abilify- hypomania??

[klmno]

psychiatrist added abilify to difficult child's lithobid and tegretol last week and told me to stop it at any sign of agitation or restlessness. difficult child was on a cleaning spree last night, went out for 3 short walks, went to bed about 11:00--11:30 and was up cleaning when I got up at 7:30 this morning. I'm stopping the abilify.

Has anyone had this experience with abilify inducing hypomania? It was the lowest dose.

 

[crazymama30]

Yep, husband did that. I am not sure if it is hypomania, or akanishtiea(sp). With husband it stopped. He called psychiatrist and psychiatrist said to wait and see if it went away. Now bear in mind, my husband has Tardive dyskinesia, and that was psychiatrists primary concern. The Abilify did not make the tardive worse, so it was worth continueing. I have no idea what this means with your difficult child, and with husband I am just guessing at what it is. psychiatrist never (as far as I know) diagnosed husband with that condition, but he has been diagnosis'd with tardive.

I would call your psychiatrist, ASAP. I am not sure where you are, but I am thinking East Coast, so they should be open now or very soon.

Good luck

 

[TerryJ2]

Gosh, wish I could help. Sounds like a busy bee!

 

[bran155]

A friend of mine who is bipolar recently started taking Abilify, a low dose and she had the same reaction to it. She was utterly restless, could not sleep nor sit still for 5 minutes. The doctor raised the dose and it only got worse. She stopped the Abilify and the restlessness went away.

My daughter also took it a few years back. She had an opposite reaction to it. She was so zonked, slept all day, had an unsteady gait, drooled uncontrollably and had signs of akathasia, she was very stiff and her jaw began locking. I ended up taking her to the ER. Needless to say we took her off of it immediately after that.

Good luck.

 

[klmno]

Thank you! Since we've been trying to get difficult child stable from rapid cycling and psychiatrist told me to stop the abilify at the first small sign, I am comfortable stopping it. He was doing better on the tegretol and lithobid alone, but still showed some problems with anxiety.

 

[DammitJanet]

try seroquel

 

[bran155]

Seroquel is exactly what the doctor put my friend on in place of the Abilify.

 

[gcvmom]

It sounds more like akathisia than hypomania. Either way, probably not a side effect you want to be dealing with.

Sorry for another medication disappointment!

 

[lizzie09]

My son was put on Seroquel in November and it had immediate positive effect. No side effects to report

I am afraid of weight gain but it hasnt been significant yet...Abiliy is supposed to be less likely to put on weight.

Whilst I wish we needed no medications...seroquel has done the job nicely for him at 3 x 25g dosed and hes 22yo I know this is a relatively low dose but he was hypomanic before.

 

[compassion]

difficult child is on 15 MG of Abilify and 100 of Lactimal. It really does not have that effexct. She is like that from her mania. The Abilify and the Lactimal calm her down. She had side effect from Seqeurl in hospital. I peranlly think for difficult child Abilify and Lactimal work fine but really have not been able to get her as stabilized as she needs. Alachol, drugs, nicttine which I knwo whe imbibes in when she is on the lam negates the effects of her medications. Comapssion

 

[Steely]

Abilify produced a 72 hour sleepless, manic, binge for difficult child. Not good - at all. In fact, some lovely stories I will share someday occurred during that 3 days.

difficult children recent Dr told me Abilify is not the best for a kiddo that is hypomanic. It can aggravate it. Uh, yea.

This Dr also told me that kids like Matt and possibly yours, rarely stabilize without 2 mood stabs and an AP, like Seroquel. Has your taken Seroquel before? If not, I would definitely try it. I thought your son had though......or maybe it was just a too small of a dose? Sorry, my memory is failing me.

How is the Tegretol doing?

 

[klmno]

Well, difficult child was stabilizing well with the increased tegretol and removal of naltrexone (after Marg put a doubt in my mind about it). psychiatrist and psychiatrist at psychiatric hospital suggested giving abilify a try for difficult child's anxiety issues. Obviously, I don't want my son to suffer with anxiety or self-harming ideations, but I'm really aggravated with these psychiatrists rx'ing medications for him that are high risk for mania given that difficult child has been having severe rapid cycling for several months. Personally, I think we better stop mania and get that under control first, then worry about less dangerous symptoms. psychiatrist made it sound like abilify was low risk for inducing mania, but from what I read here, that isn't true.

by the way- Hi, Steely!! I haven't seen you in a while and hope you and M are doing ok. How's his plan going? I'm starting to think our sons were cut from the same mold. LOL!

 

[klmno]

difficult child didn't do well with AP's he was on before. He tried seroquel but it was such a short trial that it would be the one we would try again, if an AP is added back.

 

[ML]

(((((KLMNO))))) Just want to add my support and say that I agree about pulling that abilify. That anxiety just seems to be the last symptom to go away, if it ever does. Love, ML

 

[Steely]

Hey klmno........

Thanks for asking. I have been posting more and more lately. I guess I am a bit cyclical in my posting. Hmmm.....wonder what that means

Why was he on naltrexone........ I must have missed that post. Isn't that for alchohol abuse?

