Might have to start taking a full dose of abilify

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I’ve been taking a half dose of abilify for the last two months now after I failed to get a TMS treatment for the constant depression I suffer from and remeron was too much for me. It helped me not feel as depressed during the day but it now doesn’t really feel like it’s doing anything for me. This tends to be the case when it comes to taking medications for me. One notable thing I’ve noticed is that I can’t find enjoyment in reading like I did when I originally took half of an abilify and will now just either get frustrated or fall asleep when I try to read. The quarantine also hasn’t helped things and I tend to just sit around feeling unmotivated. I have a video visit scheduled with my psychiatrist in the coming week and she thought about having me take a full pill the last time we communicated.

Last edited by Marknis on 02 May 2020, 1:45 am, edited 3 times in total.

i hope it works for you to your satisfaction.

I'm having a lot of trouble with low motivation too, and I do think it's to do with stay-at-home orders. But today I washed six loads of laundry ... although I never did get out of my pj's.

a one time very good friend of mine warned me not to take the very addictive drug abilify .But she was on it for several years .
stated the withdrawels were very very hard to deal with . Can you find a seperate unrelated doctor to reveiw the decision not to do TMS .. Best wishes either way.

It must have felt good to be less depressed though, for a while?

I also have a hard time reading, and now I wonder if it might be a med side effect. I know I had a med side effect of taking clonazepam too long, which was prescribed for periodic limb movements in a sleep study. It turned out that that drug has a greater than 24 hour half-life, meaning over many months, I was accumulating it in my body. It explains my sense of why I got to feeling "stupider" about 4 months into graduate school. I take a short-acting drug now. But if I had not had that side effect, I might have completed my degree.

I hope you get a good result on the higher dose of Abilify. I take it, that's an add-on to a regular antidepressant?

I've been on duloxetine (Cymbalta) for years, both for chronic pain and for depression. It is working for both problems. Things don't bother me as much any more. Of course, after my bad experience with clonazepam, I have to wonder if I am doing long-term damage I'm not aware of.

It did but I still suffered since my life still hasn’t changed for years.

I am torn between taking a summer course or taking a break for summer. I know you have to start somewhere when it comes to college but I don’t really feel like I am “evolving” as a human being. Instead of feeling like I am gaining new knowledge and figuring out what to do with my life, I feel like I am doing menial tasks that are no different than what I did back in my grade school days.

It’s sort of an add-on since I take citalopram (Celexa) at nighttime.

Is there a reason why you don't want to try a full dose?

It's really common for people who take SSRI / antipsychotics or ADHD meds to try more than one medication and adjust the doses until they find the right combination.

I’m not sure if taking a full dose will have adverse side effects or not.

But you are sure that taking half a dose isn't enough. Give it a try if the doctor recommends an increase.

All meds have some potential side effects but if you are being monitored it should be safe to try.

I feel depressed when I listen to music, even when I like it, because it reminds me that my time for becoming a musician is long past and my own musical ability isn’t what I wish it could be. I also don’t have any friends who play instruments and would want to form a band. Sure, I knew people who wanted to play music but I failed to establish long lasting bonds with them due to conflicting life circumstances, my social difficulties, and my tendency to get easily discouraged. This could be an indicator I need a medication increase.

Hopefully the fact that it helped a little at first is a good sign, although I too am very familiar with trying meds, having them help for a little bit but then stop, and an increased dose doesn't help. I understand just how hard it can be to believe that this one will be any different because I'm in much the same position when it comes to antidepressants.

I wish I could tell you good things about Abilify, but I had a bad reaction to it when I tried it, and it's not a very common reaction to it so I don't want to scare you by sharing it, there is a very low probability that it will happen to you, I think. If you get any bad side effects, remember that you absolutely can stop taking a medication prescribed to you if it's doing more harm than good (I'm a very strict rule-follower, when I realized that it was the Abilify doing that to me, it didn't even occur to me that I could just stop taking it without being told to do that by my psychiatrist), or if you want to go back to the lower dose instead of the whole pill, you can do that, too. If I need to adjust my meds in between psychiatrist appointments for any reason, I just call my psychiatrist and let her know I'm doing it, and she'll let me know if it needs to be slowly stepped down or something. I think I wasn't on Abilify long enough and/or wasn't taking a high enough dose to form an addiction, so I can't really say anything about that (though I do have experience with withdrawal symptoms for Effexor, don't know if that may be similar or not).

In any case, I sincerely hope the Abilify will be helpful for you. You really deserve a break from (or end to) the depression you suffer, and I have nothing but well wishes for you.

Thank you, dragonsanddemons. I started taking a full dose but haven’t noticed anything different, beneficial or harmful. I am feeling anxious about taking a summer college course which isn’t helping my mental state. My family is really pushing me to do one despite how short and fast paced summer courses are.

I’m feeling very despondent and hopeless today. Part of it is the quarantine but I also wonder if taking the full dose has brought this on?

When did you start the full dose?

Two days ago.

I'm not a doctor but in my opinion it's likely not related to your increased depression. Two days is very soon for emotional responses to a medicine. Usually you need to wait about six weeks and see how you are feeling on a consistent basis. It sounds like you're depressed because you are being pressured about your summer course, and you are likely a little anxious about your medication. In my experience new meds / doses are more likely to cause increased anxiety for a short period of time, rather than increased depression. Do keep an eye on it but please rest assured it's probably fine. It seems you are feeling frustrated by your family's expectations, more than anything.