Tag Archives: Abilify

Abilify, Health, Medication

Talk About Abilify with Pamela

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ARC_Talk_About_Meds_Banner_Pamela

 

 

 

I have been asked, by The Recall Center http://www.recallcenter.com, see also http://www.recallcenter.com/xarelto/side-effects/ to “talk about my medications” so here I am, talking about my “favorite psychotropic drug, NOT..”: Abilify.

 

Why do I take Abilify?

 

I take Abilify, well, why do I take Abilify? I was prescribed Abilify because of the diagnosis of schizophrenia many years ago, and I usually take it along with another anti-psychotic drug (Geodon). But frankly the reason that I, I myself, take Abilify for now has nothing to do with psychosis or schizophrenia. I take Abilify simply and only because I have this weird feeling that it helps me write and do art. Ever since I have been taking it, or the two drugs together, I have had no trouble doing art at any time or even writing when I want to. The extra plus is that I can finish longer term projects, ones that I start on one day and have to finish over time. In the past this was a problem, but it seems to not be so difficult for me any more. I do not know for certain whether this is due to the effects of the Abilify/Geodon combination, but it feels like it, since I was never capable of finishing projects so easily and reliably before then. On the other hand, I believe that I can do these things myself now, and that once I get used to living here, in my new state of Vermont, I will choose to sloooowly go off the medications for good.

 

 

How do I remember to take my medicine?

In truth, I often forget to take my medications, but for the past thirteen years I had a Visiting Nurse come to remind me. And now that I live in another state, where this service is not available, I have a med tray that is delivered weekly. I hope that I will be able, by seeing this tray openly on display on my table, to remember to take the ones I want. At least for as long as I want to take them.

 

I have been asked about side effects of this drug, but I would say, 1) all “side effects” of drugs are the effects of the drug, and you cannot tell a person that she is only suffering “side effects” especially if they are serious enough to cause distress. 2) there are very serious and troubling effects possible with Abilify, so my experience is not necessarily typical 3) I used to feel very irritable on Abilify, but no longer 4) usually I add Geodon to help me sleep and calm the anxiety that Abilify can induce

 

Where do I go for Medical support? I just a few weeks ago moved to Vermont, so I do not yet have a Primary Care Provider, but I do have a psychiatric nurse practitioner who will see me – so far, at any rate – once a month. For medical issues, at this time, I do not know whom I will see, but in Connecticut I used to have an APRN at a doctor’s office. I also was able to get to an Urgent Care center easily, in CT. That is not possible here in rural VT. So in the event of a medical emergency, I do not know exactly what I would do, except call 911 and hope for the best!

 

Before taking Abilify, or ANY anti-psychotic drug, here are the questions that I think you should ask your doctors: You should ask, first of all, why he or she is prescribing an anti-psychotic medication for you. Does he or she believe you are psychotic? If not, why prescribe such a powerful and possibly devastating drug? And if so, why? Doctors should be willing to answer this openly and honestly and if they will not, then I do not believe that you should listen to their advice, but get a second opinion. You never know who might derive financial gains from prescribing a medication that is not available generically. Also, why is your doctor not being honest with you? I would never feel comfortable in a situation like that…

 

 

Ask your doctor what to expect after taking this drug and when to expect the effects, good or bad. What does he or she anticipate you will experience as a benefit and what he or she thinks you might experience on the down side? Ask them to be honest about this and why they feel it is worth the cost/benefit ratio to you.

 

Abilify is extremely expensive and non-generic until 2015, when a generic form is scheduled to become available. So if you can, I would ask your doctors about why they are prescribing this particular drug and not another. There may be very good reasons for it, such as a low incidence of weight gain, and little sedation, at least at doses below 15mg. Nevertheless, I would want to be certain that there were no financial inducements such as stock holdings in the pharmaceutical company involved etc.

 

 

There are ALWAYS risks involved when you take pscho-active medications, or any drug, but anti-psychotic drugs can be especially problematic for some people. Even though Abilify causes fewer problems with massive weight gain, for many people this is not always the case and weight gain as well as Type 2 diabetes, with or without weight increase has been known to occur on Abilify. Over-activation and irritability have been reported frequently, in my experience. And many people I know who have taken Abilify have told me that they have trouble sleeping if they take it at night.

 

Published research suggests that 30mg of Abilify is no more “effective” than 15mg. From my own experience, I can only say that at 15 mg Abilify is quite activating but at 20-30mg it becomes suddenly sedating and less helpful. This is why so many people refer to Abilify dosing as “Less is more.” They mean in some sense that the lower doses work better than the higher ones, unless the sole goal is sedation, in which case I would say there are better drugs for that purpose and safer ones.

