Abilify tolerance

[Push Fwd]

Thank you so much @pattismith @leokitten and @YippeeKi YOW !!
I don't know if Martin tried that already but will have a look at your recommendations.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

@Push Fwd ...
Not having my most brilliant day and couldn't remember your username, so just used Martin's .... plus, am very lazy right now .... apologies ...

And I think that you're absolutely brilliantly pinch hitting for Martin while he's feeling so poorly.... please give him a hug and a "....there, there ...." from me, yes? And to you as well

 

[Jessie 107]

I am taking 2mg of Melatonin and half a tablet of Unisom, I have been doing this for quite a while and still does the job in getting me to sleep

 

[Push Fwd]

Thanks for your tip, @Jessie 107

@Push Fwd ...
Not having my most brilliant day and couldn't remember your username, so just used Martin's .... plus, am very lazy right now .... apologies ...

And I think that you're absolutely brilliantly pinch hitting for Martin while he's feeling so poorly.... please give him a hug and a "....there, there ...." from me, yes? And to you as well

No problem
I will do that, thank you so much Hopefully it will help and he will feel better soon!

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

Hopefully it will help and he will feel better soon!

Oh, I dooooo hope so. He's been in such a long and courageous battle against this, and he so deeply deserves a break. I was really downed when the Abilify stoppd working for him, it started out so well ...

But there's ALWAYS something else that has every possibility of working even better, so the trick is to not lose hope, which of course, like everything else connected to this bitter little jawbreaker of an illness, is sooooooo much easier said than done .... hang in !!!

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

@percyval577 ..... It's good to see you !!!! Here, or anywhere else ....

 

[leokitten]

I found Benadryl to have a paradoxical and very unpleasant effect, but Unisom, which is doxylamine succinate, is absolutely perfect. I take about 1/4 to 1/3 of a 25 mg tab, and within 45-60 mins max I'm struggling to stay awake.

Both Benadryl and Unisom have moderate to high anticholinergic properties while hydroxyzine is, if anything, only a very weak anticholinergic.

From Wikipedia page:

Unlike many other first-generation antihistamines, hydroxyzine has very low affinity for the muscarinic acetylcholine receptors, and in accordance, has low or no propensity for producing anticholinergic side effects.[33][37][38][39]

It’s not even on the lists of anticholinergic drugs to watch out for for older people and risk of dementia, but Benadryl and Unisom are. That’s why I recommended hydroxyzine for sleep vs any of these other antihistamines.

I also felt with hydroxyzine you feel less shitty the next day compared to Benadryl and Unisom. All three give a groggy feeling but the latter two also have this gross feeling the next day, likely from their moderate to high anticholinergic properties.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

I also felt with hydroxyzine you feel less shitty the next day compared to Benadryl and Unisom. All three give a groggy feeling but the latter two also have this gross feeling the next day, likely from their moderate to high anticholinergic properties.

That was not my experience, but we're all different ....

Options are always good ....

 

[leokitten]

That was not my experience, but we're all different ....

Options are always good ....

From my understanding of the current research on anticholinergics and future risk of dementia, it’s lifetime cumulative dosage that correlates with risk, as well as your age when taking them. So my that’s worry and why I avoid Benadryl or Unisom (years ago I used to take Unisom quite often but stopped once I read about this).

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

From my understanding of the current research on anticholinergics and future risk of dementia,

If you have access to reliably performed controlled studies done specifically on Unisom and/or Benadryl, I'd love to see them. I could only find poorly done anecdotal and/or observational studies, and only three of those.

All the rest were done on prescription meds, with the greatest and most potentially damaging medications found to be anticholinergic antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs, antiparkinson drugs, antiepileptic drugs, and bladder antimuscarinics ...

Given that Abilify is a fairly powerful anti-psychotic, there might be some concerns there, as well, even in modest doses for proscribed periods of time.

 

[leokitten]

If you have access to reliably performed controlled studies done specifically on Unisom and/or Benadryl, I'd love to see them. I could only find poorly done anecdotal and/or observational studies, and only three of those.

All the rest were done on prescription meds, with the greatest and most potentially damaging medications found to be anticholinergic antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs, antiparkinson drugs, antiepileptic drugs, and bladder antimuscarinics ...

Given that Abilify is a fairly powerful anti-psychotic, there might be some concerns there, as well, even in modest doses for proscribed periods of time.

i’ll have to search again. but longitudinal observational studies are not necessarily poor because for some questions it’s really difficult to impossible to do controlled studies. These meds take years of use to show increased dementia risk, how are you supposed to do a tightly controlled study with that? You can only do observational studies following a large cohort of people that take the drugs and those that don’t and see the risk and rate of dementia development.

Abilify has zero anticholinergic properties, it doesn’t have any affinity for the receptors (see Wikipedia and other sources on Abilify thread). It’s one of the reasons it’s a considered a next gen antipsychotic because it has fewer off-target effects.

Here’s Abilify’s affinities Ki (nM) for muscarinic acetylcholine receptors

M1 6,780 ND[46]
M2 3,510 ND[46]
M3 4,680 ND[46][48]
M4 1,520 ND[46]
M5 2,330 ND[46]

So basically nonexistent. It’s also why hydroxyzine is much lower than other antihistamines, even drugs of same class can be very different.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

Abilify has zero anticholinergic properties,

Proving the reliability of many studies, 3 of the ones I remember (I think two from the BJM and one from the NIH) stated categorically, no exceptions, that anti-psychotics were serious dementia threats down the road ... at least two of them were published in 2019, so the new generation would have been available for study for almost two decades.

