Abilify- Stanford Clinic Patients

[jaybee00]

Maybe ask him if he was also taking Dulo during the pervious period when he pooped out.

 

[Sizzle]

Just did

 

[hmnr asg]

Please note that this person is also taking Duloxetine!! Can anyone who is on Reddit how long he has been on duloxetine and why was he prescribed this?

He said :

I take 60mg of Duloxetine daily as a preventative measure for the hell that is ME/CFS but overall no significant mental health

I'm not sure if duloxetine plays a part here though. I had abilify poop out on me and I was also on duloxetine. Now I'm off duloxetine and trying again and still no benefits. It has pooped out regardless of duloxetine it seems.

 

[hmnr asg]

So i just wanted to mention my experiment with Rexulti and LDA+amisulpride to mitigate the Low Dose Abilify poop-out issue.

Rexulti did nothing for me. Neither side effects nor any benefits. Just cost me a lot of money.

Amisulpride by itself (when I wasnt taking LDA) made me feel very wired and manic, like I was having serotonin syndrome: increased heart rate and agitation... At the time I was taking duloxetine also.

Today, after a few months of another break from LDA, I tried taking LDA+amisulpride. I had been taking LDA for the last week and I have gotten off of duloxetine. The LDA was not doing anything again so I added amisulpride after reading the latest post on the cfs subreddit that was shared here. Well, the same exact reaction! I only tool 15mg (the person on the subreddit was doing 25mg) and had the same symptoms again: increased heart rate and agitation (so bad that I considered going to the ER). I took a benzo to calm me down and im ok now after about 10 hours. Not going to touch amisulpride again. I think I have some kind of a sensitivity to it.

Big question now is: try amisulpride again at a much lower dose, or just forget about LDA+amisulpride and move on to Cariprazine (Vraylar).

Any suggestions are welcome!
@Hip @leokitten @Martin aka paused||M.E.

 

[jaybee00]

What was your rexulti dose? And how long did you trial it?

 

[hmnr asg]

What was your rexulti dose? And how long did you trial it?

So I got the smallest dose, 0.25 mg Tablets. I would take half a tablet. I think I took it for about a month or so. The duration must have been multiple weeks since abilify didnt start working until the 2 week mark. But im 100% about the dose, which was half a 0.25mg tablet per day.

 

[gm286]

@hmnr asg your medication trials are strikingly similar to mine and what I’m contemplating doing soon.

Retrialled LDA a few months ago and it was just not viable: it was abating symptoms and giving me more energy but also at 0.25mg making me gain weight / bloat. I was also sweating more on it.

I am seeing a new psychiatrist — my partner and I moved from Portland, OR to Atlanta. Was put on sertraline and feeling better on it. About to decide between vraylar and rexulti, but your comments are making me want to consider vraylar first. A little concerned about potential extrapyramidal symptoms.

Not seeing any reports explicitly associating vraylar with tardive dyskinesia for instance, but you never know. Will update here if and when I trial it and if it’s doing anything.

 

[leokitten]

@hmnr asgI am seeing a new psychiatrist — my partner and I moved from Portland, OR to Atlanta. Was put on sertraline and feeling better on it. About to decide between vraylar and rexulti, but your comments are making me want to consider vraylar first. A little concerned about potential extrapyramidal symptoms.

Coincidentally I started sertraline too 8 weeks ago. I had been taking moclobemide for a couple years now but it did virtually nothing for mood, depression or anxiety. Wanted to try another antidepressant to help with ME reactive depression, which was very real since I became bedridden for months again.

After 8 weeks I can say sertraline doesn’t help with ME symptoms, if I exert too much I still get PEM and will eventually crash if I keep going. Though it does seem to blunt the pain in my abdomen from ME gut issues. But it’s had a very positive effect on my mood, general anxiety due to situation, feeling of hopelessness. It took 6 weeks and going up to 100 mg to start helping and push through the constant ME symptom noise. I feel much less worried and anxious about that future which honestly in our situation is a good thing.

I was thinking about augmenting with bupropion since it’s said that sertraline and bupropion work well together. Just worried bupropion will be like other stimulating meds and simply mask the symptoms of PEM until it’s much worse and I crash harder and do damage. Sertraline by itself for me doesn’t stimulate at all which is good, it feels more anxiolytic. Any thoughts on bupropion? Does it make people worse?

 

[leokitten]

Big question now is: try amisulpride again at a much lower dose, or just forget about LDA+amisulpride and move on to Cariprazine (Vraylar).

My guess would be that cariprazine won’t work either since all these drugs are structurally similar and in the end work by very similar mechanisms. If you had gotten a partial effect from brex then sure changing to another in the class like cariprazine could work, but with zero effect I don’t know. I hope you don’t have to spend a lot of money to source it.

