Abilify side effects

I'm am really ticked off! Today at the doctors office, the scale revealed that I've gained 17 pounds in a year. And it's all thanks to the Abilify! I was previously on Seroquel and I never gained an ounce. I'm just so mad right now. I mean, when I was on Seroquel, I was tired all the time, but at least I was happy and I was able to lose weight just fine. But with the Abilify, I can't stop gaining weight. I haven't been cheating at all and I exercise like mad at the gym. I use to weigh 165 pounds and was a size 8. Now I'm 182 pounds and wear a size 12. I hate being overweight. I'm huge and if I don't get off the Abilify, I'm just going to get more huge and I'll be back at 242 pounds if not more. I want to wear a bikini one day and have kids, but now I can't do that stuff! I'm physically too FAT!!!

I started taking 5 mg of abilify a few weeks ago. Before that I was taking 2 mg for 3 to 4 months. I also take 400 mg of lamictal and 20 mg of prozac. The prozac was very recently added.

Anyway, I have tried many different medications and apparently my depression is treatment resistant. Abilify has made me a cold, emotionless person. I have not cried in months. It is terrible when you feel so sad inside and you can't even cry. I have also developed a twitch in my eyebrow which is very hard to control. Most recently I have discovered, on my own and with the help of my mother, that I have akathisia. Although I mentioned a lot of symptoms to my doctor before, she claimed it was just anxiety.

But this is so much worse than anxiety. This is extreme anxiety, being unable to sit or stand still, getting anxiety with just the thought of having to sit still, getting urges to kick, feeling terribly restless inside unlike anything I've felt before, feeling like something terrible is about to happen...

I hate this. I don't know what to do. I'm seeing my doctor in a couple days and I'm just wondering what she will do. Will she take me off or will I get something even worse... will this go away..

i have been on 30 mg of abilify for about 3 years.obviously, i slowly titrated up to that. for the first month, the doctor gave me another drug to go with it-carbidopa/levadopa to keep me from having tardive dyskinesia. after the first month, i came off that med and stayed on abilify, and increased the dosage.the first few weeks were tough,as with any drugs like this, but i knew to expect it and just hold on for the ride...my dr is using it off label,for pain management of "rebound pain"-which is pain that doesn't know when to tell your brain to quit,basically. it has been wonderful for this,and i'm calmer now in other aspects of my life. i was already on an antidepressant,and it compliments it well. i hopes it works as well for everyone, and i hope the doctors understand to give something for the first month to cut down the twitches!

I take both Lamictal and Abilify, I have one doctor telling me they are both the same meds and another telling me they teat two separate things. I've had extreme fatigue and weight gain while on abilify. Has anyone quit abilify cold turkey?

I was on ability for about 2 weeks to try to help calm my racing thoughts and chill me out on my supposed "mania" (The dr. said I might have a slight mania), at first it helped just a touch, not really much - but then towards the end of the second week, I felt faint and very nearly fainted... also felt like I couldn't concentrate at all. Now, months later, I feel as if it has permanently altered my brain chemistry because where I was almost manic in my energy (which was actually nice sometimes) now i have no energy at all and am sleeping tons and just can't get going in the morning. It's awful. Extreme fatigue that I have never known in my life before. I'm hoping to treat it with vitamins, exercise, sun, and am going to see a Naturopath. I won't touch any brain-altering meds in the future ever again. Abilify is horrific they need to just do away with it.

On my 1st dose - 2.5 mg I had an inexplicably frightening, near-death "trip" while driving on a very busy highway. The only way I can explain it is to say that my body took over and wanted to crash into the center divider OR a huge truck that was next to me. MY BODY, not my mind - I don't know how else to describe it. It took every ounce of strength - mental and physical, to force myself to exit immediately and go park at the first safe place. I threw my keys to the back of my car in case I had the urge to drive again (I did not, I waited for help, cried and basically freaked out as quietly as possible).

