My senses have gone mad.

Post Reply New Topic

Let me start from the beginning. I have been taking 20mg olanzapine for almost a year now, but I was in psych ward in December/January due to quite a disastrous relapse. Recently my psych added 10mg aripiprazole (with probable increase to 15mg next week) on top of my olanzapine (thankfully I don't have to pay for my meds!).

I am getting better mental health-wise (I have paranoid schizophrenia), but one odd thing has happened since I started stabilising on this new medication.

My sensory hypersensitivities (I have AS) have amplified.

I have had to lower the volume (which wasn't that high to begin with) on my MP3 player. I am thankful for my prescription sunglasses even though its still rather wintry in London. I can feel my clothes on me, all day. I get more itching than normal, even if I wash myself regularly etc. Food has become extremely tasty to begin with, but then afterwards I have to rinse my mouth repeatedly with water in order to get the sensory overload out of my mouth, which is causing me to want to eat less. Smells. I can smell something all the time, and I am forever trying to ventilate my room despite it being 7 celsius outside. Sounds that didn't bother me before are getting on my nerves.

What do you think has cuased this? I have always had sensory hypersensitivities, but now it's taking the p*ss.

Well, drugs like Ecstasy and cocaine are similar in a lot of ways to drugs like Zoloft, Prozac, and Paxil. My sense of touch is out of whack and has been for years.

A few years ago I was on Seroquil and Depakote for about 3 moths. It made my visual sense very sensitive. The walls on long hallways would vibrate. I had to buy sunglasses because sunlight would make my eyes tear-up.

I went on Zoloft for a month in 1996. During that time everything I saw was only in different shades of blue. Everything tasted like copper, including water and my own tongue. I was shaking and dizzy and my co-workers at the time thought I had picked up a meth habit. All went away almost immediately after I discontinued the meds.

Anything that alters your neurochemistry can have unexpected sensory side-effects.

I agree. When I was on clozapine I almost lost my sense of taste completely. I lost a load of weight because I couldn't taste food and I also lost my appetite.

This is really not that unusual. I have been on all kinds of different pysch meds over the years and they all seem to change my senses in different ways. I would guess that AS people would complain about this way more than NT people.