Abilify And Teens (Page 4)

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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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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This is a very dangerous drug, My son was put on it and he had a major nervous meltdown. His doctor did not do enough research to give him this drug and overmedicated him. He diagnosed my child as bi polar without doing any diagnostics, Prescribed abilify on top of several other drugs. My son ended up in the hospital and missed twelve weeks of school, he had suicidal thoughts and we had to watch him for those twelve weeks. Every child is different. Hopefully your doctor is not a pill pusher and knows what he is doing. I am happy to say, that we have a new Psychiatrist and a new psychologist. My son is on very little medication (no abilify) and is back in school and very happy. I hope your child is doing well. Just watch him closely on that drug.

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My son was on abilify from age 14 until 16 and currently weaning off. Was on 20 MG and now 10 after several weeks. He has experienced tremors, delay in puberty , and increasing irritibility. Doing better as he weans from this med! The psychiatrist would prefer he remains on the med- sometimes as parents we have to be proactive even when it is against what a physician recommends! We know our kids and must live with them each day- we know best.

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What dose did he tske

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My son has been on aripripazol for a year now. He was 13 years old when he started, now he's 14. He doesn't smile naturally how he used to, he doesn't talk much or make conversations - He just looks and stares. When I ask him anything he takes long to reply and he's always thinking about some thing and can't concentrate properly. He says he feels dumb, has been twice now in hospital over the last year, and now this year he been wants to come off medication. He is missing doses, taking at wrong times, then having hallucinations such as seeing things hearing voices . Last year before he went into the hospital during 6 weeks of holidays, he was playing playstation, shooting zombie games, he would not want to come out with family anywhere. He withdrew himself, sat on the sofa looking at the ceiling mumbling to himself. He did not miss going to school, he would walk out of school - I picked him up from school and he was under his coat in a corner on the floor crying. I was so upset to see him like that . He looked weak to his doctors, had blood work done and was anemic with low B12. Then I noticed changes in his behavior - he started doing fighting moves in the house, passing about throwing water on himself, then outside he stood in the street pretending to fight some one but no one was there. We phoned the ambulance and took him to the hospital. The doctor checked him and said he needs to be sectioned off and they diagnosed him with psychosis . He doesn't like being on this med, he said a few days ago on home leave when I took him out to shop there were lots of people there and he said "I feel weird mum. I feel like killing myself."

Is it the meds making him say this and the voices in his head? Does he need this med? I am a concerned mother and need advice, please help. The doctor said we need to increase his dose to 20mg, and I said no since he's only a child . Help me any one please tell what your thoughts are?

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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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Put 15 year old son on it two weeks ago. Amazing results within a week. This is a miracle drug for anxiety and depression. Son takes lexapro in the morning and Abilify at night. I have my son back and he is doing well.

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I totally agree, that drug is poison. my parents forced me to take it for 2 years from around 14 till 16 and I told them no it's not helping me and they just blindly listened to the child psychiatrist. that drug is the devil. it blocks feeling emotion, love, sensitivity and purpose. you're just a zombie on that drug. all psychiatric drugs are dangerous poisons and no child should ever be given a psychiatric drug ever. you are correct we must stop this madness. we are selling our children to the drug companies!!!

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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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Remember David defeated Goliath Pray! God will help your family. and good for you for standing up for the kids!!! They are worth the fight!

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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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I had a similar situation with my college age daughter. She was 19 Years old and never had mood swings to indicate BiPolar. She had started going to the School counselor on campus, they referred her to a clinic in town where they started prescribing 1 anti depressant - Welbutrin. That interfered with her ability to sleep. She has never had sleeping problems. She kept complaining, with no real change in mood. This was a first episode with depression - she had just broken up with a boyfriend who had been lying to her... Long story short, each time Abilify was added to her meds she became destabilized. She had 3 hospitalizations in the span of 6 months. She would get out of the hospital and be feeling OK - no abilify - then go back to clinic for follow up and they would restart the abilify - it was awful. I finally told her to stop taking the abilify and don't go back to the clinic. This summer she stopped taking all of her medications for mood. She's back at school and so far so good.

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