I like the voices being gone, I was truly astonished when I realized that was even an option. It finally felt like I had space to stretch out in my own head. But then a small part misses them to because I always just thought of them as a part of me? It’s a bizarre predicament for me. I always thought of the voice as my tough love coach. Forcing me to try hard and to be better, but It was exhausting.
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Voices can be like friends. Good and bad friends. Many ppl miss them when they’re gone.
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I take abilify on a low dose,5mg,still had some side effect,so I got to deal with it since it helped me…
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Welcome to the forum @Vivotica
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Abilify is a strange medication indeed. It is a partial dopamine agonist - instead of constantly blocking Dopmine like most antipsychotics, it ‘balances’ the dopamine in the brain, allowing for more or less to be released, depending if you have too much or too little in the brain.
It is a stimulating drug usually, for me it was very stimulating. I had very liittle depression or negative symptoms on it at the time - I was previously on it for years, when it first came out and remained on it for many years.
I took a lot of psych meds, especially after my long run with Abilify - and most all of them damaged my body to a certain degree - either giving me very high blood sugar, Hypothyroidism, massive weight gain,high lipid counts, and recently with Risperdal, my prolactin levels are a bit high causing me to have some breast discharge ( I am a male) and lowering my testosterone levels significantly ( my psychiatrist did not explain this to me).
On Risperdal my weight also ballooned and my blood glucose levels are very high - these are unacceptable side effects for a diabetic like me to have, or for anyone to have.
I am getting of of the Risperdal and switching back to Abiify - last time I was on it I was also taking Tegretol which diminished the Abilify in m bloodstream by 70% !! This time round - No Tegretol so hopefully I will not be semi psychotic on the Abilify like I was last time.
The main reasons why I am revisiting Abilify, is because I am no longer on Tegretol so it should work this time, and because, and this is actually the main reason - It was not harmful to my body - my blood glucose levels were normal, I lost 65 plus lbs on Abilify, No thyroid issues, normal lipid count … etc…
Abilify is a good med if you have mild schizophrenia or bipolar type 1 - my diagnosis.
in my opinion Abilify makes a better bipolar drug than it does a SZ drug - it is excellent for mania and mixed episodes and works pretty good as an antidepressant.
Abilify can cause a lot of akathisia it did for me, but got better over time for me - this time my current psychiatrist will start me off on 5 mg - a low dose, this will hopefully help with the akathisia .
In my opinion and it is actually a fact - Abilify is one of the ‘safer’ antipsychotics out there - safe in the sense that it will damage your body less.
Good luck to you @Vivotica - Talk it over with your psychiatrist on all of your medication concerns.
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