 

As for drug interactions, I am not aware of any important ones.

 

Finally, the three main things I wish I knew before taking Abilify are what I wish I’d known before I took ANY anti-psychotic drug many years ago: that if I took what they gave me, and kept taking it, 1) I might be disabled for the rest of my life 2) it might induce chronic/episodic psychosis – i.e. stop the natural process of recovery in its tracks 3) NOT that my brain’s neurochemistry was already “out of balance” but that my brain and its neurochemistry would be changed and destabilized by the drug itself…

 

That is what I wish I knew before taking Abilify. Before I take any drug from now on, I will find out these things and determine for myself whether the cost/benefit ratio really makes sense.

 

 

But on the whole I would say that NO DRUG developed in the last 20 years has been adequately or honestly researched for any pharma company to make a claim about either its efficacy or its safety. NONE. So I would on that basis probably never take a new drug from now on. There is not a drug company out there that I trust to have done ANY new brain research, since it’s all based on junk and garbage theories that arose from “back researching” Thorazine, which was bogus in the first place. So why would I want to take a drug that was developed from research coming out of that cesspit?

 

I am 62 years old. I am NOT suicidal and I certainly do not want MDs with murder on their brains to euthanize me with their psycho-drugs, or to use me as some guinea pig to determine how much control they can have over people…NO MORE DRUGs, NO MORE DOCTORS, NO MORE HOSPITALS AND HOSPITAL ABUSES.

 

 

I may take a couple of drugs today in order to survive the transition from CT to VT, but you must understand that my brain was already damaged from the years of having been given them against my will. So I HAVE AN ALREADY DAMAGED BRAIN, from the medications I’ve already taken.

 

I do not advise anyone with a more or less intact brain to take an anti-psychotic drug, not ever, not if you can avoid it and certainly not for “the rest of your life.” NEVER take any drug on an ongoing, “forever” basis. ALWAYS re-evaluate your need for it.

 

And that is all I am going to say about Abilify. If you take Abilify for “depression” you have come to the wrong place. Nevertheless, I have written a blog post just for you. Do a search on “Add Abilify” and you should find it. But you won’t like it any more than this one. Sorry about that.

 

Health, Medication

ADD ABILIFY?!

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PHYSICIAN ABILIFY SAMPLES
PHYSICIAN ABILIFY SAMPLES – DO NOT ADD  TO ANYTHING! THIS IS NOT AN ANTIDEPRESSANT. THIS IS AN ANTIPSYCHOTIC AND A DANGEROUS DRUG.

I know, I know, you have probably seen the commercials, but I am new to television and I only just started to watch them…and I just saw one that has been running probably for years now with the sad little pill that gets people to “add Abilify” to their so-called “anti-depressant” in order to boost its effectiveness. I learned about this advertisement recently from a friend of mine who innocently enough told me, told me, that Abilify is “just another antidepressant”.

Excuse me? I said to her. Abilify is NOT an antidepressant.

“Yes it is,” she insisted.  “I saw it on TV.”

“No, Abilify is an atypical antipsychotic drug, not unlike Zyprexa or Risperdal. I don’t know what you are talking about, calling it an antidepressant.”

That’s when she told me about the sad little pill commerical. Well, okay, so the pill isn’t sad, the woman in the commercial supposedly is, and when the nice doctor she sees, adds the nice little Abilify pill to her so-called anti-depressant, she perks right up like an obedient child and, wow, the two pills work like magic to make the world right again. WOWEE!

So again the public is sold two lies, or maybe three or maybe half a dozen. First we are sold the lie that antidepressants do something in the first place. WAIT A MINUTE. Okay, they do do something, I admit it. They change the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain, yes, they do that. They alter something. Yes, and doing something, making a difference, altering anything makes people feel DIFFERENT and doing anything to change people’s feelings about ANYTHING when they are depressed can lead them to feel that it is better than doing nothing. ‘

But you have to understand that taking a mind altering substance to do something, anything at all, just to feel different, is not at all the same thing as actually treating a pre-existing chemical imbalance. And they know now that there is no such thing as a serotonin imbalance in the brains of depressed people. NO SUCH THING. In fact, they cannot figure out why people become depressed at all, but they do know that serotonin levels are not involved in any such simplified ways that the SSRI drugs purport to “treat.” Even Prozac researchers have admitted as much. Prozac researchers knew that their drug did not work way back in the 80s when Prozac first came out. They knew it induced suicidality in a large number of people, but they rushed it onto the market because Lilly needed a blockbuster drug, period to pad their pockets.

