i keep trying to find out if abilify is going to work for me i know zyprexa worked really well but it caused to much hunger and i gained 90 pounds and got high cholesterol. i read a bunch of reviews on abilify but i couldnt find many people who switched from zyprexa to abilify even tho i am switching from geodon to abilify i know that zyprexa worked really well for me and i was on 10 mg, at those dose the voices were basically completely quiet if i had went up to 15 mg i would probably have no voices at all
but i am looking at this, i found this from someone else i think on the forum posting it a while ago
and basically abilify only mainly binds to the d2 receptor and the 5-ht2a receptor but zyprexa mainly binds to the 5-ht2a receptor and abilify only a little bit, it is hard to find out everything from this as zyprexa binds to all the receptors almost equally but abilify is mainly d2 receptor and zyprexa binds to that but not alot but it can still be doing something to that receptor
now d2 is a dopamine receptor and 5-ht2a is a serotonin receptor, and zyprexa worked really well for my hallucinations as well as my mood but 5 mg the irritability returned but on 10 mg i was like a normal person i didnt get irritated by everything and i didnt get angry as much, i also read somewhere that serotonin has more to do with mood and dopamine has more to do with hallucinations which is why antidepressants are for serotonin and most antipsychotics focus mainly on dopamine with some of them working on dopamine and serotonin
i am praying that abilify works for me i know it is used as a mood stabilizer as well as for psychosis and that is a good thing because i have problems with my mood but if this works for both psychosis and my mood that will be great but one thing i know is that zyprexa is one of the most powerful antipsychotics and it works for a majority of the people that take it so im hoping abilify will work well for my brain and that i will no longer be irritable and have rage episodes, the voices are quiet and have been since i was on zyprexa which was 4 months ago but it would also be nice is abilify got rid of them completely than i would be normal with no voices and no mood problems
Ya I heard that abilify caused less weight gain too. I so wanted it but it wasn’t available in Canada yet. So I raised issue with my counsellor and they said if I took antidepressants for a while then they could help me out. Apparently SSRI make sz easier to treat. So I did. Mind you I was like anorexic skinny by time they took me off the SSRI but hey at least now I’m still not so out of control obese.
i heard from someone else on here that ssri’s for them got rid of the irritability and rage that i have been having but i am afraid that i might have a mood disorder and that if i took an antidepressant it might cause mania, i am on Geodon and it binds mainly to the 5-ht2a receptor which is a serotonin receptor and i am assuming its an agonist meaning it reduces serotonin so i think that is why it makes my mood bad because its giving me low serotonin, here are some of the symptoms of low serotonin:
Constipation
Anger
Unusual sensitivity to pain
Carbohydrate cravings and binge eating
Lack of joy
Panic attacks or excessive worrying
Low self-esteem
Violent behavior or suicidal thoughts
Poor cognitive function, such as an inability to focus or a lack of mental clarity
Mania or obsession
Agitation during bad weather
Fatigue
i have the anger, constipation, lack of joy, excessive worrying, suicidal thoughts, poor cognitive function, obsession,
sorry if i am going on about what might sound like nonsense i probably would benefit from an antidepressant but i don’t think i can try antidepressants because they all can cause an abnormal heart rhythm and have that interaction with Geodon so i am afraid to take anything else with the possibility of it affecting my heart as Geodon has messed with my heart i get palpitations and they hurt and i feel like i am going to pass out sometimes and when i took an antidepressant (trazodone) with Geodon i passed out like 5 times a couple minutes after getting out of bed and i had the most painful heart palpitations and like a loud sound in my ear felt like i was dying so i think i need to avoid anything that can affect the heart that is another one of the reasons i am switching to abilify other than my mood being terrible on Geodon
i think i probably wont need an antidepressant tho if abilify works well but i don’t like being on Geodon at all i cant deal with all this mood problems, heart problems, and only feeling tired when i take it in the morning but having the most energy ever when i take it at night
Ya actually years after I had taken the SSRI (celexa) I was perscribed it after going back to the doctor for stress. But this time it just made me manic… Like high as **** manic out of control so I stopped that right quick. The crisis counsellor thought it was street drugs it was so bad. Looking back I think when you start to get manic is their sign to take you off celexa. I should note that I had taken olanzapine for a number of years prior, during and after celexa. Ya your right some of these drugs are different yet still under the Ap class. Honestly I think the best and happiest most effective course is to try to not jump around from one medication to another every couple years but to keep it to a minimum. But hey that’s just my experience. Before celexa I should also say I was a flip flopper too.
Just because one med messed with your heart it’s not necessary that the other will. It might be listed as a side effect but everyone reacts to meds differently.
