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abilify increase, seroquel decrease ; medication adjustment implications.

iamjustme
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iamjustme

iamjustme

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hi,

 

i'm basically wondering if increasing abilify has helped anyone 'get over the hump' with depression. or whatever other metaphor... 'break through the ceiling' or 'find one's way out from underneath the cloud of depression' or... yada, yada.

 

my pdoc has also lowered my seroquel dose significantly... from:

 

500, to 200 (last month) to just yesterday 100.

 

i went from

 

500mg seroquel/day, 300mg wellbutrin, 4mg xanax recently, to... :

 

10mg abilify, 200mg seroquel, with my wellbutrin and xanax staying the same.

 

this helped me from feeling like i was at the bottom of the chart with depression, to getting me to about halfway to what i would consider normal motivation and mood. (saying it got me 2/3rd's of the way would be pushing it, i think.)

 

so just yesterday the doctor...

 

lowered seroquel to 100mg at night and upped abilify to 20mg/day.

 

does anyone have any idea if this will help me feel the ability to conquer this depression at all, or add to my motivation ?

 

the pdoc said it could make me more drowsy... but i really don't think i need to feel more drowsy, i'm already quite sedated. i told him this. we're still going to try.

 

sorry for the length, any thoughts and/or experiences would greatly be appreciated,

 

thank you.

 

 

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jt07

jt07

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Abilify only really began to work for me at 10 mg and worked much better at 15 mg. And, yes, it did help me tremendously with depression and motivation. I'd say give the 20 mg a try. It might be just what you need.

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San

San

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Abilify has been wonderful for many for depression. It helped me with depression until the dose was increased, but I had a bad experience with it, not common.

I'm going to move this to Antipsychotics, but leave a link here. You'll get more replies there.

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iamjustme

iamjustme

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Abilify only really began to work for me at 10 mg and worked much better at 15 mg. And, yes, it did help me tremendously with depression and motivation. I'd say give the 20 mg a try. It might be just what you need.

 

 

 

that was really helpful, and gave me some hope today. thanks.

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jt07

jt07

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For me, Abilify is a slow change. You know how some meds, you take them and BOOM, you know things are different. Abilify isn't like that for me. It's subtle. I'll have a change in dose but won't really notice any difference until a week or more passes and I'll think, hmmm, I don't feel as badly as I did last week.

This is true for me also. It took several weeks for me to feel it. I almost gave up on it because I thought it wasn't going to do anything except give me anxiety which I had at first at low doses. Then I hit 10 mg and began to feel better and better with each passing week. I have to say that it has been somewhat of a miracle drug for me and the only med that has significantly impacted my depression and motivational problems.

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iamjustme

iamjustme

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i'm really appreciating the time it took for you all to help out with some insight. i'm going to hang in there and see what happens. i'll probably return and let you all know, as well as try and keep a record for myself on this post...

 

today is 3/2/2014 and i've increased from 10mg to 20mg as of 2/28/2014, as well as had my seroquel dosage lowered from 200mg to 100mg.

 

that is very interesting about the seroquel. i'd think and would have hoped it could have had the opposite effect of increasing sedation at a lower dose and also with a lower dose help me feel less hungry.

 

i'll see how things go.

thanks!

Edited by iamjustme
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scream_phoenix

scream_phoenix

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From what I understand, the reason Seroquel is considered more sedating at a lower dose is because its antihistamine effect (which makes it sedating and effective as a sleep med in the first place) is stronger relative to its other effects at a low dose.  This is why 25 or 50 mg is effective for sleep.  I still think it has a pretty strong effect regardless, and it has too big of an effect on so many things that its hard to say what dose is more sedating.  I currently take 300 mg and wish I had never gone up that high.  I too am considering going down on Seroquel and my pdoc wants to try another AAP, but I am a little bit leery of abilify.   The one time I tried it it made me restless and I couldn't sleep that whole night.  Pdoc said that might be because I started too high, I don't know.  I like what I am hearing but was it a hard med to start for anybody?

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iamjustme

iamjustme

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the first time i started it i was nauseous with headache for about a week, but the lift it gave me and the fact that those two initial side effects subsided and didn't return, was and is worth taking it so far.

 

i'm just having one crazy bought with a pretty intense depression, and i hope the increase helps as much as i need it to.

Edited by iamjustme
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