aripiprazole

[fluffydressinggown]

I am having to change my anti-psychotic and aripiprazole has been mentioned as a possibility.

Does anyone have experience of aripiprazole? I am particularly worried about putting weight on as I am doing weight watchers and would like to continue losing weight.

I have also heard that it can make you twitchy. Has anyone had this or taken meds to counteract it? I currently take procyclidine because my current anti-psychotic (risperidone) made me twitchy but as soon as I started on the procyclidine it stopped. Would the same apply for aripiprazole? Or do you just have to learn to live with the twitchyness?

Thanks for any experience or advice.

Hopeful bump

I took it, it was too sedating for me. I wasn't on it long enough to know if it put on weight. Might be worth a try?

I think lots of the antipsychotics include extrapyramidal symptoms (e.g. twitchiness)

I heard it was the least sedating medication. I can't be doing if it makes me into a zombie :(

I was maybe just unlucky, fluffy It's one of the reasons I'm on clozapine, couldn't get on with a few antipsychotics.

Aripiprazole doesn't cause weight gain and doesn't cause akathisia (feeling of restlessness, can't sit still) so much as risperidone it's also not usually sedating.
It does sometimes cause nausea and some agitation especially at first.
Hope it works for you, fluffy.
(Psychiatrist, usually try to avoid MH threads but sometimes tempted to answer a meds q!)

I found it did cause akathisia for a few months actually, but that's more or less worn off now.

But apart from that my experience with Aripiprazole is positive.

I both take and routinely prescribe aripiprazole. I've had no problems with weight gain or sedation. In fact, with regard to sedation, I take it in the morning as it was disturbing my sleep. I never experienced akathisia but in my patients who have it's usually at the start of dosing and decreases as the dose increases. It makes me sweaty but it's a small price to pay as far as I'm concerned.

It actually made me feel really agitated. I was so horrible to DH. It was like I had PMT permanently. I had to stop taking it.

I find aripiprazole very good. I think it is not very hard core med compared to ones I have tried before. I haven't noticed any weight gain or sedation. To be honest I have lost weight and helps with the sedation caused by lithium.

I couldn't get on with aripiprizole. Made me really agitated, couldn't sit still and did nothing for my mood.

I guess the thing to remember is everyone's individual, and it's worth a go. I'm not in a good space with my antipsychotic (sleepy until 2pm), but there's nowhere else to go apart from injectable antipsychotics, which I don't want, and it definitely works against my symptoms.

Thanks for the replies, it seems it affects different people in different ways.

For the people who said they felt agitated by agitated do you mean restless?

I think for me it was just like really bad PMT. Every little thing irritated me. I snapped at DH so much. He told me I had to stop taking the meds or he was moving out!

I took it weight gain not so much of a issue weight loss is. I also had terrible akathesia but was given clonazepam to combat it.