My Medications for Schizoaffective Disorder (and More) | 2026 Update

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]It's 2026 which means it's time for my update video on all the psychiatric medications I take. This year will be a little different. I want to talk about the medications I take for my schizoeffective disorder, my OCD and anxiety, but I also want to mention what I take for other chronic illnesses. And this time I will mention the side effects of everything so you can get the whole picture of my cocktail. I know that it is a lot, but I need to be taking everything that I am taking.

[00:00:28]Trust me, I wouldn't be taking all of this if I didn't have to. And a lot of what I take are medications and supplements to treat the side effects of other medications. I mean, my obsessivempulsive disorder is literally a side effect of my antiscychotic. How fun is that? But this is what I take.

[00:00:45]And again, I'll go over the side effects of each of these medications, too. If you haven't already seen when you uh when you clicked on this video, this one is it's it's going to be a long one, but I want to cover everything. I won't be sharing dosages though as I don't want anyone to imitate this in any way. And if you are even thinking about it, talk to your doctor please. This is just to give an example of how one chronically ill girly deals with mental and physical illnesses. Some of these medications are new. Some of these medications are old.

[00:01:16]Some I have been on for ages, so you might have heard me mention them before, but there's so many of you that are new here. Lots of bees have joined the hive in the last year. So, this might be your first all my psychiatric medications video. I hope you like this whether you've been through this before or you're new to it. And if you're new here, my name is Kit and I'm diagnosed with schizopeeffective disorder, which is a condition where someone experiences symptoms of schizophrenia such as delusions and hallucinations, but also symptoms of a mood disorder, either major depression or in my case, that's bipolar disorder. I really do wish I was just mentally ill though, or even better, just physically ill in the way that I am. But I've got both and medications and supplements for each.

[00:01:59]So, if that sounds good to you, then sit back, grab a beverage, and let's get into it. I'm going to start off strong with the medication I have been taking the longest, and that is Lamotrogene.

[00:02:08]It's also called Lamedall. It's an anti-convulsant that treats bipolar depression. I've been on lametol for 13 years, which is wild and it has kept working the entire time. I went on it in high school and it saved my life. Side effects are mainly that it sometimes makes me pull the wrong word out of the rolodex in my brain. So, I'll say the wrong word when I meant to say something else and it makes me tired in weird ways. It comes and goes and coffee doesn't help. Fun fun. But lamed doll is a mainstay. I will probably be on it for decades and I have again been on it for over a decade as of making this video and I can definitely live with its side effects. The next one is one of my favorites and you guys could probably guess it if you've watched my content for a while, but it's lithium, specifically lithium carbonate. Lithium is one of the most effective treatments we have in all of psychiatry and it is one of the oldest psychiatric medications as well. It treats acute mania at high doses. has nice benefits like being neuroprotective and helping prevent dementia at lower doses and helps to prevent bipolar relapse at a medium dose. I take it at that medium dose for that reason to prevent bipolar relapse as do many people with bipolar disorder and bipolar symptoms and the bipolar type of schizopeeffective disorder because it keeps episodes away for a very long time. It's treated my mania in the past and I took it at a low dose for many many years. I've been on it for 10 years as I started it back in 2016 and it's 2026 now. Wild, right?

[00:03:40]That it's been such a long time. More on my whole experience with lithium in an upcoming video. Anyways, side effects of lithium carbonate are that I have to pee a lot and I am incredibly thirsty all the time. Plus, if I don't take this medication with food or milk, I get the worst nausea I have ever experienced in my entire life. And I am very serious about that, too. Lithium nausea is truly awful. It also gives me IBS symptoms.

[00:04:07]So, uh yeah, fun fun. Get get creative.

[00:04:10]I really don't want to say it out loud here. So, all of that is far from enjoyable to deal with. Lithium, though, is just another medication. It's got good stuff and it's got bad stuff, but in my case, the good outweighs the bad.

[00:04:23]Those little pink doses of medication are amazing and I hope to uh take them as long as I can. Please send good vibes to my kidneys and my thyroid. The next medication is my antiscychotic. It's definitely not cerakquil and it's also not clausipene either, but I take something similar to clausipine though chemically similar specifically and it's that I take zyprea or olonszipene.