Amisulpride seems to have more side effects in people than the 3rd gen antipsychotics (Abilify, Rexulti, Vraylar), not as surprised it made you so uncomfortable!

 

[hmnr asg]

Retrialled LDA a few months ago and it was just not viable: it was abating symptoms and giving me more energy but also at 0.25mg making me gain weight / bloat. I was also sweating more on it.

So it was working but you plan to stop it because of increased sweating and weight gain?
I understand people have different priorities, but I would gladly take on an additional 300lb if I could 20% extra energy.

 

[hmnr asg]

My guess would be that cariprazine won’t work either since all these drugs are structurally similar and in the end work by very similar mechanisms. If you had gotten a partial effect from brex then sure changing to another in the class like cariprazine could work, but with zero effect I don’t know. I hope you don’t have to spend a lot of money to source it.

Amisulpride seems to have more side effects in people than the 3rd gen antipsychotics (Abilify, Rexulti, Vraylar), not as surprised it made you so uncomfortable!

I think you are right. Its just a desperate attempt. I have not much else on the horizon.
Also their website gives a coupon so you only pay 5 bucks for a 90 day supply. So thats plenty of time to figure out if it works or not. But for sure the probability of it working is miniscule,

 

[leokitten]

I think you are right. Its just a desperate attempt. I have not much else on the horizon.
Also their website gives a coupon so you only pay 5 bucks for a 90 day supply. So thats plenty of time to figure out if it works or not. But for sure the probability of it working is miniscule,

That’s great then no harm experimenting. Just didn’t want you to shell out a lot of money.

 

[Hipsman]

@hmnr asg I can source you cariprazine for around 70$ per 28 tablets 6mg each (it's sold in Ukraine), but personally I think the chances of it working when abilify popped out are low.

 

[gm286]

So it was working but you plan to stop it because of increased sweating and weight gain?
I understand people have different priorities, but I would gladly take on an additional 300lb if I could 20% extra energy.

No, it was definitely more than that. There were completely unmanageable reactions. For example, I was starting to get a tardive dyskinesia-like symptom with my tongue. The weight thing was out of control — I could no longer put my clothes on without feeling like everything was tight. And the sweating was non stop after showers.

The side effects were basically debilitating. Even more energy was not worth feeling like my body was essentially disfigured.

Not all medications are worth staying on. Two years ago I was convinced I would remain on prednisone/hydrocortisone for life due to steroids helping me. As a result of doctors being involved and also dangerous side effects (osteopenia last time they checked me) I was fully weaned off recently. I was still bloated and felt like my stomach was artificially inflated with air all the time, even at 5mg hydrocortisone. I am now struggling some more but glad to be entirely off.

 

[Castorp]

I stopped taking Abilify (1ml) after two months because I didn't notice any positive effect. However, six days after stopping it, I began to experience severe insomnia, a significant worsening of my fatigue, and an intense feeling of general malaise. Could this be due to stopping taking Abilify?

 

[hmnr asg]

I stopped taking Abilify (1ml) after two months because I didn't notice any positive effect. However, six days after stopping it, I began to experience severe insomnia, a significant worsening of my fatigue, and an intense feeling of general malaise. Could this be due to stopping taking Abilify?

Its hard to tell, i would doubt it, but why not restart abilify, if your symptoms go away you know it was the cause?
Also did you quit cold turkey? its a good idea to stop slowly (titrate down).

 

[Castorp]

Its hard to tell, i would doubt it, but why not restart abilify, if your symptoms go away you know it was the cause?
Also did you quit cold turkey? its a good idea to stop slowly (titrate down).

@hmnr asg , thanks for your reply, I stopped because I did not notice any positive effect and I wanted to attempt other treatments.

I thought that since I hadn't noticed any effects in two months and the dose was relatively low, there wouldn't be any danger if I quit cold turkey. But it's clear that I made a mistake. Currently, I'm much worse than before starting Abilify.

If this is a withdrawal effect, do you know how long it can last?

 

[JES]

You can do the half-life calculation on websites like here. With Abilify's 75 hours half-life, it takes three days withdrawing to reach 50% concentration and 6.25 days to reach 25%.

 

[jaybee00]

If this is a withdrawal effect, do you know how long it can last?

Yes sounds like it—can last for months.

 

[Judee]

this is a withdrawal effect, do you know how long it can last?

I'm foggy on this but I think I have read two posts in the last week on the Abilfy for ME/CFS FB group where people stopped and then restarted lower and started to get benefit.

I could be wrong because I read so much in so many different groups.

Are you able to go on FB and join the group? There are a lot of people there continually posting their experiences with this medication...even more than what is shared here about it.

?? Either way I hope you can get back to baseline soon.