemic starting and not being able to go anywhere or see friends.

As I remained in my house by myself, I very slowly slipped into a deeper and deeper depression. I stopped showering every day, something I have done all my life. I have always loved showering and putting on a nice smelling lotion. I just no longer cared. I also started sleeping on my couch because climbing the stairs to go to bed just seemed like a wasted effort.

As I slipped deeper into total major depression, I began to think about suicide. That is what made me finally realize something was very very wrong with me. I got out the paperwork from all of my medications and read them for side effects and warnings. There in black and white on the antidepressant paperwork was the warning that they could cause major depression! I had no idea that something prescribed for depression could actually cause it!

Then in thinking back I realized that my sadness started a few months after starting the new medication and it had just coincided with the start of the pandemic.

I immediately started weaning off of them. I emailed my doctor and told him and he prescribed a new medication at a very low dose. He said to take two of them, and monitor how I felt and if I felt at all depressed, drop it to one pill. He said to let him know if the single pill was making me depressed at all and if so we would try another medication. I am taking only one of those pills because they have stopped the panic attack and that was the reason for starting them in the first place.

I was not aware that an antidepressant could alter my mind to severe depression, inertia, and suicide. I want to make you aware in case your current situation could be related to your meds as well.

I had always read the sheets that came with any new medication but didn’t with the change in antidepressant because I had read the papers with the previous med and stupidly thought that that type of medication was basically all the same. That omission cost me over two years of my life and if I didn’t have my pup and cats to take care of, it could have actually cost me my life! They were the one thing that made me snap out of my funk and realize the depression I was in was not due to the pandemic and being alone in the house for too long.

Just something to consider and maybe discuss with your doctor if your funk started a few months after starting your antidepressants.