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Crazy Meds Comprehensive Invega page
When you read about the mechanism of action, or how it works, in Invega’s PI sheet, it’s almost as vague as how likely it will work. Pretty much every beginning paragraph of the mechanism of action section for every crazy med (and many other non-crazy meds) is a variation on “We don’t know exactly how Panacea, or other drugs like it, works to treat whatever you take it for. In various studies, mostly on rats and other animals, we’ve determined that it does the following…”
After researchers who aren’t being paid by the manufacturer get their hands on med it’s just one study after another, in humans and animals, that supports the original theory. Or determines a precise area in the brain where stuff takes place. Or finds an additional thing the med does. Or finds that it doesn’t do something they originally thought it did. Or finds out that everyone was completely wrong in the first place and the method of action is radically different. That last one does happen. Neurontin (gabapentin) was originally thought to be a synthetic form of GABA that could cross the blood-brain barrier. Turns out that it’s just like every other anticonvulsant and works on voltage channels. Except that it’s unique in that it affects a part of your brain that nothing else touches. Because only drugs like Neurontin (Lyrica (pregablin) and anything being developed such as PD-210714), some people are calling those “gabapentin receptors.” Ironically gabapentin doesn’t affect GABA.1
Every day a new peer-reviewed journal is published somewhere adding to our knowledge about how a particular med works, or making us crazier with more contradictory data.
It would be nice if we could break things down into neat parameters like we can with pharmacokinetics, but we can’t. The best we can do is tell you what they originally thought it did, let you know if there are any meds with similar mechanisms / methods (the terms are interchangeable) of action2, and give you our best guess as to what it really does based upon more recent research.
1. How Invega (paliperidone) Works
the originally theorized mechanism of action
Exactly like Risperdal’s.
2. Drugs with Similar Methods of Action as/That Work Like Invega (paliperidone)
That would be…Risperdal.
3. What Invega (paliperidone) Really Does
as far as we can tell
So Invega and Risperdal have one of the simplest profiles in which receptors they deal with - mainly the dopamine Type 2 (D2) and serotonin Type 2 (5HT2), with enough of the H1 histamine receptors to help put you to sleep and a light brushing of the α1 and α2 adrenergic receptors thrown in for good measure. They just hit the dopamine receptors harder than most of the other Novel / Atypical Antipsychotics. In some ways Risperdal and Invega act almost like Haldol (halperidol) on steroids, by keeping one’s brain from using too much dopamine and serotonin, thus helping to prevent the positive symptoms in schizophrenia: aggression, conceptual disorganization, hallucinations and hallucinatory behavior, suspiciousness, and unusual thought content. Just replace “conceptual disorganization” with “racing thoughts” and “hallucinatory behavior” with “delusions” and you’ve got symptoms for mania.
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Crazy Meds Comprehensive Invega pages
2 No two medications will have the exact same mechanisms / methods of action. Sometimes a drug that is developed from the active metabolite of another, essentially inert med e.g. Invega (paliperidone) is a predigested form of Risperdal (risperidone) and is basically the same thing. However there is no good conversion of dosages between the two like there is for Tegretol (carbamazepine) and Trileptal (oxacarbazeine). Like Invega and Risperdal, Pristiq (desvenlafaxine) is the active metabolite of Effexor (venlafaxine), but Pristiq has a somewhat different mechanism of action than Effexor.
All SSRIs are interchangeable, it's possible to work out the different dosages, and you don't need to wait until you've cleared one drug to start another. But Celexa (citralopram HBr) and Lexapro (escitralopram oxalate) are vastly more selective than Prozac (fluoxetine), and so the side effect profiles are very different. While most people couldn't tell the difference between Lexapro and Celexa, because Lexapro is a derivative of Celexa, a few people will respond differently to the two.
Date created 10 Jun 2011 - 17:09 Page Creator: girrl88 Last edited by:
Expanded How Invega Works. (AKA Mechanism / Methods of Action) is copyright 2011 girrl88
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