Posted by med_empowered on October 30, 2005, at 15:18:10
In reply to Re: Just starting abilify, posted by highone on October 30, 2005, at 11:40:23
When I first started Abilify, I loved the stuff--I could finally leave the house without a weird, poorly developed sense of paranoia haunting me (I wasn't psychotic per se, but I had anxiety to such an extreme degree it could be considered psychotic). But..as the dose went up, the good effects diminished, and the ill-effects popped up. Anyway, in my experience a morning dose is a good idea (abilify is **usually** non-drowsy, especially at low-doses, when it tends be kind of acitvating)..you might also benefit from short-term nite time sleep aids (benadryl, ambien, whatever) to get over the hump. As for the anxiety...some people get over the akathisia/anxiety that abilify causes after a little while. If you can, that's nice. But..I experienced akathisia while on low-dose (2.5mgs) zyprexa, and it was HELL. So...the best thing would be for your doc to RX something just in case, instead of telling you to "get over it"..akathisia may strike a medical professional as a "minor side effect," but it can be unbelievably uncomfortable. Propranolol can help; benzos also help; I personaly found the combo of klonopin+propranolol to be highly beneficial. Good luck!
poster:med_empowered
thread:573275
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051024/msgs/573452.html