Abilify- Stanford Clinic Patients

[leokitten]

@hmnr asg did you find Vraylar more activating or less activating than Abilify?

 

[hmnr asg]

@hmnr asg did you find Vraylar more activating or less activating than Abilify?

more activating in my experience. Abilify was only activating in the initial two weeks. After that I just felt like my cfs had diminished. Vraylar is causing me insomnia. I have reduced my dose to 1.5 every other day and it has gotten better.

As for helping with cfs i have no idea! its either zero benefits or tiny, definitely nothing like the honeymoon phase I had with abilify.

 

[JES]

Though there is one major difference between my situation this time and the previous two times. Before I’d been on moclobemide 600 mg but this time I’ve been taking fluoxetine 60 mg per day. Could fluoxetine or any SSRI for that matter reduce Abilify’s effects or worse could this mean Abilify with each cycle is starting to not work? Ugh, I really don’t want to come off fluoxetine to test what’s going on it has a very long half life.

Found this:

Conclusion: Amongst the SSRIs examined, only fluoxetine acutely increases extracellular concentrations of norepinephrine and dopamine as well as serotonin in prefrontal cortex, suggesting that fluoxetine is an atypical SSRI (reference).

As the SSRI fluoxetine can inhibit dopamine reuptake at high concentrations (Sánchez and Hyttel, 1999), it is possible that the enhanced dopaminergic modulation could be caused by its direct action on the dopaminergic neurons (reference).

Not sure what to make of it other than dopamine receptors are indeed affected at least to some degree by fluoxetine. FYI, citalopram or escitalopram is the SSRI that is most selective and theoretically should have the least effect on dopamine.

 

[leokitten]

more activating in my experience. Abilify was only activating in the initial two weeks. After that I just felt like my cfs had diminished. Vraylar is causing me insomnia. I have reduced my dose to 1.5 every other day and it has gotten better.

As for helping with cfs i have no idea! its either zero benefits or tiny, definitely nothing like the honeymoon phase I had with abilify.

Are you getting akathisia? I might want to try Vraylar sorry for asking all the questions.

 

[leokitten]

That is such a coincidence, I am switching to fluvoxamine as well! I am very scared it might have sedation as a side effect (which i cant afford).
How are you doing with fluvoxamine? is it sedative? any help with the anxiety?

btw I’m not taking fluvoxamine anymore, have been on fluoxetine for over a month and sticking with that after trying many antidepressants. Nothing was wrong with fluvoxamine it didn’t virtually any side effects which was great, but at least for me has a weaker antidepressant effect. Fluoxetine also had no side effects but seems to be stronger and has a greater anti-anxiety and antidepressant effect.

 

[hmnr asg]

Are you getting akathisia? I might want to try Vraylar sorry for asking all the questions.

Not really, im not. I really cant think of any side effects at this dose of 1.5mg every other day.

btw I’m not taking fluvoxamine anymore, have been on fluoxetine for over a month and sticking with that after trying many antidepressants. Nothing was wrong with fluvoxamine it didn’t virtually any side effects which was great, but at least for me has a weaker antidepressant effect. Fluoxetine also had no side effects but seems to be stronger and has a greater anti-anxiety and antidepressant effect.

Glad prozac is working for you! for some reason it significantly worsened my trigeminal neuralgia pain when i tried it a few years ago. I'm still on duloxetine
ps if you want to ask more about vraylar you can also dm me.

 

[leokitten]

Has anyone who developed tolerance to Abilify after a few months ever tried taking one of the safer dopamine antagonists like ziprasidone for example for a few months to try and reverse tolerance? This would give a lot of insight as to what part of Abilify’s MOA is causing at least temp relief of ME symptoms?

 

[jaybee00]

What about this TD med—“ By selectively reducing the ability of VMAT2 to load dopamine into synaptic vesicles,[8] the drug reduces overall levels of available dopamine in the synaptic cleft, ideally alleviating the symptoms associated with dopamine hypersensitivity. ”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valbenazine

Seems relatively safe.

 

[leokitten]

What about this TD med—“ By selectively reducing the ability of VMAT2 to load dopamine into synaptic vesicles,[8] the drug reduces overall levels of available dopamine in the synaptic cleft, ideally alleviating the symptoms associated with dopamine hypersensitivity. ”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valbenazine

Seems relatively safe.

I think though this isn’t generic yet, but it’s a good idea

 

[leokitten]

Inhibition of VMAT2 by β2-adrenergic agonists, antagonists, and the atypical antipsychotic ziprasidone, Stove et al, 2022​

In addition to ziprasidone there are other generic drugs people could try to inhibit VMAT2 for a while and possibly reverse Abilify tolerance.

 

[leokitten]

What about this TD med—“ By selectively reducing the ability of VMAT2 to load dopamine into synaptic vesicles,[8] the drug reduces overall levels of available dopamine in the synaptic cleft, ideally alleviating the symptoms associated with dopamine hypersensitivity. ”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valbenazine

Seems relatively safe.

Sorry just want to go back a bit, why would VMAT2 inhibition potentially reverse LDA tolerance in pwME?

 

[leokitten]

@nsdn is amisulpride + Abilify still working for you?