Posted by Tomatheus on September 6, 2008, at 0:59:08
In reply to Can you 'poop' out on Abilify and othe meds?, posted by lelanda on September 4, 2008, at 13:39:35
lelanda,
It is difficult to tell to what extent your breakthrough depressive symptoms might be due to your Wellbutrin "pooping out" and to what extent they might be due to the Abilify that you're taking. On paper, it would make sense to attribute the symptoms to the possibility that your Wellbutrin isn't working as well as it could be working instead of the Abilify. I say this because Abilify is now used as an add-on treatment for major depressive disorder, which, on paper, should *help* your Wellbutrin combat your depressive symptoms. Unfortunately, medications don't always work the way one would expect them to work on paper. I too take 5 mg of Abilify, and when I tried higher doses (7 and 10 mg), my depressive symptoms became more intense. I would also say that since I started taking Abilify, I feel less interested in things that I used to be interested in.
I think that you may benefit from a change to your medication cocktail. I certainly don't think that going off of all of your medications would do anything to reduce your breakthrough depressive symptoms. It might be a good idea to ask your doctor about increasing the dose of the Wellbutrin that you're taking. The highest dose is 450 mg. You could also ask your doctor about the possibility of reducing your dose of Abilify to 2 mg to test things out and see if your depressive symptoms subside on a lower dose of Abilify. Then, if the symptoms do subside, you'll know that Abilify is at least partially responsible and at that point might want to talk to your doctor about trying another mood stabilizer.
I hope this helps a little.
Tomatheus
poster:Tomatheus
thread:850318
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080903/msgs/850585.html