Abilify increase

[hygienehollie]

Hi! My son is about to turn 11. When he was 6 he was diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety. And a few years later disruptive mood disregulation disorder. He currently takes Metadate CD 50mg, Prozac 20mg, Clonidine .3 (.2 in the am and .1 in the pm), Lamictal 75mg and Abilify 25mg.

My son has always struggles with aggressiveness, impulsiveness and being disruptive at school.

A week ago today his Abilify was increased to 25mg. He seems to be super argumentative with peers, family, cousins. Has anyone experienced this side effect t with Abilify increase?

[BVBV]

I’m sorry I can’t help you out with ability but lessening meditation for my son actually helped his mood- I know it’s so individual depending on the child. Does he get enough sunlight? My son has really thrived since adding Olly’s Happy Worms (Vit D and Saffron). He takes other supplements as well along with 1mg Guanfacine. I hope you get some answers soon for your son, it’s so hard sometimes!

[SanityCoaching]

My daughter has DMDD, ADHD, Anxiety and all the rest. She was given Abilify at 11 and was on it for almst 2 years. It was really not effective for us. In fact it was worse than effective. She gained 40lbs and was never fully regulated. We ended up having to hospitaize her fr 10days because of disregulation when she was 13. There they took her off the Abilify and put her on Buspar which was much better. She is now in a semi-long term facility and is learning to use DBT skills to help with her moods and is doing great. They have weened her off the Buspar and now she is only on Lexapro - which seems to be working well with the help of using DBT tools. (knock on wood). In addition, a neurospych evaluation (our second) discovered that she has dyslexia which heightens her ADHD because she gets frustrated that she can't understand things. So now that we are focusing on the Dyslexia, Anxiety and DMDD, her ADHD is actually managable because she is not as easily frustrated and disregulated. This is just our experience and may not be the same for you, but all in all, we very much did not like Abilify.

[Nats2005 in reply to SanityCoaching]

We're in a similar place; our 7-year-old son was taking 2mg of Abilify twice daily as well as Adderall XR and Clonidine and his aggression and dysregulation got so far out of hand he's currently in a residential facility. We're also seeing significant weight gain (the facility has him on a portion control diet). At one point he was taking 5 mg once daily in the morning but he was falling asleep at school and generally often seemed flat and emotionless (which I understand can happen with anti-psychotic drugs).

Might have to look into Buspar. We also need to get a neuropsych evaluation. Ironically we had one set up shortly before he got admitted to the residential facility but he had a huge tantrum and elopement the night before and ended up in the ER. I definitely feel like there's untreated anxiety; our son may also be on the autistic spectrum.

[ldannadhd in reply to Nats2005]

I can tell you as I ran residential treatment programs for kids for much of my adult life that the sending school district should provide neuropsych. They always try and get out of that. And I totally agree that one is necessary. I'm sorry you're having to go through this. If you wish to ask me any other questions I'll happily respond.

[SanityCoaching in reply to ldannadhd]

We have paid for our daughter to have 2 Neuropsych evaluations. One when she was 9 - because the District would not do an in depth one and missed a lot - it really upset my daughter who has anxiety over tests and evaluations and having to do it twice what hard on her. The second we did a few months ago before we went back to the district - it was thorough and the district said they did not need to do one. themselves - which was a relief to my daughter who was worried about having to do 2 again.