Abilify And Teens (Page 4) (Top voted first)

My 13 yr old son has just been prescribed Abilify and I need to know if anyone has experience with their teen being on this.

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My son, 16 on Abilify for 10 days Started at 5mg and then uppped to 10 mg for Bipolar rage. On day eight drooling, abnormal gait, waxy flexibility (catatonic). Off Abilify for 4 days and still has abnormal gait. Toxic drug. Would not recommend as first line treatment unless you want to turn your raging teenager into a zombie.

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This has been my experience to a T. I have gone through almost the same exact thing. Just don't take abilify. Nothing good comes of it.

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How is she doing now ? Would you still use abilify for her? My daughter starts Monday and I am very scared for her !
Thanks

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Thank you so much for posting about your son and abilify. Our son also was put on abilify and has been for the past 2 years he is 18 now. No weight gain in fact extreme weight loss. I couldn't agree with you more about the affects if abilify on a teenage brain. Reading your story was like reading our own. Everyday I wish he didn't take it and that we tried other meds .... He will never be the same. Our youngest son is 13 and experiencing voices and seeing visions of people it scares me to no end !!!! There is absolutely no way he will be taking abilify. I miss my older son who he was who could have become. Scared for his future as he does not have the maturity of a 18 year old. I have a question for you are you able to have regular conversations with him? Can he focus on what you are saying for more than a couple of minutes? Is he hyper focused on certain things? Does he seem childish? Does he have a odd misplaced laugh ? I would love to talk to you more.

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My friends daughter who has just turned 18 was put on Abilify, and shortly afterwards she seemed to be having problems with more depressing acts. Which then turned her away from her friends. She then started drinking ( which is out of character for her) . Now she just got an underage DUI, and going 30+ mph over the speed limit, while she had 4 friends in her car with her at the time of arrest. Could this abilify be causing her to act unrashionly.?

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However, it has only been 3 months...

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Momofmany

I read your comment with real concern. My daughter had problems when she was 15. By the time she was 16 she was diagnosed with aspergers but was also sectioned for six months and put on arapriprsole (abilfi). Before her problems she was a bright girl getting good school grades. After taking taking this drug she seems to have a lowered mental age and. IQ. She is 21 now and she was mature when she was 10 than she is now. I really regret asking the medical profession for help. I worry so much about her future and feel terribly guilty that they used this drug on her against her will.

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What dose did he tske

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How is she now? My 13 year old had ADD and OCD and one option, after being on meds is to try Abilify.

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My son is 13 now and started taking abilify when he was eleven. He is extremely ADHD and all other medications had stopped working. He was failing assignments he did and we spent hours at night having to correct everything by writing each question and answer 3 times. My son can barely write so it was agonizing for both of us. He was becoming uncontrollable at school with angry outbursts that would get him in lots of trouble. We made world news because he was arrested for saying he was going to bring a gun to school. This is not behavior or language he learned at home, and we have no guns. Abilify was a last ditch effort to help him. And it was a miracle drug. He became calmer and could think again. He did gain weight. He was a 60 pound skeleton and doubled his weight in one year, despite the fact that he is very active. On the one hand, I feel bad for him because it has really slowed him down, but on the other hand, I have my son back. He has had no other problems and has been passing his classes for the last two years. He still struggles with assignments, but at least he is passing overall.

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I am a surgeon - not a psychiatrist - but no medicine is good or bad. Abilify is a mild anti-psychotic ( partial agonist/antagonist) that can help many people. Often people need stronger medication or their diagnosis changes as they develop from the teen years onset of early and often hard to discern symptoms. No one should read this board and say it is a "good" or "bad" drug. Get a second opinion from an adolescent psychiatrist and realize that it may take time to find the best treatment as mental disease/diagnoses can change quite thoroughly in youth. Good luck and God Bless you all...

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I started abilify around 2005/ 2006 when i was 14. I gained over 60 lbs within a year (so much that i could barely climb a flight of stairs without collapsing. I remember walking to the 4th floor in high school to my biology class, taking my pulse, and it was well over 200.), attempted to kill myself by overdosing on prescription medication, and eventually went on to have intimate relations with any guy, and even girl i could. Shocked i never got pregnant or had a venereal disease.

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I'm 20 years old now and took abilify at 13. I was wondering if you also had any reproductive problems like irregular periods or infertility? I believe it may have caused mine, so I thought I'd ask another woman who took it during a developmental stage

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"4Rachel Says:
Tue, Feb 24 '09, 2:57 PM

When I was 12 years old I took abilify. I was diagnosed bipolar, but last year I found out I have PCOS which is a hormonal imbalance. I took it until I was 15 when my mother and I both decided it was giving me nothing but trouble. It might just have been because I had nothing mentally wrong with me to begin with, but when I started it, I became very depressed and suicidal (psychiatrists played on that and gave me anti-depressants that made me even worse.) While on abilify, I became dizzy very, very easily, would be too tired to do anything and wound up sleeping most of the time, and I developed the startings of an ulcer, which I suffer from very frequently now at age 18. For me, abilify did nothing but confuse and anger me. Then again, I was just a victim of malpractice. Still, I would advise parents and teens to be aware that abilify can have adverse side effects and if anything seems too off, get a second or third opinion about the mental illness in the first place - and never doubt that it could be a medical condition like it was for me."

