So the last time I saw my doc/therapist she raised my Zoloft dosage to 75 mg (which is really awkward because I have to take a 25 and 50 pill so I have like 2 pill bottles for it alone), got my Ativan refilled because she doesn’t want to take me off it until I’m stable on my other meds, and picked up Abilify for the first time. She told me she’s starting me on a VERY low dose to be careful, 2 mg. I am anxious about starting it when I go home because I know these meds can do such weird things to you starting out and I don’t want my family to be like “what” lol.
Anyways I’m basically a walking pharmacy of medications now. According to therapist though Zoloft and Abilify are commonly prescribed together. Also I think Zoloft is really starting to help with my anxiety!! Even if I haven’t noticed changes in depression yet I have been so much less aggressive and fearful/on edge lately. And the heavy sleepiness I used to get is much more mild now so it’s fine. I just hope my parents don’t notice I’m being prescribed 4 meds right now (technically 3 since the 2 of them are Zoloft) otherwise they may have heart attacks
I started abilify also, a couple weeks ago. It has taken the edge off of extreme swings. Also, It has dulled some visual and auditory hallucinations. Just dulled though, nothing too special with those. I am happy about the swings though.
They started me out on 5 and brought me up. At 2 mg you may not get the full range of side-effects. I actually haven’t noticed any except some restlessness and maybe a twitch here and there. I hope all goes well!
The only thing I’ve really noticed so far after taking this first dose is I feel like it almost canceled out the effects of the Ativan…but I know I’ve been building tolerance to the 1 mg dose of it so it could also be that dose isn’t working for me anymore…bah. So it didn’t really make me experience anything abnormal for me, I’m just having a regular weird night. (I’m sitting up at 4:45 am right now because I guess my body decided to just take a light nap. Doesn’t feel like I slept at all but here I am 3 hours later from when I tried to fall asleep…ugh)
I have Abilify too. Nice of your pdoc to start slow. I started on 5 mg and rised 5 mg/week to 15 mg. But I was pretty much psychotic at the time. 15 mg made a differance for me but 6 months later I got psychotic again and had to increase the dose again. I’m on 25 mg now. Been stable since june last year. Except for voices. They never leave me alone. But no full blown psychotic episodes.
Oh yes so far the Ativan has been marvelously helpful, and I’m now even starting to see the effects of the Zoloft. Weirdly enough it seems to be working with my anxiety and PTSD symptoms more so than my depression but I feel like having to deal with my PTSD less makes me happier anyways!
I’ve been taking Abilify for a couple days now and so far no real side effects! I was braced for the worst but really it’s been fine. I think it may make me slightly jittery and then drowsy but really the effects are mild. Then again I’m only at a 2 mg dose and my pdoc intends to go higher. Ah well.
It’s kinda weird how antidepressants had immediate noticeable bad side effects on me even at low doses, but the antipsychotic, which I was more afraid of taking, had none. I was so paranoid for nothing :<
It took awhile for me to develop side effects from aps. Like a year with my current med. Now I’m taking the shot every 5 weeks instead of 4 and its better, no side effects.
It didn’t take a year to get good effects from it thought right?
Currently I’m struggling. I take Zoloft in the morning and am supposed to take Ativan and Abilify at night. So I’m fine during the day, and I’m fine at night, but in the evening, that period of time between when the Zoloft is wearing off and I haven’t taken the other stuff I CRASH. I was actually going to start carving up my leg. I had a knife, a paper towel under me, bandaids. I ended up not being able to and then went to go color instead but I’m very concerned because I’ve never gotten to that point before.