You can only do observational studies following a large cohort of people that take the drugs and those that don’t and see the risk and rate of dementia development.

The difficulty with both observational and anecdotal 'studies' is that they're highly subjective in terms of the evaluation and interpretation of the input, even with tightly worded parameters for evaluation .

Adding to that difficulty is the need to rely on the control group's not taking an easily accessible, inexpensive OTC sleep aid for the full period of the study.

I have an old friend who, observationally, would have ticked multiple boxes on an observational study, and would have appeared at intervals to be an idiot: poor memory, often misinterpreted information in conversations, seemed to be somewhere else, forgot everything from where she'd left her keys to what her cat's name was, with a tendency for trip and falls.

She has an IQ of 147.

I know this is an oversimplification, but it's astonishing how hurried and superficial the extraction of information in some studies can be.

It’s one of the reasons it’s a considered a next gen antipsychotic because it has fewer off-target effects.

I remember when they were saying similar things about Z drugs. The new, vastly improved generation of anti-anxiety, sleep, etc drugs, free from the often devastating effects of benzos. Turns out not so much.

Here’s Abilify’s affinities Ki (nM) for muscarinic acetylcholine receptors

How about nicotinic acetylcholine receptors? While nicotinic and muscarinic receptors have different MOAs, which may make this question moot, nicotinic neuronal receptors, which are found throughout the peripheral and central nervous system, might have more relevance than I at first thought....

Thanks for the Wiki info re Abilify's affinities for muscarinic acetylcholine receptors. I'll take your word for it, since right now I don't have either the mental energy or a sharply focused interest in Abilify to pursue it, but I know other readers, both current and future, will find it valuable.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

I am taking 2mg of Melatonin and half a tablet of Unisom, I have been doing this for quite a while and still does the job in getting me to sleep

That's almost exactly what I take on the nights when I just desperately need sleep, about one out of 4 or 5, soetimes a whole week .... and you're right, it's like the Energizer Bunny .... it just keeps on working ....

I break the melatonin into about 3 doses, cutting a 1 mg tablet in half and pacing it before bedtime .... it's great to have something so effective, so side-effect free (at least for me, hoping for you, too) and so not connected to Drs, office visits, prescriptions, etc .....

 

[leokitten]

Proving the reliability of many studies, 3 of the ones I remember (I think two from the BJM and one from the NIH) stated categorically, no exceptions, that anti-psychotics were serious dementia threats down the road ... at least two of them were published in 2019, so the new generation would have been available for study for almost two decades.

I never read this at all and as a scientist myself no scientific team in a study would ever say categorically without exception all antipsychotics increase the risk of dementia without testing every single one of them. Especially the newer ones that have no muscarinic acetylcholine affinity or effects at all. Sorry to put the work onto you but show us the three papers you reference.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

Sorry to put the work onto you but show us the three papers you reference.

Been to this rodeo with y'all before, and I think I'll sit this one out ....

 

[jaybee00]

https://parkinsonsnewstoday.com/201...rking-parkinsons-seeking-prolonged-treatment/

 

[jaybee00]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1924754/

 

[Hip]

https://parkinsonsnewstoday.com/201...rking-parkinsons-seeking-prolonged-treatment/

Quoting the article:

They discovered that L-DOPA triggered widespread changes in DNA methylation. This process is a common way for cells to change their gene activity in response to environmental factors. When enzymes place the molecular tags — in the form of chemical methyl groups — on the DNA, the genes become either less or more active.

The team found that in some areas, methyl groups were lost, while other parts of the DNA became heavily methylated in nerve cells from striatum — the brain region holding the dying dopamine-producing cells.

Certainly makes you wonder whether Abilify might be selectively altering methylation and thus gene expression in specific areas of the brain, leading to poop out.



Some years back, I experienced rapid poop out from the dopaminergic antidepressant bupropion (Wellbutrin), one of Dr Jay Goldstein's ME/CFS treatments. This drug instantly gave me two weeks of total remission from all my brain fog and cognitive symptoms, which was remarkable; but then exactly two weeks later, the drug just stopped working, and even a long break from it did not help. I never figured out why.

At the time, this Wellbutrin poop out reminded me of the historical story of giving L-dopa to encephalitis lethargica patients (the disease which turns people into living statues, caused by the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic). These living statue patients rapidly recovered movement once given L-dopa, but some time later, it stopped working, and sadly the patients slipped back into the disease.

 

[jaybee00]

I think all the dopamine drugs will poop out eventually.
One patient in FB is on L-dopa and it is working for her for two years so far.

 

[JohnnyMinnesota99]

Hello everybody!

My doctor prescribed me Abilify (aripiprazole), and so I am eager to take it, even though I am always cautious when it comes to side effects.

Here's my question: I have taken Oxymatrine for 10 months. I think it helped me to some extent, and I havent't had any side effects. Does anybody know if Oxymatrine can be taken together with Abilify? Is anybody taking these two meds together right now?

Best wishes and all the very best to you!

Johnny