zyprexa does a lot more than cause weight gain - it also causes diabetes independent of the weight gain. all antipsychotics are so harmful to your health, that they shave years off your life. So nobody without schizophrenia or the most severe bipolar mania ought to be taking them, and there's a serious question if they are any good for most of those patients (see madinamerica.com).
I have severe bipolar depression, and all these meds just made me more disabled. I even did ECT. I am so sorry I ever got any treatment at all. 10 months off all pills, and I am getting more chores done, and am a lot less suicidal.
antipsychotics you just sit there and watch TV all day and let your life pass by. no good if you want to have a life beyond the group home or a subsidized apartment with social services taking care of all your needs for you.
a recent study found that antipsychotics shrink your brain over time. The Lancet just ran an editorial saying that docs need to monitor for these horrible side effects that antipsychotics cause and not prescribe them except for the worst problems.
for young people, the harms are probably more. In the US, the average age of death for a mental patient is age 51, for all US citizens, 78 years old. The association of mental hospital administrators (I forget the actual name of this group, but I got it pretty close) says that the meds are a big reason, as did that Lancet editorial.
If your situation is truly dire, then antipsychotics are appropriate, but if you were my relative, i would do anything to keep you off them.
Another major study found that the new antipsychotics are no better than the old haldol etc. and they are much more expensive. They have just as bad of side effects as the old drugs and are no more effective. So how about low dose haldol if you need them.
sexual dysfunction is another problem with antipsychotics, if diabetes, higher cholesterol, irregular heartbeat that can lead to heart attacks, increased risk of heatstroke, etc. don't bother you. These side effects are COMMON, not rare like for most drugs.
PS back before I knew aboutall these problems, I took seroquel and flipped out, so I stopped. A few years later, I thought maybe it was the combo of ativan and seroquel that was the problem, and took seroquel by itself, and flipped out again. Really emotionally unstable. zyprexa, my brother took, and gained 60 lbs in 6 months. he was always a bit underweight before.
Do you want to gain 60 lbs? Are you that underweight? the underweight gain more weight than the overweight do, but with zyprexa, it is MASSIVE weight gain. another person I know wasn't too concerned, because he was slim, but I noticed he got a pot belly over a time.