nomi Posted October 9, 2007 Share Posted October 9, 2007 I'm curious about others' experiences with Abilify and mixed episodes. For the last week or more, I've had a mixed episode that abates on occasion, or maybe it's just a series of brief ones, if that's possible. This has happened since my last couple of days on 10mg and has continued, but with less intensity, since I started tapering. Now that I'm at 2.5mg, I'm more depressed than mixed. Has this happened to anyone else? It'll soon be a moot point for me as I'm about to discontinue it, but it really interests me because I thought Abilify was meant to treat mixed episodes, not cause them. Or maybe it didn't cause it... maybe I just had one naturally and Abilify didn't treat it because I was only on 10mg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roosle Posted October 9, 2007 Share Posted October 9, 2007 Short answer... yes. I started on 5mg then bumped up to 10mg and loads of side effects started showing up. One thing I definately noticed was intense anxiety and profound boredom mixed together. That just made it impossible to get motivated to do anything. Pdoc told me to watch out for the anxiety and said to stay away from coffee, but I found Abilify made me very sleepy so life without caffeine would have been impossible. I don't know why, but it would seem most of the AAPs give me severe joint and muscle pain too. Oh, and everything makes me put on weight (haven't tried topiramate yet). I've stopped taking my meds as of 4 days ago and it all went away except I'm worried sick about a psychotic episode showing up. I'm at the point where I'm wondering which is more intollerable... on meds with these blipping side effects or off meds and mental. I'm very very bad about med compliance so please don't follow my lead and talk to your doc. As far as I know you can take concomitent meds with Abilify for the anxiety and mania. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nomi Posted October 10, 2007 Author Share Posted October 10, 2007 Short answer... yes. I started on 5mg then bumped up to 10mg and loads of side effects started showing up. One thing I definately noticed was intense anxiety and profound boredom mixed together. That just made it impossible to get motivated to do anything. Pdoc told me to watch out for the anxiety and said to stay away from coffee, but I found Abilify made me very sleepy so life without caffeine would have been impossible. I don't know why, but it would seem most of the AAPs give me severe joint and muscle pain too. Oh, and everything makes me put on weight (haven't tried topiramate yet). I've stopped taking my meds as of 4 days ago and it all went away except I'm worried sick about a psychotic episode showing up. I'm at the point where I'm wondering which is more intollerable... on meds with these blipping side effects or off meds and mental. I'm very very bad about med compliance so please don't follow my lead and talk to your doc. As far as I know you can take concomitent meds with Abilify for the anxiety and mania. Good luck! Anxiety and profound boredom at the same time is one of the worst combinations of feelings I've had in a good long while, and it was bad on Abilify. (I've taken to calling it Debilify. ;}) I've had pain on this med too, but it's hard to tell whether it's from meds or from fibromyalgia. I'm not taking it anymore as of last night. Pdoc is OK with that. He gave me Seroquel to take prn, 25-50mg per dose. It's for sleep, though. As for the paranoia, I'm going to try stabilizing on Lamictal again before re-adding anything for that. I'm also going to try working on paranoia more specifically in therapy, which was my idea, so if it sounds bogus, don't anybody blame him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairlyOddParent Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 Abilify caused anxiety and mixed issues for me, too. I also got eye twitching and freaked out. So now, I am taking Wellbutrin and Prozac--they work on the same neurotransmitters as Abilify. Have recently started shaking like a leaf with increase of Prozac. Got sick (virus) and missed my pdoc visit, so am playing phone tag with the nurse to see where we go from here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shannon Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 My 9 year old has been on abilify for over a year now. He started out at 2 mg the moved to 5 then increased up 10. The more his pdoc went up the more rapidly his moods began to cycle. One moment he would be in tears the next in a fit of anger Five seconds later he would be loving and happy and have a great idea he couldn't wait to express in the middle of expressing his idea he would decide it was stupid and rip up his drawing or whatever it was he was working on and start saying how he'd never be good at anything. Little noises began bothering him. He would ask for something and when he would get it wish he would have instead gotten something else. I feel for him because these are things I struggled with my whole life. I am 32 now and have finally gotten put on a mood stabilizer that seems to work okay for me in some ways. Right now we are working on a treatment plan that will be better for him I am hoping thay will give him something similiar to what I am taking because 32 years is too long to wait for help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sun_zoom_spark Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 Here again, Abilify is a tricky drug. It's formulated like no other AAP. If your brain doesn't need the dopamine release you shouldn't take it. SZS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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