Trilafon Experiences

Hey, guys. Just been on it for a few months. It has really helped some pretty badass psychosis that was not responding to a bunch of other stuff. Was just wondering what others' experiences have been. Thanks!!

When I took Trilafon (perphenazine), I was put on 12 mg. Honestly? It was excellent! Amazingly excellent! Prior to that, I had been having a lot of mixed elevated mood issues, that were somewhat, but not fully, helped by Navane (thiothixene) 10 mg and the rest of my then cocktail (900 mg Lithium, 1,400 mg Tegretol XR, 100 mg Lamictal, 160 mg Geodon, 0.5 mg Klonopin). After only a few days on the Trilafon all that bad stuff disappeared, and I felt more grounded than I had for a long time. The Trilafon was added to replace the Navane, which we thought had given me a blotchy rash all over my torso. The only negative I experienced was that I gained 9 lbs on Trilafon within just a few weeks. It's hard to now know if Trilafon was the main culprit, but I thought it was, and that pissed me off. Navane, and the other meds I mentioned, were weight friendly. I was pretty trim at that time, and gaining 9 lbs made me panic because I had been quite overweight a year before, and lost 40 lbs when taken off of Depakote and Invega.

I ended up going to a dermatologist because of the rash. That doctor said that the rash was NOT related to any medication. I forget what the rash was called, but he gave me a prescription cream and it quickly disappeared. Because Navane was ruled out as the cause, I asked my psychiatrist to go back on it. My moods sort of suffered slightly because of that. But I lost the 9 lbs quickly. Eventually, I was weaned off Navane because it gave me a dystonia. That's when Seroquel XR was added to my mix. And the story went on.

I take Trilafon. It's been wonderful for me, no more voices, paranoia, delusions. It's probably the most effective AP I've ever taken.

The atypical AP's have been disastrous for me. None of them ever helped alleviate any symptoms. Seroquel, which (in a very low dose) helped my sleep also caused me to gain well over 100lbs. I started out at my natural weight of 110lbs and ended up (from Seroquel) obese with high blood pressure, pre-diabetes, and chronic pain.

Besides harming my health Seroquel (at a therapeutic dose) did not have any positive benefit for me. I'm so sorry I wasn't more assertive about stopping it. I ended up on it for 7 years.

In the distant past I had some success with Navane (thiothixene), but when I tried it again a year ago it didn't do anything one way or the other.

The most painful and stubborn symptom that has dogged me for many, many years has been the severe anxiety of dysphoric mania. Nothing, no class of medication, alleviated that anxiety. I felt entirely hopeless.

Finally, my psychiatrist came up with the idea of trying Trilafon (perphenazine). It has been the magic pill for me. It brought my anxiety down to a "normal" anxiety and has helped to quiet my mind by calming racing thoughts and images. It is probably the most overall successful med I've ever been on (I've been on at least 35 meds).

My only concern about Trilafon is that after about four months on it (a low dose of 8mg) the anxiety started to reappear. Pdoc raised the dose to 10mg, which didn't help much, so now I'm taking 12mg. I hope the 12mg will hold the anxiety in check for a long time - although I think I'm far from the maximum dose.

A mild disadvantage to Trilafon is that it doesn't induce sleep. It also causes a pretty bad hand tremor. But, no med is perfect and I'm not complaining, considering the good Trilafon is doing for me.

My pdoc is concerned about the tremor (because of TD). She wants me to add an anti-parkinsonian med...can't recall the name of it; I think it starts with "am."

Yeah, I am doing pretty well on just 8 mg so far. Glad it is working for you.

btw, the anti-tremor, anti-akithesia medication is called Amantadine.