Meds that don't have weight gain as side effect?

Are there meds that don’t have the weight gain side effect?

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I don’t know of any. I wish I did. I was told that the clozapine would make it impossible for my son to lose weight or control his appetite which was true in the very beginning but today, years later he is 45 pounds lighter and cutting back on a lot of foods he use to seem helpless to regulate.

Ah so the drugs create a more hardy appetite? I read that some will gain weight even if they are on a low carb diet and exercise. My son is eating tons - esp frozen pizzas, ice cream and sweets. I’ve been making plenty of salad and low card meals however - he chooses the other. At least he’s not all skinny like he was during his first episode.

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I can’t remember what they are off the top of my head, but some of the newer ones aren’t supposed to cause the same kind of weight gain.

I think they told us that about Vraylar - but, it didn’t work for my son.
He was also on Invega Sustenna for about 4 months - no weight gain, but it didn’t work for him either.

Zyprexa is notorious for weight gain, but it took him 2 years before he started gaining weight on it, but it did work well for his symptoms, until it didn’t.

With Clozapine, he started gaining right away & it’s seemed to have stabilized after a year.

He seems to be able to either be very ill & very skinny, or mostly sane and heavy. That seems to be true for a lot of people.

I think Geodon is slightly better than some of the others. We were told that it’s weight-neutral, but not for my son. Better than Zyprexa, that’s for sure!

My son is a “sweet-a-holic” too, he loves the sugar but because the meds can sometimes help lead to diabetes if the diet stays out of control he has cut back on the sweets. He sees me with diabetes and I don’t even eat sweets… His doctor takes his A1c every year just to be safe…so far so good.

Some first generation meds have less weight gain.

Geodon is supposedly the best med for avoiding weight gain but everybody is different. Risperdal has some mild weight gain and side effects. Abilify is great because it doesn’t many bad side effects, including weight gain, and actually helps reverse increased prolactin levels in risperdal (fun fact). They aren’t the most effective meds but definitely have a lot better side effects than some other meds.