>>5470Risperidone is an atypical antipsychotic. I haven't taken it personally but I've tried a few antipsychotics over the years like Seroquel and Zyprexa and in my experience these drugs tend to make you more emotionally flat, sort of tired and drowsy and feeling like you're not fully awake all the time, and they often cause weight gain and metabolic side effects, I think risperidone can also cause hormonal side effects such as gynecomastia in rare cases. The side effects tend to be numerous and unpredictable and affect everyone very differently.
I'm not a doctor or anything but from what I've learned, I would say that atypical antipsychotics, particularly ones like Risperidone or Seroquel or Zyprexa, are rather heavy-duty drugs, commonly used as a sedative for people who are freaking the fuck out because they take effect immediately and they tend you knock you out especially when you first start on them. Most doctors don't like to prescribe them unless they think there's a good reason to, and if they do they would prefer it be a temporary emergency measure than a continuous regimen, trying the safer and less drastic options first before pulling out the big guns. For example they might give a suicidal patient an antipsychotic to calm them down and just let them sleep it off, but for a schizophrenic having recurring chronic psychosis all the time they might have to take an antipsychotic every day for the rest of their life, continually having to moderate dosage and try different options as tolerance builds up or side effects become too problematic. They're sometimes used off-label for irritability in autistic patients, i.e. autistic children throwing violent tantrums and potentially hurting themselves or others - that would be a case where a doctor might have to take drastic measures and prescribe antipsychotics, but any competent psychiatrist would want to avoid that option if possible and not risk disrupting the child's normal growth and development unless it's literally a matter of life and death.
When I took Seroquel years ago it just made me too drowsy and out of it to even function at all and I was sleeping most of the day away. I tried Zyprexa for a while and initially that one helped a lot with my anxiety and depression but it was diminishing returns, after being on it for a couple weeks or so the positive effects seemed to fade but the
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