[00:04:48]Zyprea is an atypical or second generation antiscychotic that treats well psychosis but it also works as a mood stabilizer to keep mania away and treats depression as well. I'll believe it or not, it works as an amazing mood stabilizer on top of treating psychotic symptoms. I've been on Zapra for like 8 years, which is so wild. I went on it after my psychotic break happened in 2018. It made my voices go down by around 95%. And eliminated the religious delusions that had ruined my entire life entirely, and I haven't had a manic episode since. Plus, my depression has been reduced drastically. Zyprexa was the missing piece for me back then and I will always be grateful for what it has given me. Side effects are, like I said in the beginning of this video, increased obsessivecompulsive disorder symptoms. That's the big one. I did have OCD before zipa, mild symptoms for years and years and years, but Zyprexa made it so much worse and made it disabling for a while if I'm going to be honest with you. However, I value what Zyprea does for my psychosis and my moods. So, I stay on it despite the obsessivempulsive disorder symptoms. I've tried other antiscychotics and it's all gone horribly, like so bad. Check out this video if you want to see just how much cerakquil messed me up. And so, in the end, I stay on Zyprea because it is the best option. It also makes me sleepy right after I take it, but not always enough to actually sleep and I'm not tired during the day at all. It also makes my hands shake. And this this little tremor is referred to as Parkinsonism because it's similar to the tremors that are found in those with Parkinson's disease, but it's not actually Parkinson's. Then I also have donia, which is another unfortunate and disruptive movement side effect. The reasons these two side effects exist at all is because antisycchotics mess with dopamine. And if you didn't already know, dopamine is a major neurotransmitter that is involved in movement. So, mess with dopamine and you mess with movement. And that's where the movement side effects that I just talked about come from. Fun stuff. The final side effect is one that is really weird that I didn't know was possible and it's not really listed anywhere either. So, it's anecdotal. So, take this information however you you want to take it. And if you also get this way, if you also get this side effect, do let me know in the comments. It's literally that Zyprexa makes it so that medications that should make me sleepy do not make me sleepy anymore. Like literally, I am not sleepy and tired at all when I take any kind of sleeping medication now. Benadryil, Unisome, Zulpadm literal sleeping medications don't work anymore. I used to take Zulpadm for many, many years. And when I went on zyprexa, it became basically useless. So, I went off it for that reason and a bunch of other reasons, too. I also tried damine hydrochloride or benadryil and nothing. It It literally did nothing. Even when I took higher doses of it safely and Unisome, which used to work so well, wasn't effective at all. I I couldn't believe it. The only thing that does work is melatonin, which I'll talk about more later in the video, but I don't take anything else to sleep because it doesn't do anything. wild. And that's Zyprea. The next medication that I consider in my core 4, ha, it rhymes, is wellbutrin or bupropion. It's an anti-depressant that actually helps with my OCD in a roundabout way. Same with my anxiety. And oddly enough, it treats my negative symptoms. Avalition is no match for Wellbutrin, which is wild to me. My MP and I figured out that my negative symptoms were due to my mood side, not the schizophrenic side, and that's why they responded to the Wellbutrin. Now that I have been on it for a while, it's great. I have energy to do things and I don't struggle with those nasty negative symptoms as much. Less anhidonia and less asociality and again less avolition. Side effects are minimal. I get mad at inanimate objects a little bit more than I used to and I might be a little bit more irritable overall at times, but that's all I've noticed for now. I can sleep fine. No insomnia more than I usually get thanks to being on Zulpadm for 10 years. And that's Wellbutrin. Got to mention a supplement now and that supplement is lmethylolate.

[00:09:10]Lmethylolate is like folate, right?

[00:09:12]Something we all kind of need. I went on it about a year and a half ago to treat depression. Actually, it might even be closer to 2 years now. It's been it's been quite a while. But in addition to helping with depression, it's also known to boost the efficacy of other anti-depressants like SSRI such as Prozac. It's important to note here that some people in my comment section and in my DMs have asked me if I've gotten a certain genetic test to look for the MTHFR mutation because supposedly having this mutation which is actually a version of it is present in 40% of people uh could contribute to the symptoms I experience as part of my schizopeffective disorder.

[00:09:57]People who have problems with this gene because not everyone who has the mutation has symptoms of it, but those that do have symptoms of it have a hard time processing folate into methylolate in the body. And methylolate is the active form of folate. So, it's kind of funny because me taking Lmethylolate the way I do now is actually how you treat the problems that are associated with that mutation. And honestly, I don't really want to find out if I have this mutation. I have problems with my literal DNA sequence being stored in some database. And elemental folate is again how you treat the symptoms that come with that mutation. So if I have the MTHFR mutation, problem solved, right? No side effects from this one.

[00:10:40]Though if I do run out of it, which I have, my depression does come back after a while. So I always make sure to have an extra bottle waiting for me to ensure that that doesn't happen again.

