Rexulti...and Rexulti vs Abilify?

[Wonderful.Cheese]

I have been on Abilify 30 mg for 11+ years. I don’t know if it’s working anymore or not. 

I think my last hope is to ask my pdoc on Friday to swap Abilify for rexulti. It will be expensive, but the situation is dire.

Anyone have experience with rexulti? Is weight gain or anything bad with it? 

Better yet, how does rexulti compare or differ from Abilify in your experiences?

I'm so desperate for any help or guidance. Thanks so much. 

[Iceberg]

I’d say was better for depression but iffy for my manic symptoms 

[CeremonyNewOrder]

I find rexulti to be very tolerable, just some sedation so I take it at night. I take the maxmium dose of 4mg, which is for schizo diagnoses. It has really helped with my depression and mood. I'm not sure about psychosis because I also increased my clozapine to 400mg at the time so I don't know what is causing what. Same goes for weight gain. I honestly don't know why it is compared to abilify. I just find rexulti to be cleaner. 

[Wonderful.Cheese]

1 hour ago, Iceberg said:

I’d say was better for depression but iffy for my manic symptoms 

Thanks! I know my pdoc will plan to keep me on 20 mg Zyprexa along with it if she does allow me to swap. I do think about the no mania indication, as well, however. 

[Wonderful.Cheese]

1 hour ago, CeremonyNewOrder said:

I find rexulti to be very tolerable, just some sedation so I take it at night. I take the maxmium dose of 4mg, which is for schizo diagnoses. It has really helped with my depression and mood. I'm not sure about psychosis because I also increased my clozapine to 400mg at the time so I don't know what is causing what. Same goes for weight gain. I honestly don't know why it is compared to abilify. I just find rexulti to be cleaner. 

Thanks for sharing your experience! I need something for a psychotic depression I'm in currently. I guess is what it is called. 

I know when I tried risperdal vs invega, I noticed invega was much cleaner. That's a good way to put it. I hope this is true with rexulti for me like your experience. 

I think I will ask to try this swap. I've got to try something. I'm so sick of trying meds and switching around though. I don't know what else to do though. I wish I could find a combo that would work well forever. I hate this treatment resistant crap. 

[mikl_pls]

Rexulti, in my experience, put me in a very dark place every time I tried it except once, which was at 3 mg (I started on 1.5 mg for a week then immediately jumped up to 3 mg). The last time I tried it, it was also at 3 mg and I went up on the dosage slowly. I was also coming off Abilify cold-turkey though, which is supposed to be doable, but I went psychotic and lost my shit. I think it was more a problem with stopping Abilify so suddenly and not having the right dose of Rexulti when I needed it.

Weight gain happened the first time I took it (20 lb in a month), but the rest of the times I took it, it didn't cause weight gain.

It tends to be very sedating for me, so I've had to take it at night when I took it before.

I think the reason they don't have an indication for mania is simply because they didn't market it for bipolar. I believe they are trying to get an indication for bipolar depression, don't know about mania or mixed though.

Best of luck with it if your pdoc lets you try it! I would think you would need to do the titration as stated for schizophrenia: 1 mg PO qd x4 days, then incr. dose to 2 mg PO qd x3 days, then incr. dose to 4 mg PO qd (Max 4 mg/day). That's just my opinion though. Not an expert.

[Wonderful.Cheese]

8 hours ago, mikl_pls said:

Rexulti, in my experience, put me in a very dark place every time I tried it except once, which was at 3 mg (I started on 1.5 mg for a week then immediately jumped up to 3 mg). The last time I tried it, it was also at 3 mg and I went up on the dosage slowly. I was also coming off Abilify cold-turkey though, which is supposed to be doable, but I went psychotic and lost my shit. I think it was more a problem with stopping Abilify so suddenly and not having the right dose of Rexulti when I needed it.

Weight gain happened the first time I took it (20 lb in a month), but the rest of the times I took it, it didn't cause weight gain.

It tends to be very sedating for me, so I've had to take it at night when I took it before.

I think the reason they don't have an indication for mania is simply because they didn't market it for bipolar. I believe they are trying to get an indication for bipolar depression, don't know about mania or mixed though.

Best of luck with it if your pdoc lets you try it! I would think you would need to do the titration as stated for schizophrenia: 1 mg PO qd x4 days, then incr. dose to 2 mg PO qd x3 days, then incr. dose to 4 mg PO qd (Max 4 mg/day). That's just my opinion though. Not an expert.

Thanks mikl. I will definitely ask my Dr about it.