My 16 y/o daughter has been on ability for a year. they have upped her dose and downed it to add more anti-depressants,then upped it again to 20 mg a day. She has been hospitalized 5 times in this year for suicidal thoughts and depression. She would sleep 16 hours a day. She was not even like a person,she was like a dead person walking around when she was awake. She is completely unable to do any school work or chores at home. She doesn't laugh,she doesn't cry,she has no emotion at all.
She is in the hospital again and I have said for the doctors to stop this medication and they are telling me that these are not side effects that this is the symptoms of my daughters depression that makes her this way. She was never this way until she began this medication..
I urge and warn any parent NOT let a doctor talk you until giving this medication to your child. This and most anti-depressants are not designed for young adults and have severe effects that can en heighten the disorder.The FDA has placed this and many depression drugs on the BLACK LABEL WARNING LIST. This is a little something your doctors will not tell you. These drugs are not even remotely safe for children and teenagers at all. They truly make them worse.

Abilify was recently added to my medication of Depakote 250 x3 (i have been on this for 10 yrs), Zoloft 40 mgs (8 years), and Buspar 40 mgs (8 years). I started taking Abilify last Tuesday the 17th of March. The first night I took it I had trouble sleeping..(but i also had some caffeine that night)...for the next few nights I still had trouble sleeping...I also noticed an increase in my pulse, rapid heartbeat...and my blood pressure! This past Saturday, my blood pressure was 141/91 which was my left arm, then my right arm was 138/90. My resting pulse was 90+ with my heart pounding. I went into work today (i work in a doctors office) and had a nurse take my BP and it was 153/95...now my BP is normally 120/60...the lowest its ever been is 90/70. So to have my BP this high is very strange. I called my doctor and she advised me to stop it ASAP and to call her if i have any more problems. I already have a scheduled appointment on 04/01/09.

I was on Abilify many years ago for a few days and I got severe akathisia. It is a movement disorder where you become extremely restless and are constantly moving and pacing. It felt like my body was alive and it was this intense internal restlessness and a constant need to move. It was severe restlessness. I couldn't sit down for more than a couple minutes, I couldn't sleep, my body just kept moving. I went off the Abilify and it took weeks for the akathisia to go away completely. I became extremely restless. I was young when I took the Abilify and the akathisia scared me. Abilify causes severe restlessness and severe akathisia. The akathisia from the Abilfiy is the worst, most uncomfortable, horrifying feeling in the world. I was a teenager when I was on it and this movement disorder was scary. severe internal restlessness, akathisia. Extreme restlessness, constant internal need to move, felt like I had the jitters, it was terrifying.

I'm on the NuvaRing (hormones), 20 MG of Prozac every night (cause it makes me sleepy) and 10 MG of Abilify every morning. My question is this: Which of these medications are causing me to wake up at 4am, be too tired to do anything all day but not tired enough to go back to sleep!! I've even tried taking Ambien at night to sleep through the night but I still wake up at 4am every morning!!

I have had trouble standing from a sitting position. My internal medicine Dr. ran some blood tests and discovered I have elevated muscle enzymes. My psychiatrist convinced my internist that I needed to have physical therapy instead of coming off the Abilify. If my muscle enzymes are elevated it indicates that I have had muscle trauma due to the Abilify.

OH MY GOD!!!
I have been taking Abilify for one week, and the most scary thing happened to me last night....I woke up because I stood up in my sleep, and the medications I was about to take fell on the floor. After waking from this-I had then realized I was about to take a lethal dose of one of my medications!! I was in disbelief, and then I was completely horrified... I can't believe I almost overdosed in my sleep!!! If I wouldn't have dropped the medications, I would probably be dead, and everyone would have thought it was suicide!!!!I'M DONE with Abilify..I hope you all take Abilify with caution, this is a new medication...so there is still a lot that we don't know.

So embarrassing, but I have to warn people. I started taking abilify 2 years ago and right away I experienced bed wetting...I never had that problem as a kid even. I asked my psychiatrist about it, and she told me it wasn't a side effect. So, I have been dealing with this issue intermittently until now, when I find out IT IS a side effect. Just beware!