I believe that with most medications, doctors talk and know only about the "norm". There is VERY little research out there about our kids. So while the "normal bi-polar" adult patient may respond well to Abilify - there is little to no research about our bi-polar kids, especially the ones who do not fit into the bell shaped curve of "normal bi-polar". (If there is such a thing.) So a lot of my insight about medications has been my own, and then later on, down the road, I will have a Dr say, yea that medication has been known to do that. Really? So why in the hay did Dr X give it to my kid??? And there is usually no answer from the new Dr, because the new Dr is only going on his own patient experience, not documented research, just like I have been going on my own parental experience. Does that make sense?

This is the reason why I have been the over involved meddling mom since Matt was 6 with his medications - because I could see that he was WAY outside of the bell shaped curve, and whatever medication we put him on was a total cr@p shoot. The only way we would know if that medication was not going to work was my observation........not some medical journal. If I had a dollar for every time a psychiatrist said to me, "oh no, that medication does not cause that" I would be rich. Seriously.

So, on the flip side, when they put Matt on Paxil and it really, really worked - I had many professionals and even board members telling me an AD was the worst possible choice for a BiPolar (BP) child. Especially Paxil. However, it works wonders for him if combined with 2 Mood Stabs. So, the point is, you have to completely trust your gut, just like you are doing - and take what the docs say with a grain of salt. Yes, they are correct in "thinking" Abilify may work - but it doesn't, and you took him off of it, and now you are on to the next thing.

Thanks for asking about Matt. He is hanging in there. One day at a time. Probably the hardest thing for me, actually, is not being so overly involved with his medications. The Dr even told me I was in the upper 2% of Moms neurotically involved in their kids medication treatment. Ahhhh..........thanks. It is only because I have watched it day in and day out for 12 years, but OK. None the less, Matt is back on the same medication regimen he was on, per my suggestion (the one the phosph "accidentally discontinued" back in Sept) - and he is more stable than he was 2 months ago. I have my first visit planned to see him the first of March - keeping my fingers crossed.

As for your difficult child, has the Tegetrol gotten to a therapeutic level yet? Have you seen improvements in his outbursts and meltdowns?
Hugs

 

[ML]

Not to hijack the thread but Steely, manster's psychiatrist basically told me the same thing about my involvement. There are worse things!

 

[Janna]

I recall someone asking you in the last thread, but don't recall if you answered, has your difficult child had a blood draw recently to check thyroid?

You know Lithobid/Lithium can induce hypothyroidism and make someone very, very overactive, which could appear like mania. I would question that before the Abilify. My .02 anyway.

I say that because my son, who is reactive to EVERYTHING and EVERYTHING stimulates him, was very highly sedated on a very small dose of Abilify. And, continued to do so - it slowed him down ALOT.

 

[klmno]

Hi, ML!! Thanks for your support!! I've been caught up in "system" drama and haven't looked around much at how others are doing, so I hope you are doing well.

Steely, I have had some thoughts about myself being BiPolar (BP), too. LOL!! That would make difficult child happy, if nothing else! I understand what you mean about medications having the "rare" effects on our kids. psychiatrist has told me on more than one occassion "I don't see how it could effect him that way- the odds of that are soooo slim"- well, it did. And, psychiatrist is starting to leave more decisions up to me, I have noticed. I told him last week that we were never going to try an AD like we tried in Oct and like prozac again- ever- for the rest of difficult child's life and psychiatrist said "well, you're the boss". LOL!!

I'm glad they finally put M back on his "regualr" medications and is showing improvement. I don't know why it took them so long. Is this upcoming visit the first you have seen him since he went in? I don't know if I could handle going that long. Yep- I'd be on the phone "meddling" in the treatment too!

difficult child started on a very low dose of tegretol the first week of Jan. It was added and depakote er was removed. Of course, he's still on lithobid, and has been for about 18 mos. Anyway, at the time the tegretol was added, he was still on naltrexone (for self-harming). Aggression/violent threats greatly reduced after removal of depakote- and I was thrilled to get rid of depakote any for other reasons- but there were a couple of intermittent explosions. Then, when Marg mentioned something on another thread and posted a link to an article about naltrexone, I got a doubt that maybe that was behind the explosions. difficult child had stopped self-harming so I thought I'd remove for a few days- which I did and there have been no explosions since. But, that was only about 12 days ago. I told psychiatrist last week and he said that was fine as long as difficult child isn't self-harming.

 

[klmno]

Janna, you snuck in. LOL! Yes, difficult child had major blood tests for everything 2 weeks ago in psychiatric hospital- and everything was therapeutic, normal, and negative for street drugs. Protein and something else was high, but I don't think it pertained to BiPolar (BP) or medications.

 

[Janna]

No, I don't mean was his Lithium level theraputic. I mean, what was his thyroid levels. Thyroid level has nothing to do with Lithium level. I would just call and ask, just to be safe, u know? D's TSH was 107 - freaking WHOPPING! And his normal was 4 LMAO!