My adult daughter has been super stable on Geodon for the last 2 years. Before that it was Invega which caused her to eat constantly and gain 40 plus pounds.
She lost all that weight after switching to Geodon but has since been put on Austedo because of an involuntary movement disorder caused by the psych meds.
Austedo has caused her to put the weight back on even tho she eats very little. She has now been diagnosed with pre-diabetes. Im assuming it’s called ‘insulin resistance’.
Question; there are natural remedies to correct insulin levels such as Berberine, etc. But because this is caused by a medication I dont know if it will be helpful or not. Does anybody have experience dealing with this sort of problem? Any successes? Suggestions of what helps other than RX meds?
I took Metformin for about 7 months to correct my blood sugar and lower my A1C. Near the end, a diabetes doctor put me on mounjaro and stopped the metformin. At one point about 1 1/2 years ago my AIC was about 10.3 but my last three readings have been good and as of January 22nd my A1C is 5.3.
Your daughter can eat very little but if she’s eating the wrong kind of foods or drinking sugary sodas then she won’t be able to lose weight and might gain more. From what I gather from seeing many lists of the top diets, the Mediterranean Diet is usually the number one diet as far as eating healthy and losing weight. It’s not as restrictive as the Keto diet or the Atkins Diet. RFK Jr says he is on the carnivore diet but I hear bad things about that diet. I recommend you do some research on diets online and you can get an idea of what diet is the best and healthiest for your daughter.
It’s not good if your daughter is eating little but not eating vegetables and fruit. I have schizophrenia (46 years in fact) and I’ve been seeing my nutritionist for about two years. The diet she recommends for me is the plate method; at every meal have at least half a plate of vegetables (the more varied the better) 1/4 a plate of protein including lean cuts of meat and 1/4 a plate of carbs like a potato or corn or bread or low fat dairy or whole grain pasta, bread or brown rice. If you use this method a male is allowed 4 servings of carbs per meal as long as they are 15 grams apiece and a female is allowed a little less carbs but I’m not sure how many right off hand.
I’m jumping around a little bit here but in 2005 I was 250 lbs at six feet tall. I was on prolixen and the Atkins diet was very popular at that time so I tried it and lost 55 lbs and I will even say it was easy. I could eat a lot of meat and have 30 grams of carbs a day. I had read Dr. Atkins book cover to cover and I followed his diet closely until I lost the weight. I kept the weight off for two years before I gained it all back and more and ended up at 265 lbs.
I had been switched to resperidone. This time I tried a diet that made some pretty good claims called the Dukan Diet but the diet has since been debunked my many nutritionists. I lost 60 lbs on it though. That was 2007 and my weight went up and down over the years until in 2024 I was at 323 lbs. I was on metformin and lost 23 lbs just counting calories and then 1 1/2 years ago I started mounjaro and pretty soon I lost another 50 lbs and my doctor took me off the metformin. So nowI am hovering between 245 and 255 lbs. My weight loss has slowed down and I have an appointment with my doc to see if she’ll raise the dose from 10 mg to 12.5 mg.
So that is my weight loss journey. Yeah, another heathy diet that is often ranked near the top of lists is the DASH Diet. I’ll let you look that up and read about it. I tried it for about three months but my grocery bill went way up following the recipes in the beginners guide to the DASH diet. It’s possible to follow the diet and not spend a lot but you have to be flexible and creative.
You say you want a natural remedy, maybe because you can’t afford metformin or mounjaro or you are just against them in principle. But they are safe and if you are taking them for diabetes control then insurance might cover it with the added bonus of losing weight on them.