It is highly advisable to go through that entire long drawn ordeal of doing a background check before taking any medication. No matter how insignificant the drug or the disease/illness is, it’s better to know everything including the side effects of the drug than regret later. We know how sensitive people can get when it comes to health issues and it is absolutely wrong to ask someone to respond otherwise. Anxiety is a near constant state of so many minds, especially in a post modern capitalist era. Here is everything you need to know about trifluoperazine.
What exactly is trifluoperazine?
Let’s start at the beginning. It can be termed as an anti psychotic medicine that can be placed in a category of drugs called phenothiazines. It proceeds to alter the ways the chemicals react and act in your brain and is often used to ease anxiety, schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. It is however NOT approved for treating conditions related to dementia. On the contrary it can yield fatal consequences in people suffering from dementia.
Side effects
The side effects can be very wide ranging and can affect the nervous system, or can be cardiovascular, hematologic, ocular, gastrointestinal ,dermatologic or psychiatric in nature- extrapyramidal reactions like dystonia, akathisia, Parkinson like symptoms, utter fatigue, blurred vision, drowsiness or nausea, rashes, anorexia, muscular weakness, amenorrhea, hypotension, dry mouth, galactorrhea, facial grimacing, tardive dyskinesia, altered consciousness, instability, altered cerebrospinal fluid proteins, involuntary movement of the extremities, lenticular opacities, constipation, pancytopenia.
Precautions before consuming this medicine
- Check if you are allergic to it with your health provider
- Abstain if you have bone marrow suspension, liver disease, and any blood cell disorder, low platelets, weak or timid pulse, drowsiness, prone to slow breathing.
- Abstain if you are an alcoholic, are on any other drugs that might interfere with this, or are pregnant., have tumor, kidney or heart disease, past or present breast cancer, epilepsy, or any other medical condition. You might want to check with your doctor if you do have any of these before taking this drug.
- The medication cannot also be used by children suffering from Reye’s syndrome.
- Trifluoperazine Hydrochloride drug can also lead to a fatal condition of Neuroleptic Malignant syndrome symptoms of which include fever, rigid muscles, confusion, sweating, erratic pulse rates or heart rhythms.
- It can also boost the level of prolactin which results in menstrual distortions or sexual problems.
- It can enhance your sensitivity to the sun.
Call your doctor at once if you have
- Uncontrollable muscular facial movements
- Severe stiffness in your neck
- Restlessness or inexplicable jitters
- Sudden weakness or abrupt chills, swollen gums, cold or flu.
- Pale skin
- Sleeping problems
Dosage
Usual adult dose for schizophrenia – initially 2 to 5mg, the maintenance dosage can vary from 15 to 20 mg per day and the upper limit is 40 mg per day.
Usual adult dose for anxiety – 1 to 2 mg orally and the upper limit is of 6mg per day.
It is impossible to comprehend your condition and prescribe dosages without any prior knowledge of your medical history. What you must do is to consult your doctor before succumbing to any dosage pattern because these are definitely not water tight and may not even align with your condition. If you do decide to take this medication without consulting a physician it can be pretty lethal.
There are various situations where one must abstain from taking this drug because the unforeseen shortcomings can be catastrophic. The warnings listed above must be kept in mind as well. Neglecting these wouldn’t be a wise choice. It is possible that all side effects and precautions were not listed in this article and in that case it is strongly advised that you contact your physician before taking any hasty, unhealthy measure. Being health conscious and vigilant is not a bad decision. On the contrary you might want to watch out for yourself if you are reckless with your drug dosages including that of trifluoperazine.