But that aside, the researchers to this day know that antidepressants do nothing to actually treat depression, because they have admitted that they do not understand what causes depression.

That said, does anyone who takes an anti-depressant understand what they are doing when their friendly psychiatrist or family doctor  “ADDS ABILIFY” to their nice little psychoactive cocktail? Well, in addition to experiencing some or all the terrible  but COMMON side effects of, say, Zoloft or Prozac (these are just those for Zoloft):

Inability to have an Erection Severe
Sexual Problems Severe
Altered Interest in Having Sexual Intercourse Severe
Drowsiness Less Severe
Dizzy Less Severe
Chronic Trouble Sleeping Less Severe
Low Energy Less Severe
Excessive Sweating Less Severe
Involuntary Quivering Less Severe
Loss of Appetite Less Severe
Weight Loss Less Severe
Head Pain Less Severe
Feel Like Throwing Up Less Severe
Gas Less Severe
Diarrhea Less Severe
Stomach Cramps Less Severe
Feeling Weak Less Severe

they might well experience  these COMMON side effect of Abilify:

A Feeling of Restlessness with Inability to Sit Still Severe
Feeling Restless Less Severe
Indigestion Less Severe
Incomplete or Infrequent Bowel Movements Less Severe
Drowsiness Less Severe
Dizzy Less Severe
Chronic Trouble Sleeping Less Severe
Increased Hunger Less Severe
Head Pain Less Severe
Feel Like Throwing Up Less Severe
Throwing Up Less Severe
High Amount of Triglyceride in the Blood Less Severe
Anxious Less Severe

These are the commonly reported side effects from common antidepressants Celexa and Lexapro: in terms of Psychiatric Disorders, to which one might be told to “add Abilfy”:

Frequent: impaired concentration, amnesia, apathy, depression, increased appetite, aggravated depression, suicide attempt, confusion.

Now, I ask you, everyone, DOES THIS SOUND LIKE A RECIPE FOR CURING DEPRESSION?  Any fool would look just at the list of side effects and say, uh, I would be more depressed if I experienced even two of these….But doctors think that people will feel better if they take drugs like these two together, and put up with these side effects, just because they are told  that “by adding abilify” and  their depression will go away.

The point is, the doctors are IN THE DARK. They read mostly what you do, and they see the same commericals you do. Most of them have no more idea whether the drugs work than  you do, and they only know what they are told by the drug reps and the drug companies….DO NOT BELIEVE THEM when they tell you that you have a chemical imbalance. They are either lying to you, or believing a lie they were told by someone else. ASK THEM questions, investigate. Ask  precisely what is the correct balance, what are the correct numbers…Do not be sheep. What were the studies showing any proof? Who did the studies and who  paid for them? Changes are you won’t get good answers, or if you do, your answers won’t make you any more secure than I am. Because drug companies pay for most of their own studies and they only pay for the results they want, ie what they want to hear…They do not want to hear that Abilify hurts patients, or doesn’t actually work, or that Abilify does not boost Zoloft’s anti-depressant IN-efficacy. No, they want to lie and “prove” a lie or else not prove it by not actually doing the study to prove anything. They want to market the drug and advertise things that have NOT BEEN SHOWN TO BE TRUE AT ALL. They want to market a lie, sell a drug and make money, without doing any research to prove anything, and pick up the pieces billions of dollars later, if at all.

I say, BULL SHIT

My advice? Don’t add Abilify. Add only Sunlight and Truth to everything.

Art, Health

Healing Art as I go down the Rabbit Hole…

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TIm, my best Gay Boyfriend, eating watermelon.
TIm, my best Gay Boyfriend, eating watermelon.

 

And now for something really different. Cartoons that tell you about my life these days.

Pam's Having Car trouble
Pam’s Having Car trouble

 

Hope you can make out the text okay…It is a little difficult,. granted. But I tried to photograph the pages clearly as possible.

The next morning she retrieves the car
The next morning she retrieves the car and finds the same problems remain…Why?

 

She's GOt all the dates Wrong
She’s GOt all the dates Wrong and so much more…

 

Fear is ONLY an Almond...the amygdala in the brain is the NUT that makes us nuts!
Fear is ONLY an Almond…the amygdala in the brain is the NUT that makes us nuts!

