I nipped it in the bud!

DX'd - Sz/SzA
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First sign: insomnia. Last night, contrary to my normal habits, I couldn’t sleep well. I kept waking up.
Second sign: mild paranoia. During the night dad went twice to the bathroom and as he passed by I thought he was checking on me to see if I am asleep or I am faking it.
Third sign: accelerated heart rate. Today in the first part I checked my pulse and it was over 100 bpm. But no anxiety. (I have negative symptoms, remember?)
Fourth sign: thoughts getting more intense in the afternoon. I started making connections between unrelated events and having a slight grandiose delusion that I have risen above the human dimension and I am now able to notice the “puppeteers” who manipulate people’s decisions and actions.

By the time this 4th and last symptom emerged, I had already made up my mind to take 5mg abilify. In the end I took another 5mg just to be sure, but maybe 5 would’ve been enough?

It’s now 10 pm and I’ve already regained my clarity of mind since two hours ago. The AP kicked in pretty fast :relieved:

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Are you going back on abilify full time ?

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Whenever i took abilify the first time in a few days it made me passout the first few nights. Then I woke up and i wasn’t psychotic anymore. Except maybe the first time on abilify, it took longer than that. But other than that I’ve never gone off it for more than like 5-6 days. But it didn’t make you groggy? It doesn’t once i build up a tolerance to it but if I’m off it it makes me groggy.

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I’ll try to message my pdoc tomorrow and tell him about this incident. We’ll probably reinstate abilify, I hope to start small, with only 5mg/day, because 10mg would once again usher in the bottomless hunger and inevitable weight gain :fearful:

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I take a bcomplex to stop that. 5mg won’t do anything for you.

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I am feeling pretty sedated now, but maybe it’s normal since I barely slept last night. On 10mg standard treatment I used to sleep up to 14 hours and I’m telling you it wasn’t a pleasant sensation. At all.

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damn you have a lot of unusual side-affects of abilify. have you tried many other meds?

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I have been medication free since July, so 4 solid months and now this joke of a relapse that I put to rest in no time. Maybe 5 mg will suffice. But I am bracing myself for 10mg if needed :expressionless:

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Abilify is my third one. First came amisulpride (unavailable in the US, you might know it though) which gave me severe EPS. Then Risperdal which was better but I would get orthostatic hypotension and dizziness sometimes.

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I would try like latuda or invega or Geodon or something if I were you.

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I saw another pdoc couple months back, to get a second opinion. He mentioned Geodon (ziprasidone) too. I am worried it could mess with my heart parameters…

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Latuda works ok for me. It gives me anxiety and makes me miserable sometimes but nothing that would seriously affect my life.

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Vraylar is good non sedating and not hunger inducing. I am on twice the recommended daily dose. Starting to have sleep issues though

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the worse insomnia inducing med for me was risperidone the third time i was on it and the second one was invega sustenna. i hope you are doing better

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