WetCloth: 20 y/o coming off aripiprazole

[WetCloth]

Hi, first time writing in here, I'm 20 years old.

I'll start off by saying that everything happened after high school.

Graduated at 19, I'll try to keep it short. I noticed that I kept getting into these weird fights with my mom and every single time it seemed like I was wrong. In each and every conversation we had. I just felt like I was having an endless battle. I remember agreeing to see some kind of a psychiatrist in a hospital (he was very rude and so was I) I remember him using terms like: stationary and something else but hospitalization was never brought up. In theory he did hint about hospitalization now that I think of it, but I've never heard about such terms as "stationary" and something else. Thoughts of me being hospitalized, it just wasnt on my mind at the time. I'll just say that I'm a very passionate gamer, I've been playing games very competitively since a very young age. The only thing I remember that would really used to bother me was my OCD, I always kept it under control and it would occasionally disappear for like a couple of months. I started seeing a pattern, that when I was under really high stress my ocd symptoms would appear and I could barely control them. I used to blink with one eye and would keep wiping my mousepad constantly, readjusting my mouse cable and so on. (but thats a bit off topic) Anyways I remember living a really happy life, before graduating I used to engage in conversation had tons of friends etc, until everything fall apart. Like I said the very thought of me being hospitalized and taken away from my family was just not on my mind at the time. So in the hospital I remember them sticking various syringes up my ass. I could barely walk and I would just sleep all day, when I tried to walk I remember my head was just spinning (this was the very first week). After returning home I couldn't use my computer, watch tv, concentrate, could barely talk and I kept walking around places. (because I couldnt sit still). Also I didn't even know what anxiety was at the time. The not being able to sit still part was probably related to extreme levels of anxiety. (This was me on 20mg of zyprexa). After my parents noticed that my health / condition was just not improving and after countless attempts of me begging for them to send me to a professional psychiatrist, they did. In the first 2 months, I had gained 23kg-50lbs from zyprexa and that's when the psychiatrist took me off it and prescribed me aripiprazole. I remember having like 15 different side effects of being on these drugs. Eventually I lost those 20 kilos after taking aripiprazole for 1 year.

Now I know that I'm being pretty stupid of doing a fast taper, but my reductions were in 50% of the initial value, I would start taking 1/2 of 10mg, and after finally surviving through hell I would continue to take 5 mg for 2 months after that, I started taking 2.5mg, and now im at 1, not sure how I can go lower. I literally just used a knife and split the tablet. By the way all of the side effects disappeared after I started tapering. The only side effect that remains is akathisia? I'm not sure but I always keep moving my leg when laying in bed. also, my psychiatrist cut off contact with me after telling her that I'm going to taper aripiprazole. I tried asking for a taper plan but didn't really receive any sensible responses. She also told that I could cold turkey 5mg but that seemed like a bad idea to me.

Best regards, WetCloth.

Help!

[Onmyway]

 

Hi @WetCloth, 

welcome to SA. Thank you for creating your signature. I'm sorry you are having a hard time coming off of  the aripiprazole. It seems like you are having akathisia. This is your body's way of telling you to slow down. At this point I would hold at this dosage for a while until your state normalizes. You can then start tapering again at a slower rate. Slowing down becomes more important at the lower dosages. 

Check out this thread with a lot of important information on tapering. 

 

Why taper by 10% of my dosage? - Tapering - Surviving Antidepressants

Why taper? SERT transporter occupancy studies show importance of gradual change in plasma concentration - Tapering - Surviving Antidepressants

 

Important topics in the Tapering forum and FAQ - Tapering - Surviving Antidepressants

 

This thread has information on how to come off of abilify and how to get the dosages you need. One of the withdrawal symptoms of abilify can be psychosis so it's very important to be careful with this drugs. Hope your taper goes well. OMW

 

[WetCloth]

Been a smooth ride for a while. Haven't noticed anything weird until I've tried going lower than 0.5mg~ (0.4-0.3mg) take those measurements with a grain of salt since I don't use a scale. Some symptoms return at this point, such as mild OCD. And that's about it maybe a little bit of anger too. I've also noticed that if I take the pill in a delayed manner my sleep will be directly affected. Meaning if I take the pill 5 hours later, I will probably go to sleep 2 to 5 hours later. Not really sure how to continue from here, any advice would be appreciated guys.

 

Is it a bad idea to add lorazepam - anti anxiety benzodiazepine into the mix? Both pills that I drink reduce my OCD up to some point but the anti anxiety ones works way better at managing the ocd and they sort of make me feel happy? or at least I feel like they do. Also the anti anxiety pills that I've been taking have been expired for quite some time due to my last visit to the psychiatrist being really long ago. maybe I should set-up / book an appointment.

 

I'll see what I can do since I'm kind of starting to feel a little bit of struggle from here on now.

To be honest I'm even starting to consider increasing the dosage up to like 1-2.5 mg and then going down, since I really don't want to experience another psychosis / episode or whatever.

 

Also, yeah I forgot to continue tapering for like a whole year without realizing it, I guess I started to feeling way too relaxed / laid back.
I got from the point of not being able to sit still all day. To being able to do almost any thing that I want to do without any constraints.

