Miracle drug for Tourette's Syndrome

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Aripiprazole made me very shaky & caused me to slur when I talked due to bad dry mouth. I do have a tremor disorder that lots of psych meds seem to aggravate/make worse so that may of been some of it. I've taken another med in that same class called Geodon/Ziprasidone & I've had ticks while on it which is why I was taken off it it even thou I tolerated it better otherwise. Different people do respond differently to various psych meds & different psych meds can have very different effects even in the same class. I'm glad Aripiprazole is helping you.

My doctor knows I would like to try aripiprazole (Abilify) for my motor tics but it's too expensive for me. I tried ziprasidone (Geodon/Zeldox) and I thought it was excellent, however, when I was given an ECG, it was found that it affected my heart in a bad way.

So I'm on haloperidol now and have to take benztropine to stop the parkinsonism that haloperidol gives me.

I'm glad that aripiprazole works for you and if it gets cheaper here then I'll be sure to try it.

The only issue I've had with this medication is weight gain. Not good!

How much?

On ziprasidone I didn't gain any weight. On quetiapine I gained 30kgs.

About 2.5 stone (16 kilo's).

That's pretty significant weight gain.

Since I've gained the weight, I've tried diets, exercise, eating less, etc.

My doctor recently put me on metformin, which is usually given to people who gain weight with Type 2 diabetes or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I have neither but I'm still hoping the med will work for me. Apparently it can take some time to work.

I don't use it for Tourette's but... Aripiprazole works very well for my mental health.
My doctor still insists that it doesn't cause weight gain and that I should exercise more. I can't trust him though because I've gained nearly 30 kg since I started to take it.

Doctor's don't really know about side effects because they are based on drug tests of small populations.

I just joined this forum so please excuse any mistakes I make. Does anyone know anything about tardive dyskinesia caused by Abilify? My 28 year old, low functioning autistic nephew was just diagnosed with TD which is the third listed side effect of Abilify. His mother is contemplating spending $36,000 on some kind of treatment for his TD at a major medical facility in New Orleans, if she can afford it.

Has anyone ever recovered from TD after stopping Abilify or other psychotropic drugs that cause TD? Are there any effective treatments or drugs that can "cure" it? I fear that the treatment offered at the medical facility is useless and potentially harmful to my nephew.

Thank you for your help.

Tardive Dyskinesia is a possible side effect of all medications in the 'antipsychotic' class. Apparently Aripiprazole is least likely to cause that compared to other antipsychotics. But it is a possibility...

One thing I've noticed is that some people can use the medication for decades without any problems and some people take it and all of a sudden they have major problems like this.

So it's a bit of a lottery, really. Also, look up 'Deep Brain Stimulation' which might be a future, regular treatment for TD. Although he might be in no such luck for now...

It's also more likely to happen with higher doses. I'm on the equivalent of 5mg and the dose range is 2.5mg to 30mg. So the lower the better, really.

Since you seem to know a bit about this blitzkrieg, I'll ask here. Can restless leg syndrome or symptoms be related to TD, like an early warning sign of it or something or is that a separate thing unrelated to TD & if it's unrelated can meds like the antipsychotic Haldol/Haloperidol & antidepressant Wellbutrin/Bupropion be the cause & if so which med would be more likely to cause it

Restless leg syndrome is typically thought of as a product of low dopamine in certain parts of the the brain (though the exact mechanisms are poorly understood). Drugs to treat restless leg syndrome include dopamine agonists (drugs that increase the reuptake of dopamine).

Buproprion, whilst not a first line of treatment for restless leg syndrome [assumedly because it isn't as potent in terms of its dopamine agonism (increasing dopamine in the brain) as some of the drugs indicated for RLS] - would be useful for RLS so it's definitely not that.

It has to be the antipsychotic since that has dopamine antagonist properties (blocks the action of dopamine in the brain). So yeah, the Haldol would most likely be your issue.

Although a a general dysregulation of dopamine could be at play in your case and drugs might not be advanced/specific enough to resolve them.

A lot of the drugs that are used for various disorders are very rudimentary in that their mechanisms are pretty random compared to what might be devised in future medicine.

In regards to your question about TD and RLS, both are separate disorders on paper and I don't think officially they are thought of as being connected, although low dopamine in certain parts of the brain is thought to be a factor in both conditions so they could conceivably be related..

It's important to remember that dopamine can be both high and low in different regions of the brain which is why giving antagonists and agonists (reducing or increasing) dopamine with drugs is such a lottery.

I take meds that do both. But they both work well for me so maybe they each target different parts of the brain?