Posted by med_empowered on February 18, 2006, at 13:43:36
In reply to Confused regarding choice of med presecribed, posted by Op27Nr2 on February 18, 2006, at 12:20:09
hey! some docs use the new antipsychotics for just about everyting--bipolar, schizophrenia, sleep, anxiety, etc. Why? Well..they're new, and very expensive, and drug companies are sponsoring trials to show them useful for just about everything. So although the FDA has only approved them for schizophrenia, manic phases of bipolar, etc., there are trials in medical journals (the ones your doc is reading) that show they might help with social phobia, sleep, depression, anxiety, ADD/ADHD, etc. Docs seem to overlook the fact that its **drug companies** paying for these trials.
Also, xanax and similar drugs can sometimes be addictive, although their reputation for "addicitiveness" is worse than their actual track record. Anyway, some docs hate RXing these and will do just about anything to avoid prescribing them, including handing out new, relatively untested drugs.
I've taken abilify for bipolar (depressed phase with psychotic symptoms). From my perspective, its OK if you're psychotic (even then not long-term)...otherwise, you might want to try something a little less hardcore.
I'd talk to your doc about this. Abilify hasn't been on the market very long, so not much is known about its long term risks. It can cause NMS (a potentially fatal side effect of antipsychotics) and **might** cause TD (no one really knows about this yet apparently). Personally, I think the costs and the risks far outweigh any possible benefits; you could try different APs, different benzos (ex: klonopin, ativan, librium), buspar, gabitril, mood-stabilizers (ex: depakote, trileptal), lyrica...there are lots and lots of options left, so I don't understand why your doc is busting out the neuroleptics already.
poster:med_empowered
thread:610876
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060212/msgs/610888.html