Awakening
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Even a very tiny dose would cause significant sedation. It is actually prescribed (not sure if it’s off label?) for sleep difficulties. I have a teen with developmental disabilities and severe sleep disturbance issues and am very familiar with this medication. The doses used for management of schizophrenia are really high (300+mg) but the dosage to induce sleep is tiny (12.5-25mg, sometimes even less). In a child who was young and didn’t have a tolerance to this medication even a very small dose would make her very sleepy (and the sleepiness can carry over to the next day). From my understanding it would be out of her system within 48hrs at most- probably 18hrs if not a big dose. My experience is that the effects of a small dose last up to 12hrs (but maybe traces are still in the system).
Yes I take it on and off for sleep disturb. The lowest dosage tablet you can get is 25mg and it’s a tiny tablet so makes cutting it in halves or quarters difficult but that’s often all I need and it’s very sedating for me as an adult.
When I was in psych wards it was typical for schizophrenics to be on minimum 300mg or more and I was always astounded that they would still be walking talking and even quite manic on such a high dose.
Edited to add: I was on it consistently for a few years but now only use it occasionally as it’s very difficult to wake up from. No matter how many hours you’ve slept for, it feels like you are coming out of a deep sleep. It’s really unpleasant. A coffee or two and 30 to 60 minutes later and most of the drowsiness has gone, but it wasn’t conducive to getting kids to school.
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