[00:10:53]Now, let's talk about another one of my favorite medications ever, and that is Gabapentin. Gabapentin is also called Neurontin, and it's like a nerve pain medication, but it also treats anxiety and other stuff. I take it for anxiety, though, and it lasts 6 hours. I sometimes take it multiple times a day as prescribed, of course, and it's a gamecher for me. Before I was on Wellbutrin, it was gabapentin that gave me my life back. I don't actually get any side effects from this one. It doesn't make me tired like gavapentin does for many people, probably because the zyprea keeps that from happening.

[00:11:30]But even when I take the maximum dose that I am prescribed, I still get no tiredness whatsoever. I'm just mostly free of my anxiety. It takes the edge off, which I so desperately need when it comes to my anxiety. that can be crippling which is what happened to me last year and was truly truly awful. Now gabapentin is merely the anxiety medication I take when the wellbutrin isn't enough which does happen sometimes and there are even times where gabapentin doesn't help me as much as I really need it to. So I have limited adavan for that. It's also called laorazzipam and it is a benzoazipene monster that is a major major major major major anxiety medication. I don't know how many years I've had a script for this one, but I did have to sign a form when it was first prescribed to me.

[00:12:20]I've taken it for anxiety and panic attacks, but also to just get on a plane because I don't really do well on planes, you guys. Yes, I have been all over the world. And I flew three times in 2025 with one of them being an international flight to Scotland, but I had to take Lorazzipam every single time I got on one of those planes. And if the flight was long enough, which it was when I was going to Europe, especially with connections and things, I would take the Laorazzipam again. But Laorazzipam has helped me a bunch over the years. I've taken exams while taking it, gone to stressful social events with it, helping me get through it. And for the record, I am pretty functional when I do take Laorazzipam, and I'm really grateful for that. It just helps my anxiety when I really need help with my anxiety. Side effects are that I sometimes get nauseous, but that's like normal for me anyways, which I will get to. And I am a teeny bit sleepy, but not enough that I need to lie down or go to bed. Once again, thanks to Zyprea, I don't get super tired from it. And again, laazzipam is a bzzoipene, as many of you know. And as a result of that, I am very careful with it always. And that's that's important to say. Now, we got to talk about another thing I've been taking for ages. Fish oil. Fish oil usually contains omega-3 fatty acids that are also referred to as EPA and DHA. And the right ratio of those two kinds is crucial for brain health, good for brain health. Your brain is made up of a lot of omega-3s. So, taking fish oil with the right ratio of those things can be really helpful for the brain. And I'm not going to tell you the ratio because I don't want this to be imitated without the help of a medical professional. But the right ratio is super important for me. I don't know how long I've been taking fish oil, but I bet it's more than a decade. It's been ages, honestly. And my side effects from it are just well, weird tasting burps.

[00:14:15]Fishy burps, if you will. Delightful.

[00:14:18]But if I take it with food, that doesn't happen. And I also eat a lot of tin fish like sardines and mackerel and tuna and all of those good things. And when I eat that, I don't have to take the fish oil because my omega-3s are covered by eating the tin fish. as my doctor told me that's something I can do. So, I always have some form of omega-3s in what I eat or take medication wise every single day and have for years. The next thing is an acetylcyine. I was told to take this one to help with the potential kidney damage that lithium causes over time. Damage that I look out for, take blood tests to monitor and am fully aware of. I am not an idiot. I know that being on lithium carbonate long-term has risks, but the cool thing is that NAC, as it's also commonly called, is used to treat treatment resistant obsessivecompulsive disorder. So, when I started taking it all the way back in 2019, so 7 years ago, it helped with the crippling OCD that had disabled me at that point in my life. This was to my immense surprise as I had no idea it would help me in that way. So, that's a major fun fact. It's also what's given to people who take too much Tylenol, which is wild. And I have no side effects from it. It just smells really bad, which I find hilarious. Like, the medication just smells awful. Like, it's usually written on the bottle that there is an odor that is normal. Makes me laugh every time. Now, we get to talk about another as needed medication. I don't take this one nearly as much as I used to, which is good, but I still need to have it on hand. And it's benstrapine, also called kagentin. It's an anti-clinergic medication that is used to treat extra pyramidal symptoms that are caused by antiscychotics, meaning the donia and the parkinsonism I talked about earlier are what's included in this and are treated with this medication. However, coagentin is linked to dementia, so I try not to take it very much. But here's the thing. I also have to get old enough to have dementia first, which yeah, let's let's not talk about the whole lifespan of someone with schizoeffective disorder thing. Let's just let's just let's put that one in the corner and not not really address it unless we really have to because my big dream in life is to grow old. It used to be to be a doctor, but now it's just to make it to old age. I want to get wrinkles and hypertension and other old people problems. What a privilege it would be to grow old, to be old. Like, man, that would be awesome. But anyways, I'm glad I have this medication on hand in case I do need it. No side effects, which is good. It literally just does its job. And that's Kagentin. Pretonics or Pantorazole is the next one. And it is not a psychiatric medication, nor does it treat a side effect of a psychiatric medication. Which means we are moving into the physical illness part of the video where I finally say the stuff I have to take to treat the other things I deal with because truly my body is not fond of me in the slightest. So protonix is super helpful.

