I’ve been on Abilify for 2 weeks, at first I really loved it’s strong antipsychotic effect however what I did like more is it’s strong antidepressant effect (didn’t expect the last one). After a week I bumped up from 5 to 10mg. 2 days on 10mg and it totally lost it’s antidepressant effect and made me depressed and the crippling anxiety people talk about became worse day by day that I backed down to 5mg. The past two days I really started to feel ill overall and the anxiety was just too much to take anymore. Yesterday I also noticed that I started to show signs of Tardive Dyskinesia, that really freaked me out so I stopped.
Anyway, I have a mild form of positive symptoms but do suffer much from depressive symptoms and therefore (When I stop worrying about the side-effects) I want to try Abilify again at 2.5mg (in the hopes it will still have it’s strong antidepressant effect) and if it doesn’t have antipsychotic effect at 2.5mg maybe add 37mg Latuda.
Anyone else on a very low dosage of Abilify? How do you feel on it? Is it effective for your positive symptoms and mood? And how about side-effects?
I am on 2.5mg, nothing else. Have been for 6 to 8 weeks now. Feeling good overall (AD). Mood is stable. No psychotic symptoms except some disorganization (AP). No anxiety. No side-effects.
I hope I can tolerate 2.5mg and still get it’s antidepressant effect, I’d rather not take another antipsychotic next to it since they all antagonize dopamine and therefore affect my mood/negative symptoms. I probably will react very positive to the partial agonism of Cariprazine or Brexpiprazole but I still have to wait for a while before it’s on the market here.
I do have positive symptoms but they’re very mild and I’ve noticed they’re more on the surface when I’m on full antagonist AP’s. I was so surprised that 5mg Abilify has such a strong antipsychotic effect on me, it made me positive symptom free. I mainly suffer from depression and negative symptoms. I’m on 20mg Parnate (antidepressant), 1/1.5mg Clonazepam a day and I’m still looking for a drug to improve my sleep. I suffer from sleep maintenance insomnia.
Tomorrow I will re-initiate Abilify again, this time only 2.5mg. See how that’ll workout.