Abilify for ASD

[mall13]

My son takes 7.5 mg abilify in morning since Jan.'13 . Some days, he will feel so sleepy whatever he does, other days he will be fine. Can this random sleepiness be attributed to abilify? Thanks.

[mall13]

Thank you for your replies! I appreciate it.

[Paxiled]

I don't know the history of your son's medications, obviously.  I don't know if so many didn't work he ended up on Paxil (a high dose at that) and abilify (as mentioned above, a medication approved reluctantly by FDA and only for limited purposes for what I assume were good reasons).  What I do know is these are two very difficult medications to take and to stop taking, and would be a very strange place to start for just OCD.  Follow Nursegirl's advice here and have a very hard heart to heart with your doc -- who I hope is a psychiatrist and not a primary care physician -- and make sure this psychiatrist knows how to take people off these meds very thoroughly.  Good luck.

[mall13]

My son has been diagnosed with Asperger's with the side diagnosis of OCD.
He has been prescribed 50 mg Paxil in the night for OCD.

[nursegirl6572]

Abilify is an atypical antipsychotic, what is your son's diagnosis?  

Sometimes, Abilify will be used as an adjunct treatment, along with another antidepressant, to treat anxiety or depression (more often depression).  The addition of the Abilify to another antidepressant is done to improve the effectiveness of the AD (which of course is all speculation).

I've seen positive results with Abilify when used to treat the psychotic illnesses its designed to treat (schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, etc), and have seen some people report that adding it to their regimen for the treatment of depression has been successful.

I haven't seen it commonly Rx'ed for the treatment of anxiety disorder.  I think your son needs to have a pow wow with the doc to discuss if this is the right med for him.  What other meds has he tried?

[mall13]

Thank you. My son is 22 yrs. old.

[Paxiled]

What I know about abilify isn't much, but my understanding this drug is only officially approved a last-ditch antidepressant for those for whom nothing else worked.  I assume there are good reasons for this limited approval.  (Keep in mind doctors can use these meds for anything they want once they're approved, but knowing what they're approved for gives some information on what studies showed).  As to that particular side effect, any drug that affects the brain can make one sedated or the opposite, overstimulated.  These drugs are particularly problematic for the young and the old.  How old is your son?