Abilify

[Weareheavenbound]

I was wondering if any of you take Abilify for depression. My Dr just added 2 mg of Abilify to my Zoloft as the Zoloft wasn't working well. I guess I'm a little freaked out because it's a 2nd generation antipsychotic.

 

[FireDragon76]

Why? Are you hearing voices? You should be concerned, if your doctor keeps you on that long term. Antipsychotics have serious long-term risks, and polypharmacy (giving several different drugs), in general is not a good practice in medicine unless it can be strictly medically justified. Don't accept an "everything but the kitchen sink" approach when it comes to medicines/drugs (my mom recently ended up in the hospital because of polypharmacy, and this stuff literally kills thousands of people every year. It's just bad medicine in general).

There are better treatments now for treatment-resistant depression, such as esketamine or dextromethorphan. Depression is not caused by deficiencies in specific neurotransmitters. Depression is manifest in the brain as a lack of neuroplasticity and over-connections in certain regions of the brain. Conventional antidepressants are a relatively blunt instrument for increasing neuroplasticity, and it's hard to see how antipsychotics are appropriate if you aren't experiencing psychosis.

You need to be working with a good therapist that can address depression in a multimodal way, addressing all aspects of your life, not just through drugs. I got away from psychiatric drugs years ago. Psychiatriasts are also capable of mismanaging and misdiagnosing people, too (I had adult autism, something they did not pick up on), and there have been criticisms of the clinical validity of many psychiatric diagnoses (meaning there can be alot of subjectivity at work, potentially).

 

[HTacianas]

I was wondering if any of you take Abilify for depression. My Dr just added 2 mg of Abilify to my Zoloft as the Zoloft wasn't working well. I guess I'm a little freaked out because it's a 2nd generation antipsychotic.

My doctor prescribed an anti-depressant for me, but it was prescribed for something other than depression. I think the first one was Zoloft also. I didn't like it at all. It seemed that it made me simply not care about anything at all. After a few months I told him I didn't want to take it anymore so he prescribed something else instead. I guess my point is that if you start taking something new like that be careful to pay attention to your mood. If anything strange happens mention it to your doctor.

 

[Diamond7]

There are better treatments now for treatment-resistant depression

The best "treatment" is the Precious Blood of Jesus and positive thinking so we draw positive energy and not negative energy. We put on the Mind of Christ and we can think the Divine thoughts of God as we resist the enemy when he tries to put negative thoughts into our heads. If we need healing, God can heal. Not just memories, He can go back in time to heal when an event took place. Even He can go back generations if our ancestors were traumatized and if that is still having an effect on us today. We can be restored and take back what the enemy stole from us.

 

[dms1972]

You don't always need to be hearing voices in your head, before i was on a medication I didn't hear voices, I had blanks / absences of not knowing what had just previously happened, I never had voices. I was put on an atypical anti-psychotic for a while as an adjunctive, however it was quetiapine (at a low dosage) I was on, not aripripazole (Abilify)

The question should be - is what you are on currently helping you?

If you can, talk to your doctor about it and what other options there are.

 

[RileyG]

I have a lot of racing/intrusive thoughts (anxiety/mood disorder) and have been prescribed Abilify over a year ago (February 2022) when I got out of the psych hospital. I do not know if it's helping or not. You should discuss this with your doctor. I can only pray and hope for the best.