Abilify- Stanford Clinic Patients

[Badpack]

It would be even worse to do it that way. Because you create very dangerous and unnecessary spikes. The Half life is 75h. There isnt a "prevent build". There is a steady state. And spikes, especially in dangerous areas like the brain chemistry are pure poison.

 

[junkcrap50]

Why don't they just drop the dose even smaller if 1mg daily dosing leads to a very high steady state build up? Do 0.1mg daily instead of 1-3mg.

Are they doing any therapeutic drug monitoring on these Abilify patients? That might provide some more insights: what levels are too high for different persons, what levels provides results, what levels leads to eventual loss of benefits, etc.

 

[Hip]

Maybe @mitoMAN or @Hip can clarify...

@Badpack is saying that because the half-life of Abilify is around 3 days, if you take a dose of this drug on one day, you are going to have Abilify in your body for the next week or so.

So you cannot take a dose of Abilify on one day, and then on the next day decide to take a day off and not take this drug, because you will be under the effects of Abilify for a week or so.

By contrast, with amisulpride, which has a half-life of 12 hours, if you take a dose one day, by the next day, most of the drug will be out of your body, so you could take a day off the next day if you wanted, but not taking the drug the next day.

 

[BananaMango99]

By "energizing", do you mean that Abilify is overstimulating? I found Abilify overstimulating, and could not relax with it.

But I found very low doses of a similar drug called amisulpride to be fine. Amisulpride has been shown to increase energy and reduce pain in ME/CFS in a small study. My thread on amisulpride here.

At 12.5 mg once daily, I found amisulpride substantially reduced my ME/CFS sound sensitivity (hyperacusis), and also dramatically reduced my irritability symptoms (irritability is listed as an ME/CFS symptom in some definitions of ME/CFS).

Yes over-stimulating, although it's mostly night-time that's the issue. At 10pm ish I usually start getting sleepy and that button seems to be turned off on Abilify, I actually get the opposite, a palpable surge. Can actually feel it around the chest, like adrenaline. Then I wake up in the night. Also frequent urination (hourly), which I assume is from overstimulation too (google says that could also be from high blood sugar, not sure)

My main issue at the moment is jaw tension/pain. Reading, focusing, socialising , doing activity etc causes tension and pain, which radiates into the brain/head. I'm thinking it's neuroinflammation as a TMJ specialist said I don't have any structural issues there. Anyway Abilify does seem to help with that a bit (sensory gating?) so it's on the right track. I've got Amisulpride at home but wanted to try Abilify first - there's more reviews and documentation on it, including this thread and Facebook groups, and I am scared of the prolactin/man-boobs

 

[BananaMango99]

It would be even worse to do it that way. Because you create very dangerous and unnecessary spikes. The Half life is 75h. There isnt a "prevent build". There is a steady state. And spikes, especially in dangerous areas like the brain chemistry are pure poison.

I don't understand this at all. I thought the whole point of long half lives is that there'd be less spikes. Eg Moclobemide has a short half life, so you have to take it ideally 2-3 times a day. Surely then a long half life means the opposite

 

[BananaMango99]

I find both Amisulpride and Abilify too stimulating unfortunately. If I take a drop of Abilify each day, I have a few good days, but have to stop after 5-6 days due to a heavy Migræne and rebound fatigue.
Amisulpride gives me a noticeable boost at 6mg, but unfortunately rebound fatigue the day after.
Looking forward to trialing sephin.

Are you mild/moderate/severe etc?

 

[JES]

I don't understand this at all. I thought the whole point of long half lives is that there'd be less spikes. Eg Moclobemide has a short half life, so you have to take it ideally 2-3 times a day. Surely then a long half life means the opposite

That's correct, but the long half-life also means I cannot see any real benefit in dosing every third day as opposed to dosing every day, so the solution is to simply take a smaller dose every day to get the equivalent dose of every third day dosing. If people claim there is some extra benefit of every third day dosing beyond that they are most likely not aware of how the pharmacokinetics with this drug works. They probably think they can maintain a better effect by taking "breaks", which is not the case as not much of the drug leaves the body in three days.

 

[BananaMango99]

Ah, right. I'm on the FB group and I don't think anyone is claiming benefits specifically from doing alternate days. That's just a way for them to reduce dose

 

[Hoosierfans]

@Badpack is saying that because the half-life of Abilify is around 3 days, if you take a dose of this drug on one day, you are going to have Abilify in your body for the next week or so.

So you cannot take a dose of Abilify on one day, and then on the next day decide to take a day off and not take this drug, because you will be under the effects of Abilify for a week or so.

By contrast, with amisulpride, which has a half-life of 12 hours, if you take a dose one day, by the next day, most of the drug will be out of your body, so you could take a day off the next day if you wanted, but not taking the drug the next day.

Yes, ok I see what @Badpack is saying. I don’t think folks are trying to take “days off” (meaning a break from the drug in their system) as much as they are trying to achieve a lower consistent dose (and it may be hard to cut up pills into the small dose they need).

but doesn’t this beg the question, with a 75 hr half life, if you dose it every 24 hrs then aren’t you slowly but surely getting a higher dose in the body?? So maybe that’s why Abilify is pooping out after a time??

 

[leokitten]

To illustrate, I usually start getting sleepy around 10-11pm. Both drugs seem to block that process, and actually even give a bit of a kick at that time, adrenaline type kick. Both then wake me up during the night once I do sleep. And both have rebound fatigue as a result of the over-energising

In my experience it helps to also be taking sleep meds, which I was taking before Abilify and moclobemide, though both drugs didn’t require an increase in sleep med dosage which is interesting even though I agree they make it harder to fall asleep.

