Posted by Ritch on May 21, 2003, at 9:53:24
In reply to Re: ABILIFY HELP, posted by e503 on May 21, 2003, at 9:18:44
> Interestingly, about 9:00 last night Ben seemed to be his "old" self again. I gave him the 2.5 mg. abilify about 10:00 and within a few minutes he was asleep.....It has also been more difficult to get him up in the a.m. Used to be he would get up around 7, but now he has to be woken at 8.
>
> My question is this: Right now he is taking: 50 mg. zoloft a.m. and 2.5 mg. abilify; the teachers say in the a.m. at school he is compliant (I am guessing he may be too tired to fight!), after lunch he is "belligerent, etc.". After school I give him 25 mg. zoloft. He seemed difficult and sedated until about 9:00 p.m. I know that when we were having big troubles with ben's meds a year ago or so, you (I think it was you?) said something about zoloft's metabolites....since we were giving him all of it at night could be a problem. We, in turn, gave him the zoloft in the a.m. instead, and he was MUCH calmer and MUCH better. So, I would say that zoloft, in its active state (?) calms him,,,,SOOOOOOO...... I am playing around the how I could dose these meds... can it be that the abilify is decreasing out of his system later in the evening (since he didn't have a dose in 12 hours or more), and that's why his behavior is better (happier!!!!!) Or what?
> sorry to ramble, but gotta figure this out.
> thanks,
> elise
Elise, I think you are onto something there. Sure enough, the Abilify may be zoning him out a little (staying in bed later), but when it starts to wear off and the Zoloft has had some time in his system, it could start becoming activating later in the day. I definitely noticed this with Zoloft exclusively of all of the SSRI's I've tried. There is definitely a calming/tiring effect while it is kicking in for several hours, then a "speedy" secondary kick later on which often would make sleeping difficult for me. The only thing that doesn't seem to fit is giving him his 2nd dose of Zoloft in the afternoon after school and he *still* seems "difficult" for several hours. Do you think there is some fighting or something going on during his lunch hour that is upsetting him and making him angry the rest of the day?
poster:Ritch
thread:227600
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030520/msgs/228052.html