That's sort of correct, although really they prefer to start you on 20mg and
work up until it works ("upward titration").
Regarding antipsychotics, I must apologize for my info being out-to-date.
<http://www.nami.org/medicat/choosing.htm>
http://www.nami.org/medicat/choosing.htm contains a lot of information about
the newer antipsychotics, including their greatly reduced risk of causing
tardive dyskinesia:
Epidemiologic studies show that traditional antipsychotic medications are
associated with tardive dyskinesia (uncontrollable muscle spasms resulting
in a twisting of the body or neck). Tardive dyskinesia (TD) will occur in
four percent of patients each year that they are exposed to the traditional
antipsychotics. Put another way, after seven years of steady treatment with
traditional antipsychotic medications, a person has a nearly 30 percent
chance of developing TD. Clozapine, the first atypical antipsychotic
medication, does not lead to tardive dyskinesia. Ripseridone, the first
atypical antipsychotic medication for first-line use since 1994, may be
associated with tardive dyskinesia in less that one percent of patients per
year. The newest antipsychotic medications, olanzapine and sertindole, have
probably not been tested long enough to make an estimate of their risk for
TD; however, because they have low rates of Parkinsonism, we expect that the
risk for tardive dyskinesia will be quite low.
- Joe
Joseph S. Barrera III <joebar@acm.org>
<http://research.microsoft.com/~joebar/>
Phone, Office: (415) 778-8227; Cellular: (415) 601-3719; Home: (650)
588-4801
The opinions expressed in this message are my own personal views and do not
reflect the official views of Microsoft Corporation.