[Onmyway]

Hi @WetCloth, 

we advise to cut your dosage by no more than 10% a month and especially at the low doses advise precise and consistent dosing. We do not advise taking benzos (Lorazepam) as they can be addictive and may need to be tapered in the same way. Are you receiving therapy for your OCD? Withdrawal does tend to create and make worse already existing OCD type symptoms. 

I like the book "Needing to know for sure" for some parts of OCD. 

 

This link has links in it to help you with precise dosing. 

 

[WetCloth]

Not sure if I've done this before, but but i'll just list all of the side effects that I've experienced throughout the 2 years while being on two different anti-psychotics:
 

The main one was not being able to concentrate on any kind of task, not being able to sit still and so on. I could not even watch the TV for more than 30 minutes let alone a hour.
Now, I can workout for three hours and not get tired, watch TV for any amount of time, engage in any kind of activity like playing games and not get tired. You get the idea I think.
On top of that I was constantly walking in circles when the symptoms or side-effects were at their worst. I guess that's what akathisia is? But damn that it felt like absolute hell.
Anyways, all of that kind of faded away slowly. It was only really bad when I was on olanzapine - zyprexa. Though, don't get me wrong, I had tons of trouble doing tasks for the whole year while I was on aripirazole. After lowering the dose down to like 5mg I instantly started feeling better, but I didn't notice much improvement going <5mg? maybe I'm still numb and cant notice the effects that well.

I'm not sure if this was due to the drugs I was taking but I was completely flat, numb and emotionless, I can smile and laugh now, instead of just faking it. Which is nice.
Then my arms were getting really numb if I slept on my side, but that went away too? Basically arm numbness or loss of circulation or whatever.
I had troubles speaking, I was stuttering and had trouble getting words out of my mouth, that was terrible too. On top of that I was getting depressed like crazy, (still sad a bit) but i'd say my mood is way better. I literally couldn't come up with a reason to get out of bed, life was bad to put it simply. Completely colorless, without emotion etc. I guess I shouldn't talk about this kind of stuff but I'll just go ahead as I don't see the point of holding back anymore.
I cried for many, many, many different times during the two years. If had to guess the number would probably be somewhere around a thousand times or somewhere around in the hundreds if I'm being serious. but I basically cried like every 2nd day, then it all kind of faded away.
Also my jaw started like popping but it was so temporary like 2-3 months or something? I don't know. I'll try to word this as best as I can but it like made my teeth hit each other in like a really rapid manner sort of like a really fast clench. Don't know.

On top of that I had gained 20 kilos and then lost all of that excessive fat. Not sure if I've mentioned that but i'm just listing everything.
My muscles were also twitching and on top of that I started getting heart aches. The heart pain was weird to me, It was like a really sharp stab whenever I layed down in my bed. I also don't want to blame the chest pain / heart pain on the medications as I used to get them before I was on them.
Also I really do not want to mention this but I was contemplating whether or not I should take my life. I was thinking about suicide for the whole year straight. I was at the complete wits' end. Nevertheless I remained strong, kept working out, and eventually it got better.

By the way, if anyone is struggling too, never give up, no matter how hard it becomes. And eventually it might get better one day.

 

Anyways, I think I got extremely lucky. or not, we shall see how everything plays out in the next years. By the way, is it normal to have that many side effects?.

And yeah, I decided to increase the dosage from 0.7-1 mg to approximately 1.5 mg and I started feeling way better. as I got into an argument with some of my family members about them not buying me food or w/e. They basically want me to sit on my own ass and go to the store on my own, but I don't even have a cars license and the nearest store is 5 km away by the way this is getting off topic so i'm not going to stop.
Also I dunno if it only seems like that to me, but, during those 2 years I received no kind words or any kind of massive support... apart for my mother going on a walk with me every now and then, whenever I ask her. I still remember laying on the floor screaming in pain as I was experiencing constipation from zyprexa. Fun times! My parents just have 0 remorse. Or at least I think so.

Probably going to end up ordering a pill grinder and a scale. And see how it goes from there. To be honest I woulnd't mind staying at 1.5-1 mg for a longer as I basically don't see any kind of side effects at that point. Trying 0 mg could be fun, but risky. My plans for this year is to hopefully get a job and move out of my parents' house somehow.
Also I'm going to visit my psychiatrist next week. I have not visited her / booked an appointment for like a year and hopefully she will prescribe me some benzodiazepines as those really help me at managing my OCD.

And thanks for suggesting that I should get therapy for my OCD, @Onmyway. I'll see what I can do. Apparently my psychiatrist also studies in OCD, but she has only prescribed me medications before in regards to the OCD, she doesn't really talk a lot, just prescribes medications.

Thanks for anyone who read this. I know there's not a lot of useful information, apart from me listing the symptoms / side effects. By the way for anyone curious my diagnosis is paranoid schizophrenia. Hopefully everything goes well this year.

Best regards, WetCloth.

(I know stupid name)😅.

 

Hopefully this doesn't scare anyone, wasn't trying to go for that vibe. Also for anyone in need out there, it does get better.