Posted by bleauberry on March 21, 2009, at 11:42:24
In reply to Adderall and Zyprexa, posted by MikeS12345 on March 20, 2009, at 20:12:23
This question comes up frequently. Will an antipsychotic and a stimulant cancel each other out?
In my own experience, no. They can however both take the edge off each other. If an AP is too sedating, the stimulant will help diminish that. If the stimulant causes unwanted weight loss or insomnia, the AP will help diminish that.
The side effects tend to cancel out, but not so much the therapeutic effects. My own experience, however. When I took Ritalin with Zyprexa, believe me, it felt like full strength Ritalin. Actually it worked better in terms of mood combined with Zypexa than it did by itself by a long shot. So I believe there is some synergy going on.
A common misconception is that Zyprexa lowers dopamine. It does not. Brain concentrations of dopamine actually increase. The difference is that some of the dopamine receptors are partially blocked.
The theories we talk about are, in my opinion, overly simplistic. Things are much more complicated than we know. While we may be able to say how a drug is specific for this or that, what receptor affinities it has and such, that is only 1/10th of what we don't know about the drug.
For example, if Adderall causes a release of dopamine but Zyprexa blocks it, then they cancel out, right? Not that simple. Not by a long shot. How then do we explain what goes on when these meds are mixed? Well, we can't. We can't even explain but a small fraction of what one med by itself does. The best we can do is go by observation and experience, and add to that discussion of hypothesis. In my own personal ones, Ritalin and Zyprexa partially cancelled each other's side effects, but increased the antidepression effect more than either alone.
poster:bleauberry
thread:886287
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090313/msgs/886378.html