A new article published in Psychopharmacology finds that insomnia, anxiety, depression, tremor, headache, and dizziness are common symptoms of antipsychotic withdrawal. The research, led by Wilhelm Storck of Toulouse University Hospital, also finds that some antipsychotic drugs are more associated with withdrawal than others. Tiotixene carries the most significant risk of withdrawal, followed by pimozide, quetiapine, thioridazine, and ziprasidone.
The authors note they were unable to investigate withdrawal psychosis, withdrawal dyskinesia, rebound psychosis, or supersensitivity psychosis due to a lack of World Health Organization codes (WHO). The authors write:
“Our results suggest that there might be a risk difference for WDS between antipsychotics. Tiotixene, pimozide, and quetiapine were associated with a higher risk of reporting a WDS, whereas this risk was lower with chlorpromazine, clozapine, and fluphenazine. We could not address the issue of withdrawal psychosis, withdrawal dyskinesia, rebound psychosis, or supersensitivity psychosis due to the lack of specific WHO medDRA coded terms to identify potential cases.”
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