Medication Side Effects

Post Reply New Topic

Hi Everyone,

I have been a llurker and an occasional poster to WP. This has been a very informative forum

Do anyone of you have any experience with Abilify to help counteract ruminations particularly relating to self harming behaviors?

My son was put on Abilify Zoloft and Trazodone in the summer of 2010 a couple of months before he turned 14. It helped him tremendously at the time. He has Aspergers and he is also a very accomplished jazz pianist. Last fall, we increased his Abilify from 10 mg to 20 mg over the course of two months. The results are an extremely tired boy who still suffers from handling his emotions. His main struggle right now is obsessiveness in friendships and his jealousies of fellow musicians. He attends a private school for the performing arts. They have given him a medical leave this semester so we can work this out.

We have switched doctors and found out that too much Abilify can increase depression.

Any thoughts on this?

Concerned Mom.

My son has been on abilify for a couple years now. Other than that he is only on supplements.

I have played with the dose a lot. This is what I have seen. A dose change as little as .5mg can make a huge difference in my son. Any increase or decrease I do is in .5mg increments. This is a powerful drug and should be treated as such. For my son, 5 mg was too much and it worsened many symptoms. 3.5 was ok, but just not right. 2.5 was the key dose for him.

In addition, the time of day abilify is taken will affect the person's reaction. Most people split the dose up between morning and night. Some people that are very suseptible to the sleepiness side effect can only tolerate it at night. In our case, my son does great taking it in the morning only, but I believe he is an exception. You may see a great change just from splitting up the dose or changing the time of day it is taken.

I would question your doc about the abilify dose. I believe that abilify is supposed to compliment anti-depressants or vice versa. I believe that if you are on a normal or high dose of an anti-depressant, you should be on no more than 2.5 - 5mg of abilify to compliment it. It goes the other way too. If you are on a normal/high does of abilify (over 5mg) the antidepressant dose should be very very small. The combination of anti-depressants and abilify can create mania, which is what you may be describing.

I have gathered the above information by having several friends and family members on different combinations of anti-depressants and abilify.

Thank you. This makes a lot of sense to me. He takes all meds at night. We are going to slowly reduce the Abilify and see what happens. Your reply is very helpful.

My son is also very sensitive to this med, and notices a difference of as little as .5 mg. It took us 3 months to get off of a 4 mg dose.

Please update us on how it goes and what you and the docs decide. It's always helpful to see what works for others cuz you never know when you might be in the same situation!!

Thanks for the responses. Since my son has this semester off of school, he is in the tenth grade, we get an opportunity to safely reduce his meds to see if this is what is making him off. I was looking up the term akasthia (sp?). My son was able to describe what has been going on inside him. He was zoning out in class, constantly feeling fluttery inside, depressed, and constantly tired. So, we are slowly reducing his Trazodone, then will reduce the Abilify. This along with therapy to help with the overwhelming emotions he feels, should help. I am amazed he did as well as he did, considering the pressure he was under. He is quite the amazing jazz pianist.

Thanks for the encouragement. This is a great forum.