 

Gargantua is the name of a book, and a character in the book. In it someone says, Appetite comes with eating. It helps me to think about that when I find i cannot find a way to put food enough in my mouth to keep going…I need to eat on schedule if only to keep my strength up.

 

It cannot be Pam Pam Pam al the time. No, he has to start to share of himself or the relationship is off. She CARES about him and it isn't all about HER!
It cannot be Pam Pam Pam al the time. No, he has to start to share of himself or the relationship is off. She CARES about him and it isn’t all about HER!

Meanwhile I am not in a good state at all. Bill wanted to talk about an email I sent him saying as much as the above, but I am much too shaky to be able to deal with it. I just cannot use him to talk TO alone…I have friends with whom we have shared equally all along, and so I do not feel a burden now when I am in trouble. But Bill has ceased talking about himself a long while ago, and I am to blame for letting him withdraw. I felt slighted but felt that perhaps he was reserved and saved his intimate moments for his girlfriend…But no more. I cannot be using HIM as a pair of ears and feel that he shares nothing back. THen I feel guilty and a selfish user! That isn’t fair to me let alone to him…It won’t happen. It won’t be. Not any longer. Hear that, Bill? YOU are an important part of our friendship, as a person,. and if you don’t want to be a person, I do not want a NON-person as a friend.

 

Enough. I feel like I am going to die. And now even the doc doesn’t want to suggest that I take even a sliver of Abilify now that I am off it…So I am really up a creek..Up a creek because I dunno how long I can tolerate this. I smell rot rising inside me, smell it for real., Like my body is rotting from within…Where is it coming from? I brush my teeth several times a day (unusual for me!) but still the rot smell persists!

 

I am not a praying person, but I know many of you are. I am in such deep shit. I will be going to art therapy today, perhaps that will bring some relief. in the meantime, if you feel prayer can help, pray for me…?

 

Thank you , all of you, for hanging in with me. I am NOT a quitter, I am not a quitter!

 

 

Appetite, Eating, Medication, Mental Health, OCD, Uncategorized

The OCD Project on VH1

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I have to tell you that I do not usually watch VH1. In fact, thinking that it was always and only a music channel, and moreover that it featured music of the sort I do not generally enjoy, I have never watched it. But I was up all night last night because I couldn’t fall asleep and I was channel surfing, trying to “bore myself to sleep,” only to come across their amazing program, The OCD Project. Yes, it is comes under the rubric of a “reality show” and the OCD sufferers featured might in fact be “on stage” in the same way that I suspect those  “Housewives of New Jersey” on Bravo Channel are (the dames in that show must be acting, they are so ridiculous!). But it is hard to believe this is the case. Even if I am wrong, it doesn’t matter, because if they are performing in any sense of the word, the enactment of the disorder of OCD is so compelling and the treatment so gritty and potentially life-changing that I am going to recommend it to everyone who happens across this post.

Please, whether or not you have schizophrenia, bipolar or Lyme and you have come to this site because of those: if you have any interest in or symptoms of OCD, check out THE OCD PROJECT at the following link. Once there, scroll down to the links to the full episodes. Click on Episode 101 first, then the clips to 102, then the full episode 103 and you will be all set for Episode 104 when it appears either on TV or on the website.

Good viewing! I think you will be impressed and may learn a lot. I know I did. Let me know what you think.

Perhaps more important, let the producers of the show and of VH1 know your feelings, because such programming about mental illness is so very important and their efforts in that direction ought to be encouraged.

http://www.vh1.com/shows/the_ocd_project/series.jhtml

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Brief update:

The Saphris and Abilify continue to do me good without causing any particular harm or objectionable side effects. Except for the pills’ bad taste and brief oral anesthesia after taking Saphris –surely a tiny price to pay for what seem to be big benefits — I can’t think of anything I would improve about it. Perhaps it would be good to feel inspired to get back to “doing artwork” again, which has not happened. Not yet.  But I think this may be due to the fact that I have been focusing on writing poetry to the exclusion of almost everything else. On the other hand, I can read, a little, which is good, though it takes some effort to sit with a book and concentrate. When I decide to make the time and do it, I can. I am also, I think, losing the weight I gained on Zyprexa, slowly but surely, which is only to be expected, since the Abilify has all but caused my appetite to vanish completely. I am back to forgetting to eat, rather than emptying the fridge at all hours of the day and night.

That brings me to the subject of another post I will write soon: how drugs affect the appetite and how my experiences with Zyprexa and Abilify make me certain that while appetite may be all in the brain, it is “brain-chemistry” for everyone, even for those who do not take medications. It has virtually nothing to do with so-called willpower.