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Abilify for racing thoughts or confusion


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psychiatrist wants to try abilifly for racing thoughts/confusion. This is her main symptom. Her thoughts and confusion start to build and she keeps snapping and lashing out at people. Scares the ###### out of us. I am sure its going to take a long time for the antibiotics to help with this. What to use in mean time????

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Abilify worked wonders for us. Both our neurologist and LLMD recommended it and we started it when we were at a really low point of behavioral stuff. We think this bahavior was due to herxing with Lyme and Bart treatment. We started out low and we saw results pretty quickly. This is the first behavioral type drug that has done anything for us. Of course every kid is different on what will work for them so it may not work for you.

 

Aidan is 50-55 lbs. IN the spring we started with 1 mg and moved up to 2 mg (minimum treatment dose for his weight) in a week or two. I saw results on the 1 mg and pretty quickly (a couple of days). I guess the average dose for Aidan's weight is 4-6 mg and we started seeing some behaviors again a month ago, so we moved him up to 3 mg and again saw results but it took more like a week. We are about to go on to 4 mg (actually 3.75 mg to save money - see below). I think it would be typical to take a week to see results but ask your doctor. It has helped with impulsive behavior, adhd, concentration, etc, He seems to be performing better at school and able to communicate better sinc being on it,

 

It is very expensive. (It is not generic yet and I had heard next year but when I search when online I think it won't be until 2015.) A while back I saw on the abilify website that they had a program where they would help you with your copay for 18 months so you might want to research that. It is for new prescriber so since Aidan had been on it for a few months we were not eligible for it. I save some money by getting it mail order through our prescription mail order and by buying larger size tablets and spliting them.

 

Also I think it is important to check glucose levels when on it, hopefully your prescribing doctor would be up on this.

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Lilly - Just to add a bit more. Some of Aidan's sypmtoms were also snaping and lashing out at people like your mention. for him it was often physical aggression and fight or flight kind of behavior. It was often out of the blue. His experienced special ed teacher said that she couldn't find the triggers for his behavior. She said with other students that usually she can figure that out and keep the behavior from happening but could not with Aidan. To me that confirmed his diagnoses as the trigger was inside his body and brain.

 

 

He was already in a special ed room all day with kids with autism, etc where they may understand and expect a little more behavior like this but I was so afraid that they were going to put him in a school for emotionally disturbed or something- not sure what they were going to do if it continued. Luckily we found the abilify! He still has issue with some of the behaviors but it is much more managable.

Edited by aidan'smom
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  • 2 weeks later...

DS9 is starting Abilify tomorrow. 2 mg for 2 weeks, then 4 mg for 2 weeks, then 5 mg from then on. He's 82 pounds. Doc is monitoring many things including glucose and heart rhythm. We have to fill out behaviour questionaires every 2 weeks to document any changes both at home and at school. We will see how it goes.

 

DS had great success on mega-doses of combo abx last year. His behaviour while on lyme treatment was either not a problem at all, or at least very manageable even during herxes! He made huge gains at school, both socially and academically. Symptoms were all but gone, then slowly some symptoms crept back in this spring. In Sept we had to eliminate 1 antibiotic and decrease doses in the others (long story), and behaviour immediately became a major issue again - aggression, violence, OCD, mood lability. He's already been suspended twice and sent home twice from school and is getting very little classroom time at all. Ugh. Yesterday he had a major rage at home. Haven't seen that in 1.5 years. I'm having flashbacks. :( So now we're stuck with lower dose of 2 of his antibiotics, and adding Abilify. We'll see how it goes.

 

EDIT to add - DS also has fight AND/or flight responses to stressors.

Edited by momcap
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