[00:17:25]It's an ant acid that is part of a class of medications called proton pump inhibitors and it's used to treat gastroosophageal reflux disease or gird as it's also commonly called and I was diagnosed with gird a pretty intense form of it last year in 2025 and I take this medication to reduce the acid in my stomach acid that often causes me to throw up. Protonics was a game changer for me, much like other medications I have taken over the years. And while it doesn't always keep me from throwing up, it does make it so when I do it, it doesn't the stuff that comes up doesn't hurt my throat as much and doesn't damage my teeth as much. Like avoiding excessive tooth damage is a big deal.

[00:18:07]And this is all due to my stomach contents being inherently less acidic.

[00:18:10]Protonics is actually one of the most prescribed medications in the entire world. And I am glad I have it. It's important to say that I take it twice a day. Again, I have intense gird which requires intense treatment and that is how it is for me. Now that I've told you I throw up a lot, I need to talk about how I deal with the nausea that gird causes. I have two nausea medications and the first one is promethazine. Let's talk organic chemistry for a second.

[00:18:35]Promethazine is an antihistamine that is actually a phenino derivative. And fun fact, it's similar to chloromroine which is also a pheninoine derivative.

[00:18:45]Chloropromisine though isn't an antihistamine. And maybe it's pronounced chloroproine. I'm not 100% sure, but it's it's not an antihistamine. It's actually an antiscychotic. Specifically, the very first antiscychotic, which is awesome. So, it's kind of funny. The two of them are both pheninoiosine derivatives, but have totally different properties and effects. Promethazine, though, is a sledgehammer for my nausea.

[00:19:07]Side effects are that it sometimes, but not all of the time, helps with my anxiety, which could be considered a benefit, but it's definitely definitely a side effect when I mainly take it for nausea. And I do get the slightest bit of tired on it, but I can still work while it's in my system with no issues.

[00:19:24]So, it doesn't cause any issues. I know it's technically a sedative, but again, that weird side effect I get with Zip Prexa literally takes care of it and makes sure that the whole sedative thing doesn't happen to me. The other nausea medication I take that lasts a little bit longer is Zopran or Undancetron.

[00:19:43]Zopran is in my cocktail because it um it supposedly helps with OCD for some reason, but we also keep it in my arsenal because it helps with nausea as well. And trust me, I need help with nausea. I honestly don't get any side effects from Zopran. It's merely a magical little medication that saves me from my nausea for like 9 hours straight. Promethazine only lasts 6 hours, by the way. So, in the end, I use both at different times. And they both work really, really well. Even if Zopran isn't technically as strong as Promethazine and as a result of both of them, I throw up less, which is awesome.

[00:20:18]Now, since I take a proton pump inhibitor, my bones are at risk of fracturing years from now. Because of prtonics, I'm being faced with the reality that I am unable to absorb calcium from food effectively due to the lower acid content of my stomach. And again, that acid is needed to absorb calcium. So, low acid is not going to get absorbed. And as a result, being on a proton pump inhibitor weakens your bones over time. And I am young. I am 30. Yes, 30 is young. And I will stand by that. And I will be on protonics for the rest of my life. So I need to be careful because I ideally have a lot of life left for this to unfortunately catch up to me and cause problems. So I take calcium citrate to deal with this because there is a solution. Calcium citrate is able to be absorbed into the body in the absence of stomach acid unlike calcium carbonate which needs acid to be absorbed. I take calcium citrate in the morning and at night to spread it out so my kidneys don't hate me and hopefully with this meticulous habit I will make sure my bones are okay years from now. I'm doing my best. Okay.