I got taken off of abilify the very day I started. The doctor prescribed 2mg and the 5mg later if it worked out. I am thanking GOD he didn't start me out on 5mg. Less than 2 hours after I took the 2mg tablet, I was washing dishes and began to feel faint. I had to put my head down on the sink. My parents knew something was wrong. They kept asking me questions but my vision and hearing started to go. I managed to hear my mother tell me to hurry and make a peanut butter sandwich so I tried. Everything was getting darker and soon I couldn't hear either. My mom gave me the sandwich and I got better with each bite. I went to the hospital and they said i had hypoglycemia from abilify and I nearly went into a coma.

My son who is 8 years old is on adderal and adilify and he started to kick wholes and my wall so i had to put him and the hosp. Is this normal behavior from these meds.

It was like a really bad acid trip for me. I was seeing tracers, visual hallucinations and couldn't be touched. That was after only one dose. My doctor switched me to Geodon the next day.

I've been on Abilify for over a year...first 10mg. I'd take it in the am, get the kids to school, then sleep....but not sound....like a stoned sleep...in and out while I watched tv on the couch...I guess like in the 70's....doing acid or something lol. I couldn't function all day til it wore off in the afternoon when it was time to pick them up. Then down to 5mg. Oh, I'm taking it for migraines, but I'm borderline bipolar II. I don't get manic. I just get depressed. So this ability has taken away all I like to do. No more crocheting for cancer patients or for baby gifts, no more craft shows, no more aerobics......no energy......period. I don't laugh. I've lost all my personality. All for what? To get rid of migraines? Oh, it made me gain weight, too. And it worsened my acne. I'M 43! I take Topamax, too, so btwn what I learned about the side effects from that and this....I'm done! My snap at the kids attitude and the hair falling out and the acne and weight gain are too much for me.....better find some new meds for depression and migraines.......anticonvulsants are out for me. I hope you all have better luck than I did with Abilify.

I see that most people complain of being a zombie. I have the opposite problem. Most of the time I can't sit still or concentrate on anything for longer than ten minutes or so. I was prescribed this for bipolar depression and it has really helped my total lack of energy. Any suggestions?

My 11 yr old son has been on Abilify for about 2 months now
He is STARVING which in his case is a great thing (he's been underweight his whole life due to prematurity & stimulants) to most weight gain would prob be horrible, But I welcome that S/E, He has gained about 5 lbs in the last 2 months

He is recently complaining about being dizzy b4 bed & in the morning & this weird Zapping in his belly once in awhile? not sure if this is related to Abilify or not He is also on Trazodone & Adderall
Also his tics actually got better on Abilify so I welcome that S/E too (I'm watching for worsening of tics though or uncontrolled muscle movements just to be safe)

Ok, with all psych drugs, you're a damed zombie for the first 6-8 weeks. I know that & am willing to accept a little nausea, being a box of rocks mentally, and not being able to find my shoes for the first 6-8 weeks. If things continue after that point in time, I drop the med. Well, I dropped abilify, and this is why:

tardive dyskinesia

The disorientation, & nausea wore off by week 8. I was still not as sharp as I normally am. But, no big. I'll take a 2 point drop in IQ to not drive away the people I love with my bipolar. But, the tardive dyskinesia messed me UP. I was using it in conjunction with Lamictal. I had increasing motor function difficulties. I had to give up my fine detail painting and needle point. Fine, again, willing to sacrifice to keep those I love near. But, the tics got worse. Facial twitches, then severe feet & arm twitching. It got so bad that it became dangerous to drive. I couldn't deal at that point. I stopped taking it cold turkey. I had a blazing migraine & nausea for a week & a half, then my tics stopped, the headache stopped. I was back to how I was before on just lamictal.
I know this drug combo is a miracle for some. And, if it is, that's utterly awesome & I congratulate you on finding something that works for you. But, this very much did not work for me.

A very numb feeling. It's difficult to take pleasure in the things I used to. I can't laugh without it sounding fake/forced.

When my dosage was increased to the 15 mg, I was basically a zombie all the time. I was so lethargic and had no desire to do anything but sleep. Felt like a deep depression without much of the emotional effects.

having awful headaches and craving sweets really bad

a lot of depression, just trying to find out if it's the abilify