Ten years ago I suffered two psychotic episodes and I was diagnosed with a schizophreniform.
I have been on Abilify for a long time.
Last year I stopped taking Abilify under my psychiatrist orders and after about 3-4 months, I felt bad, I had no delusions or paranoia, the only way to describe it is how you feel after a psychotic episode has ended, blanks in thoughts, slow movements, out of it. confused etc.
My psychiatrist said it was not a return of the symptoms but said he wasn’t 100% sure, he said if it was depression I would have the slow movements etc, all the time it would not come and go as in my case.
He started me on 10mg of abilify for a month then dropped to 5mg and now on 2.5mg.
I am currently on 2.5mg Abilify for a year, then we discuss what I want to do.
What do I do in a year?
Stay on 2.5mg of Abilify
Reduce Abilify even further
Get off Abilify and try and find out what happens see whether it was return of symptoms.
Any of your suggestions would be greatly appreciated
I would at least read this article and see if you can practice the skills set described in it for a while so that you can use it in a year to make up your own mind about what to do.
2.5 mgs is very low dose, and sounds like it may be sufficient to keep your emotionally stable and relatively free from cognitive distortions. I take a very low dose of Seroquel to do the same thing. I’m not 100% “symptom free,” but I am waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than I was as the result of continuing on the low dose along with using the skills described in the article.
Maybe the study is saying 2.5mg abilify does nothing to help with schizophrenia but maybe it helps depression. I am positive its not the placebo effect in my case.
In my case it has a massive effect on me.
I will explain:
On a scale of good mood 10, bad mood 0.
When I was on 10mg, my mood on was a 4.
When I was on 7.5mg, my mood on was 5.
When I was on 5mg, my mood on was 6.
When I was on 2.5mg, my mood on was 7.
When I was on nothing, my mood on was 10.
So it does something in my case maybe due to depression, I am not sure but it does something.
Works really good for me at a low dose in terms of keeping me calm (along with what I have gotten from psychchotherapy), but I can still get delusional at times.
Like all of the anti-P’s, Seroquel quetiapine is a molecule of a particular sort coming into contact with a brain full of other molecules of a particular sort. Thus, it will work just dandy for some, fairly well for some, not so great for some, and plain horrible for the rest. One may have to try several before finding the one that works best and produces the least discomfiting side effects.
While research into why this is so is underway on a broad front, the complexities involved suggest that it may be a long, long time before p-docs are able to give sz patients a “test” of some sort that determines (relatively) precisely what particular anti-P is best for their particular brain full of molecules.
If sufficiently intrigued, look into Stephen Stahl’s work, as he does a nice verbal and pictorial job of explaining all this