I get the feeling docs like it when you have exhausted your own resources. Try going to the Er for a headache. They’re like what you didn’t take anything for it. And for some reason if you did they think you should have taken something else. Guess everybody has to become a doctor.
To find out if Abilify works for you or not, you need to try it.
Abilify is said that it’s weight neutral but I gained over 20 kilos while on Abilify.
You never know if a med works or what side effects will appear until you actually try it.
This is complicated stuff and it can be easy to get the wrong idea if you don’t have background knowledge in this stuff (ie I don’t know if you should be trying to figure this out yourself without a doctor’s help)
For example it is true that dopamine is more associated with psychosis however different receptors are associated with different things and did you know both too high and too low levels of dopamine are associated with it just in different areas of the brain? Seratonin is the same way, for example the 5HT2A receptor is actually strongly associated with hallucinations and is what hallucinogens like LSD bind to. If you didn’t know that you may shy away from one with high 5HT2A action because you wouldn’t understand it, even though these may have less extrapyramidal side effects due to less blocking of dopamine receptors…
So please work this out with a doctor. You can tell them your concerns and what you want from a medication and they will be able to explain mechanisms to you. If a doctor is not willing to explain to you how a med works they are not a good doctor because that means they are either too arrogant to think a patient could understand or are rusty and don’t remember. Both are bad.
Also upon examining this pie chart I’m not even sure it’s completely accurate…aripiprazole is Abilify which is supposed to have a lot less binding to dopamine receptors, certainly not as much as haldol, a first gen AP…less binding to dopamine receptors means less risk for TD so newer gen meds should have a lot of different things they bind to or have larger binding portions to the seratonin receptors. Looking at other versions of these charts Abilify is majority 5HT1A, but I’m not an expert. Another danger of trying to find info online instead of from a professional, there is no guarantee to accuracy…
UPDATE I didn’t realize it said D2, that makes somewhat more sense as Abilify is a partial agonist and D2 I believe is the excitatory dopamine receptor. Reviewing those neuropsychopharm memories LOL
do you know if abilify is in any way similar in receptor binding profile to olanzapine i have just looked at a couple other charts and they are different and i want to see if theres any way to tell if abilify will work since Zyprexa worked really well
It’s not zyprexa which make voices but they are intenthionaly silent to pretend they are gone but they are there, their intention is to keep you on zyprexa which has no harm to them.
Please ask an actual doctor, I only have a bachelor’s and have only taken one neuropsychopharmacology class whereas a psychiatrist has spent 12 years minimum in education about this stuff and then even more working with it.
I know they work differently. Abilify=partial agonist of dopamine, zyprexa=antagonist. Because of this it is not guaranteed if Zyprexa worked for you Abilify would. Seroquel is in the same class as Zyprexa however.
fuuuuuuck isn’t a partial agonist like the opposite of an antagonist wouldn’t that mean that abilify would have the opposite effect Zyprexa had on me, Seroquel was the first med i was on i was only on it for 2 months and i was on the lowest dose which makes is big because i was on 25 mg and the lowest dose for sz is 400 mg but i slept for 14 hours when i first started taking it and i think it might have made the voices worse, either that or it just didn’t work at all making the voices seem worse
No not necessarily. A partial agonist is like a weaker form of a full antagonist, mechanism wise. So if an antagonist completely closes a receptor and prevents all dopamine binding, a partial agonist closes it partially, so some still gets in. Partial agonists are supposed to be the least likely to give TD because of this, since high dopamine blockade is what leads to it. (But all 2nd gen APs are pretty unlikely to give TD unless you’re on a very high dose for many years)
Some professionals consider partial agonists to be somewhat weaker APs than others. So strength is typically thought to be partial agonists (Rips&Pips classes)<Dones<Pines. I think someone said on here once there was a study that showed Abilify was just as potent but I’m just repeating what I learned, I know meds are always being developed and new research is always going on. Anyways if you’ve never tried Abilify you don’t know. You don’t know what level of blockade you need for your symptoms. Maybe Abilify will be fine for you. Though I also learned it can be kind of stressful switching from an antagonist to an agonist because that is opening your receptors from a closed position so you’ll be getting more dopamine coming in and your symptoms may get worse temporarily before improving again, but a good doctor will transition you slowly so that that may not even happen.
In my case Abilify was too weak for me, it barely reduced my psychotic symptoms whereas risperidone worked very well.
In summary don’t knock it till you’ve tried it Abilify is supposed to have the least amount of side effects of like any other AP out there right now
That was not the case for me but it’s SUPPOSED to lol
Abilify is supposed to have the least amount of side effects of like any other AP out there right now