My 19 year old daughter went to a clinic for depression - she has never been a moody person, they put her on Abilify and Wellbutrin. She has become more and more destabilized - 3 hospitalizations in 4 months. Every time the hospital stops it - the damn clinic keeps putting her back on it. I am so frustrated and concerned, I just do not understand why they keep putting her on this medicine not once has it worked for her.

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My 13 yo daughter has ADHD, some anxiety/depression/ocd and is very very very moody, mostly with me. Dr. just prescribed 1 mg. of Abilify. She takes focalin and concerta and clonodine and lexapro. She said i wont have to worry about weight because it is such a small dose and she is on a ton of ADHD meds, but i am still worried and worried about all the other side affects too.

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My 14 yr old son was just on it for two days!!! He was complaining of blurred vision, nausea, neck turning to left uncontrollably, eyes not focusing and rolling back in his head & throat closing..I took him to the ER and Dr gave him meds and Benadryl to help him. They saved his life but from what I have read on Abillify this could happen for the rest of his life!!!! As a parent who has gone threw this I would not want to put any child on Abillify!!! PLEASE read up on any meds the Dr wants to give your child before you give it to him or her... KEEP OUR KIDS SAFE!!!

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My son is 13yrs.and just stated abilify two day days ago. Anyone else have experience with drug for 13yrs boys. Pros & Cons?

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There is a difference between "normal" teenage rebellion and the need for independence and a chemical imbalance that leads to suicidal ideology, as was the case with my son. Many physicians take a Whole Body approach. Abilify helped my son in a time of crisis to rebalance brain chemicals, but now he takes it with Lexapro and will wean off the Abilify. I understand your concerns about Big Pharma, but the days of doctors making money from prescribing things are LONG gone. Try not to be so judgemental unless you have personally almost lost someone to suicide. Thanks.

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As a former Child and Family Therapist and a current family member of teens and adults with serious depressive disorders, please consider:

First: Experience declares that our family medical Dr. should not be diagnosing and especially not prescribing for serious mental/behavioral disorders (that includes Bi-Polar). Though their license certainly allows it, they are very poor practitioners at behavioral health diagnosis and provide no clinical treatment. This is a major disservice to patients! Please note : Bipolar as a diagnosis is grossly misused by Family Practice Doctors.

Second: This is the key to successful treatment of behavioral health problems - Most behavioral health diagnoses are derived from behavioral observation, thus traditional, best practice, outcome based, therapeutic treatment by a therapist who is skilled at both diagnosing and treating your particular diagnosis should be the first attempt to improve functioning. Important: Make sure that your primary therapist has as much accurate behavioral and physical information as possible in order to assist with a proper diagnosis. Take the time to think it through and write it up. There are proven therapies for most all major diagnosis. People get help every day for their behavioral health challenges. Consider asking your therapist what the best treatment is for the diagnosis she/he has assigned to you. Ask to see the criteria for the diagnostic disorder and why they believe that you fit these criteria. Doing this can help you become a more active part of the entire treatment process, not just part of it. If your therapist won't allow you (and your parent for teens) to be an active part of the entire process, then consider obtaining a more open therapist. They can't 'fix' you, but together as a team, you can experience improved behavioral health.

Third: Medications should only be used when both the primary therapist and the psychiatrist agree that it should be considered as one aspect of a therapeutic intervention. If the psychiatrist doesn't value input from your primary therapist, you - the patient, and your parent or caretaker, well... consider being more directive in what you will consider doing. Now, I did not say that they have to agree with you, your parents and your therapist, but that they seek and value your input.

Fourth: Know the medications desired main effect, the potential side effects and monitor yourself for all of these. Keep a daily record: When something changes in you, note it along with what you have done, what has happened to you, what you ate, or what you experienced differently in the 24 hours previous to this 'specific change' then report all this to both the primary therapist and the psychiatrist. For long term illness, I’ve seen accurate recording that was ‘spot on’ in explaining things that impact the patients quality of life, being able to differentiate between life issues, from physical issues, from behavioral/mental/relational issues, from medication issues. This is invaluable especially in long term treatment. Advocate for yourself or your loved one.
Fifth: Just because a particular medication works badly for one person and well for another, has no bearing on if it will work well for you or your loved one. Continuing for years on a medication that ‘causes more problems than cure’, is irresponsible on the part of the provider and the patient (or parent), both are at fault. If you have an accurate diagnosis and a particular medication works well for people with your diagnosis, you and your treatment team should consider it, and if you decide to use it, do as I've noted above.
Lastly: With some persistently dangerous and/or violent teen patients we must consider what we can do before they turn 18 to help them to not continue to be this dangerous person. Many times the loving parent cannot or will not accept that their child could kill and is developing to be a killer. I’ve seen in parents of these type patients and I see it in my own extended family: “Not my Johnny, he doesn’t mean it when he gets out of control (anger and violence), has hate filled eyes, takes a knife and say he’s going to kill his mom! He had a caring side also, etc”. Again, I’m referencing persistence or reoccurrence in this type behavior. A side effect of a suppressed personality and/or some developmental delays (as terrible as they are) for many people is less onerous than having our child, grandchild, niece, etc kill a family member, kill others, kill themselves, and if not dead by age 18, live in prison for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, sometimes there are no good options available. Even in this case, what I’ve shared above still applies, be a vigilant, informed, involved patient and caretaker for your loved one.

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Our doc is recommending transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy for my daughter over medications. I pray it helps.

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Hello, Has anyone experienced a relief in chronic pain while on Abilify. I am convinced it is this medication that relie...

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