Medication weight gain

Thank you for the information. I take Latuda which can cause weight gain but is generally considered weight neutral. I check again and I'm up 13lbs. I always react to my drugs this way (weight gain). I haven't changed my eating habits either. Can't imagine what I'd gain if Indidnt have my DS! I have been on this dose for about 3 months now, so hopefully soon I'll stop gaining. In the meantime I will try super low carb to see if I can stop or reverse it. Hard to live life at the less than 50 carb mark though. Not that I'm typically bad but I average 80-120 depending on the day.

Are you doing any type of weight lifting? My sister has been on antidepressants for 20 years.Everytime she changes dosages she gains weight (or medications). When she is working out or weight lifting the weight gain has been minimal, but right now she is up almost 40 lbs because she is not working out.

I'm sure it won't solve the issue 100 percent...but I notice that weight lifting over aerobic exercise has the ability to help you maintain weight loss.

Scott

I just started working out about 2.5 weeks ago. Still noticing weight gain but hopefully the exercise will start to help.

If it is helpful, I have seen very few people gain drastic weight on Latuda. BTW, I am unsure if they told you, but be sure to not drink grapefruit juice with it - it increases the effect of the Latuda because it causes levels of the drug to accumulate in the body.

And ehhhhh.  I wouldn't call it weight neutral by any stretch of the imagination!  I know of no second generation antipsychotics that are.  I have read the prescriber's info and it says weight gain.  In fact it even says so right here on page 2 near the top of the pamphlet!  However, the weight gain is definitely less than other medications.  As another tangent, always read the prescribing information for any medication.  It will provide a more detailed list of side effects, as well as the rates at which they occur.

I would not worry too much though, KP.  It sounds like you have a good handle on it.

Also, 80g is still pretty low carb.  Even if you just stuck to that it might help.  Good luck :)

 

I just realized it could also be my gabepentin. The gain became more drastic when we added that in. I think I'll talk to my provider to see about getting that one switched. Thanks so much. You e been very helpful.

 

oh and no grapefruit juice - would make my GERD act up :)

You got this, KP! And no problem.

 

Oh I experienced this, all right. I was put on what should've been a felonious amount of psychotropics, when having major complications caused a mental health breakdown. 

I gained almost a 100 lbs back starting almost 7 years post rny. Even though I didn't get a full therapeutic effect, even though I vomited everything I ate and or even when I didn't eat (I was technically "only" a 100 lbs overweight the week of my surgery). I'd still vomit bile. 

I do mental health activism both in and out of the wls communities because a lot of people don't want to talk about this. People have NO idea, the chemically induced food obsession from H-LL that this can cause as well as AWFUL  metabolic issues. 

I haven't been on any psych meds for over 6 years. The 2 days I was on Latuda, I was physically and mentally crawling out of my skin. The only thing I warn people about is that weight gain, alone, if a medication is working, shouldnt necessarily be stopped, because untreated depression and mental health can lead to suicidal ideation. 

I don't know what meds you've tried in the past. I used to be on 60 mgs of Zyprexa, 600 mgs of Zoloft , 800 mgs of Seroquel and 2000 mgs of Depakote A DAY. While I was on Topamax then for migraines and on trials for Neurontin, the Topamax never worked for either migraines or weight loss.I tried it again for migraines when I was no longer on those meds (from late 2007 to late 2009) and still couldn't eat very much and still couldn't lose weight and STILL didn't help get rid of migraines. I maybe was able to keep down 500 calories a day (this was almost 9 1/2 years post rny and 6 months post rny reversal) in mid 2011. 

I'm not a medical or mental health professional and I'm not trying to play one on the internet. I'm saying though it might help working with both medical and mental health doctors of changing your medications, if you really become super uncomfortable with how much weight you gain. But if your meds are working for you and your weight gain is minimal and your aren't food obsessed, it's better to deal with being 20 lbs over your desired weight goal, than to risk severe depression issues if left untreated. I guess the best way to put it, is it won't matter how thin you are, if you're absolutely miserable, anyway. 

I'm not anti-wls and I remain in the wls community to help as a long term peer. And if someone has NEVER been on these meds, before, it's hard to get a lecture of the "rules of the tool" or even more frustrating, knowing you're being compliant, but you still may gain a little bit of weight, anyways. 

Hope this helped... Lisa 

Yeah I like the Latuda. It's been a life changer. I am thinking now the gain could also be attributed to my Gabapentin. Seems my gain was very small before adding it in. Thankfully for me there are lots of options for anti anxiety that I haven't tried. Even though it has been helping I don't think it's worth the weight gain.

People have to find a way that works for them. Sometimes wls peeps, especially rny and ds, can be hard to medicate versus a non bariatric surgical patient, because of the malabsorption factor. The meds that I mentioned in my last post are notorious for weight gain and a lot of it and because my psychiatrist at the time knew I malabsorbed vitamins really bad, that's why I was on such a high dosage of antipsychotics and mood stabilizers. 

But the medications I named, especially Zyprexa, Seroquel and Depakote, even in much smaller amounts are notorious for weight gain, even in bariatric patients. And the problem is getting others to chime in being on those meds come with a lot of stigma, especially when you use the word "anti-psychotic". For some people that brings up the connotation that their mental health is so off the rails, that they are practically serial killers. When really the word "psychosis" could just mean like it did for me at the age of 38 1/2 where I just had a ton of head clutter, a boatload of depression, on top of my complications that I just couldn't get anything done. 

I was like on 5 different trials of Neurontin for both pain and migraines, not being on those meds. One of the issues that can happen when you mix a medication like Neurontin and Latuda, or Neurontin on it's own, people react to it so differently. For some, Neurontin helps a lot, whether it's used for seizure purposes, severe chronic pain and other medical and or mental health issues. When I was on 600 mgs of Neurontin a day, by itself or with just Zoloft, I didn't gain weight. But I hadn't been diagnosed with BPD2, you add in a bunch of meds like the antipsychotics and mood stabilizers and I became a very unique science experiment of sorts. 

But all humans are kind of scientifically unique. My body does not respond well physically to a lot of those meds. It didn't respond well to bariatric surgery. I nearly died from the IUD Mirena, which sometimes if your on bc like that, could also play a part. The same with pregnancy, for me. Which isn't a problem being almost 47 and menopausal. 

Even though for example my 2 sisters, one of them a  long term wls, peep never had a problem with rny, neither one had a problem with pregnancies or Mirena, crap that nearly killed me, even though in my case for example, I had a perfectly performed rny that my body just did not tolerate. 

I don't mean to be so wordy, the reason why I'm passionate about this, again goes to, if people haven't been on these meds or if they don't have certain health issues for example like PCOS, which I don't have, they don't understand how especially wls peeps can gain weight or how people get heavy enough to qualify for weight loss surgery to begin with. If there wasn't the stigma with mental illness and the meds used to treat it, more people would be talking about it and you'd realize even as bizarre of my health issues medically and mentally as a combo have been, I'm not the first person, even with a gastric bypass that had multiple ulcers, multiple times but still gained a lot of weight on those meds, even though I couldn't keep any foods down. 

It just may take in your case, trials of different meds to find what works for you. Right now I only am on a anti anxiety agent for anxiety and panic attacks. I take no other medications for BPD2. But that's because I tried a lot of them when I was diagnosed 8-9 years ago and I didn't get ANY therapeutic benefit and still gained a lot of weight. But it's really hard to manage mh issues without some of those meds. You just have to find what works best for you. 

I wonder if having PCOS also makes it "easier" for me to gain on these medications...

I appreciate your response and the time you put into making it.