But with the right sleep meds that work for me they do cause me to get tired and eventually fall asleep at a normal time even with Abilify and moclobemide. They help a great deal and most days I sleep well if I’m not having ME sleep disturbance symptoms interfering.

I do experience Abilify sleep shift most days like others have reported where I am falling asleep earlier and getting up earlier which is a big plus because they are normal times now instead of ME symptoms preventing me from falling asleep until 2-4am and waking up at noon or not falling asleep for days at a time.

 

[Hip]

but doesn’t this beg the question, with a 75 hr half life, if you dose it every 24 hrs then aren’t you slowly but surely getting a higher dose in the body?? So maybe that’s why Abilify is pooping out after a time??

A drug taken on a constant regular schedule will reach steady-state levels in the blood after 4 or 5 half-lives (irrespective of the particulars of the schedule). So in the case of Abilify with a half-life of 3 days, you each the steady state after 12 to 15 days, and blood levels will go no higher. Unless of course you increase the dose taken.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

My main issue at the moment is jaw tension/pain

I've been using some CBD type lotion applied to the jaw area and it helps reduce my jaw tension which I believe is inflammatory (I'm not grinding my teeth). A finger pushing under there it sure hurts, like inflamed nerves.

ANother thing that might help ...is get the jaw thing that holds your mouth closed when sleeping. I saw this online. Its to stop snoring. I think I"m going to order one.

But I find that I seem to have jaw tension that I can relax it when I sleep because i sleep on my side and I tend to: sort of hold my jaw closed. I sleep like that alot of the time. I notice the jaw tension relaxes.

 

[BananaMango99]

I've been using some CBD type lotion applied to the jaw area and it helps reduce my jaw tension which I believe is inflammatory (I'm not grinding my teeth). A finger pushing under there it sure hurts, like inflamed nerves.

ANother thing that might help ...is get the jaw thing that holds your mouth closed when sleeping. I saw this online. Its to stop snoring. I think I"m going to order one.

But I find that I seem to have jaw tension that I can relax it when I sleep because i sleep on my side and I tend to: sort of hold my jaw closed. I sleep like that alot of the time. I notice the jaw tension relaxes.

Oh, what brand/product do you use of CBD lotion?

 

[BananaMango99]

In my experience it helps to also be taking sleep meds, which I was taking before Abilify and moclobemide, though both drugs didn’t require an increase in sleep med dosage which is interesting even though I agree they make it harder to fall asleep.

But with the right sleep meds that work for me they do cause me to get tired and eventually fall asleep at a normal time even with Abilify and moclobemide. They help a great deal and most days I sleep well if I’m not having ME sleep disturbance symptoms interfering.

Do you feel Moclobemide and Abilify felt similar? That's my experience so far

 

[Jessie 107]

When I first started on abilify my sleep was quite disturbed, but after a few months is settled down and went away. I have been taking abilify since July last year and my sleep is not disturbed in any way now , l only take 2 mg of melatonin and I fall asleep easily up till last week I was also taking half a Unisom but I've stopped taking that now.
I am still getting benefits from Abilify.

 

[leokitten]

Do you feel Moclobemide and Abilify felt similar? That's my experience so far

For me not at all. Moclobemide does have a mildish stimulating effect which I personally feel is due to its effects on norepinephrine.

I took moclobemide for 2 months before starting Abilify and it had almost no effect on my ME symptoms alone. The stimulating effect seemed to help ME symptoms the first week or so, but that help faded quickly and I remained bedridden with moderate-severe ME the entire time.

Abilify, on the other hand, just made my ME symptoms and PEM reduce significantly. No stimulating effect pushing me through ME symptoms, but actually reducing the symptoms making me feel better, and because I feel better I can do more.

 

[Badpack]

@leokitten any updates on dosage and outcomes from your side ?

I took some time this weekend to watch kinda all of Martins/paused_me's instagram content. He really went from bed bound and tube feed to 8h full time working and back in 3 months. Kinda crazy. What i kinda don't understand, he wrote he never crashed in all this time under Abilify and overdoing cant be the cause of the decline but he clearly shows 2 heavy crashes and extreme overdoing. So i'm kinda confused. Also he went up with his dosage pretty fast and way over the talked 2mg threshold for partial anti/agonist effect.

Hope he will recover soon.

I also re-reviewed the side effect case report i posted. You are kinda right that often other meds where given and that could contribute to it. But above 5mg seems the threshold for possible terrible side effect if you are not careful. Nothing to find in the 0.1-5 mg area. But a lot of 5 mg depression medication reports with really nasty life altering side effects.

 

[leokitten]

@leokitten any updates on dosage and outcomes from your side ?

I haven’t changed dosage from 0.5 mg. Benefits are very good and plateaued (as expected) after about a month or so on it. Still working very well though I’m not even at the 2 month mark. No side effects except on sleep

 

[Badpack]

@leokitten whats the reason to stop at 0,5mg ? Did the positiv effects at 0,5mg outweigh the possible risk/reward of higher doses for you ?

 

[leokitten]

Do you feel Moclobemide and Abilify felt similar? That's my experience so far

Even though moclobemide and its major metabolite have a very short half-life its effect on MAO last about 1/2 day. If it affects sleep maybe only take 2 doses a day early morning and mid afternoon. Also each dose maybe 75 mg (cut 150 mg in half)