Hi. I dont want to speak against any medication if it helps people, I just wanted to share my experience with Abilify and older meds. I believe that the users of these meds understand them much better than the people prescribing them.
Abilify is a medication the Pdoc wouldn´t believe did not help me in any way. I wondered if anyone else had a similar experience? I was put on Abilify because my previous Pdoc seemed to love anything from the company that distributes it. Anyway, he would not listen to me that I was putting on weight from it. I gained 24 kilos, which is a lot for a smallish frame. Also, it made me feel like I wasn´t myself. I was like a zombie. After my weight did not stop rising, I took myself off it. The weight dropped off. The Pdoc was forced to admit it was the medication, but still argued that Abilify is supposed to be weight neutral. I checked the small print though…it seems to be a side effect.
Anyway, after abilify, risperdal, seroquel, I am now on Trilafon. Yes, the old school med which seems to be gaining more popularity. This med is wonderful, NO weight gain, I feel myself, and I have energy. That´s wierd because I thought higher potency drugs knocked you out more…
I wondered what other people´s views are regarding older and newer meds. I guess there is no money to be made with the older more cheaper meds, but they seem to work just as well…
Older meds don’t do the same things as newer meds. So depending on the specifics of your sz, the old meds might help you more or the new meds might help you more. Sometimes you need an old med and a new med in combination to deal with all the symptoms. Also whether a drug knocks you out more depends on your body. Certain drugs knock some people out more and not others. That’s one of those “try it and see” things.
There are online reports on which receptors each med works on regardless of being older or newer. All psych doctors “should” have a template of which receptors are malfunctioning in each patient. With that information, it would be a quick analysis to determine which meds might work for you and to what extent. I did this with my brother and it was extremely accurate. Other than a DNA analysis, I determined my brother’s malfunctioning receptors by analyzing which meds he had already taken and which helped and in what way they helped as well as which ones didn’t help and in what ways they didn’t help. We’re dealing with chemical imbalances here, so it’s pretty straight forward.
I can do this analysis for you or anyone on this forum if anyone is interested in determining what combination of their receptors are malfunctioning and which meds might work for them.
I have never heard this from a Pdoc before. But my New one did suggest this older type because the 3 atypicals I tried didn´t do anything except make me put on weight and sleep. This Trilafon is great…so far. So how would you analyze that?
I would get a list from you of all the drugs you have been on up 'til now, with the last being Trilafon, and have you tell me what sz symptoms any of them helped, and which ones didn’t help your sz at all. If Trilafon eliminates all your sz symptoms, then that’s very telling, but Trilafon might be doing more than you need and affecting receptors that you don’t have issues with, not that you care about that. With all that info, I can probably get a pretty good idea of which of your receptors are malfunctioning. If Trilafon works 100% for you, then we don’t need to determine which drug might work for you, but I could still try to determine which of your receptors are malfunctioning if you’re interested. Note: With my brother with paranoid sz I was able to translate this information into which vitamin deficiencies he has and start getting him on the dosages of particular vitamins that he needed which has helped him substantially.