[00:21:30]In the same vein, I need vitamin D to absorb calcium at all from food or supplements or otherwise. And I have a deficiency of vitamin D like most people. Like apparently I don't touch grass enough and I don't like the sun like at all. So, my NP has me on a wildly high dose of vitamin D and that helps me absorb the calcium amongst other things. I take one big dose a week and that is my prescription. And then I don't have to worry about taking it throughout the week, which is nice because I already have plenty of medications and supplements to deal with that I have to take on a regular basis, which you kind of figured out by this point in the video. Like honestly, I already take enough. That much is clear.

[00:22:09]So, a weekly medication, yeah, I'll take it. Magnesium is also important for bone health and it helps anxiety and promotes good sleep. Win-win, honestly. So, I take magnesium to make sure my bones are even more okay from the protonics, much like why I take calcium. And yes, it is another thing to take, but it helps. And I really don't want my bones to break years down the line. The thing is, it it might still happen. But I'm going to do my best to make sure it has a hard time doing it. I take magnesium glycinate specifically and I love how much it helps me chill out in the evenings and go to sleep way easier than what I'm used to. Now, this next one is pretty recent, meaning less than 6 months. And it's a combination supplement of copper and zinc because I have a copper deficiency, which is ridiculously rare in the Western world. Like I will most likely not meet another human being on this side of the planet that has this exact same problem. And the supplement I take, I call it my penny supplement because like a penny, it contains copper and zinc. But this deficiency was making it hard for me to eat to fullness for some reason. And I was throwing up way more than I do now. And no, I don't know why this is a thing. And no one can tell me why this is a thing. It's just kind of a deficiency that explains a lot of my GI problems. It's important to say that while I take copper to treat the deficiency, I still take zinc because for some reason it helps with the intermittent tiredness that lamed doll tends to cause sometimes. And this is another thing that we don't know why it is that way. Why zinc helps with that side effect. I just stumbled upon it.

[00:23:48]And also, no, I wasn't given it because it helps. I just started taking it to help with my appetite cuz I was struggling with appetite issues. And it just happened to help this one side effect that I got from Lamotrogene. And unfortunately, the high dose that I took of zinc to deal with that appetite stuff is the whole reason I got a copper deficiency in the first place, but I don't really want to get into it too much. But the copper supplement since going on it has made vomiting less frequent and I can eat full meals. I still throw up once a week, maybe once every 2 weeks, but I'm getting better thanks to this little supplement and I'm super grateful for that. Now, this next one, I forgot to put it in the document that was for this video, so I kind of have to shove it in real fast, but I also take vitamin B12. It helps with uh nerve health. I used to have neuropathy in my tongue because I had such a low level of vitamin B12 in my body. So, now I take a vitamin B12 supplement to help with my neuropathy and tiredness and other things that happen when you have a B12 deficiency. because there's a lot of stuff that your body needs B12 for. So, yes, I take a supplement to take care of that. Yeah. Finally, my ultimate as needed is melatonin. This is the only sleeping supplement that actually makes me tired. I often take it in conjunction with doing dark therapy, meaning I wear these orange glasses that essentially fake a sunset, so my brain will make melatonin and make me go to sleep. Trust me, I am working on a video to explain dark therapy. a little bit more. I know I have talked about it recently as of me making this video, but the idea is that I take a small dose of melatonin, put on the glasses, and my brain goes, "Wow, the sun is setting, and there's already melatonin there to kind of kickstart the process of my body naturally producing it." So, I finally I finally get tired, and then I'm able to sleep and sleep well. I don't actually take melatonin all the time. It's rare for me to take it these days because oftentimes the glasses are enough, but I always have it on hand. And since I still take it sometimes, it made the list. And that is everything I take for my schizoeffective disorder and other chronic illnesses.

[00:26:00]Please don't tell me I don't need to be on any number of these. Please don't tell me I take way too many medications and supplements. And please, please, please don't tell me that my doctors and medical professionals are steering me in the wrong direction. My illnesses are complicated and severe and severe illnesses often require severe treatment as it is in my case. I take lots of psychiatric medications because I have lots of psychiatric issues. I take medications to treat side effects because I take medications that cause some pretty rough side effects. And I take lots of other medications and supplements because I'm chronically ill.

[00:26:39]That is just my reality. I wish I could take less, but I can't. Anyways, if you want to share your own regimen, go for it in the comments section. Just don't share dosages, please. Out of respect for this video and what I have done here, please do not share the dosages of the medications you take. And if you want to see last year's video about this exact same topic, check it out right over here. Other than that, thank you so much for joining me in making the uncomfortable comfortable. Subscribe if you haven't already, and I will see you in the next one.