Janey's plain language summary blog: Chlorpromazine
Like most people who have been a mental health service user in the UK for a while, I have spent time on the medication chlorpromazine.
Mostly for me it has been used to calm me down when I’m really ill, and I have to say, I would still rather have chlorpromazine than haloperidol - even if it puts me to sleep for 24 hours. Also though, I have had it as my main medication for a while and struggled with it. I was on what would now be a high-ish dose and it gave me a lot of movement side effects and made me very dozy – not good because I was still trying to work as a scientist. There was one occasion where I had to go to sleep in the corner of the laboratory because I genuinely couldn’t keep awake!
Lots of people in the developing world still rely on chlorpromazine because their health system cannot afford the newer drugs. And it is obvious (because the maximum daily dose has got smaller) that clinicians are responding to (some) of what their patients are saying to them about being on this medication, (so people will have less side effects). However, good evidence of the best dose of chlorpromazine from proper scientific studies contained in a Cochrane review is based on trials containing 174 people. More work needs doing!
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