how safe is abilify for my bi polar and depression

[jenncna]

I am really into natural health but my depression and bi polar started causing alot of problems in my personal life so I started seeing a phyc doctor and he has put me on Wellbutrin and Abilify. It has helped my mood swings and my depression but somtimes I feel muscle stiffness and fatigue, I told my phyc. doctor and he perscribed somthing called benztropine and trazadone hcl for sleep.. so now I have these extra pills for the side effects of the original pills! I don't like this is it safe for me to be taking so many pills? im only 39 years old and I take more pills than my 83 year old grandma! I used to take sam-e for depression but it didn't seem to help enough for my depression like the pharmicutical pill do,, what can I do?

[Paxiled]

And I should add, I don't know of any natural med that deals with genuine bi-polar, but if again its just the funky new invented bi-polar funzies, taking natural remedies for depression usually requires more than just one remedy.  SAMe can help, but natural medicine is generally used in combinations, not singly, and combined with therapy, diet changes, exercise, meditation, and the like.  Try reading a book called Natural Highs by Hyla Cass, a psychiatrist at UCLA.

[Paxiled]

Don't know what the doc is thinking here, and by that I mean the doc who responded to your question. For one thing, he never asked about using anti-depressants if you're truly bi-polar.  Now, if this is just the oh so popular bipolar 2 or 3 or 100 that pharmaceutical companies invented, then okay, but if you're truly bipolar, you're on the wrong meds altogether.  If what you're suffering is depression, did you start on wellbutrin to see how it worked, or were you just put on two meds simultaneously?  That prevents you from seeing how the first med works.  The proper way to augment medication is one at a time, and the first med has to work first.  If it does but just no well enough, then you add another med.  Abilify is only approved for cases of depression that have proven not to be helped by any other antidepressant, usually as an augmentation to another med.  As for adding those other meds, they will make you even more sedated, so if fatigue is your problem, it seems odd to me to put you on sedating meds.  Wellbutrin is thought to be stimulating, so the likely culprit for your fatigue is the abilify, but any med can cause fatigue.  They also tend to cause muscle problems because they interfere with the body's absorption of magnesium, and because the neurotransmitters targeted by anti-depressants are also involved in other things, such as relaxing the muscles.  So your two side effects are very common; they might go away with time.  If it were me and I was put on the wellbutrin and the abilify at the same time, I'd dump the abilify and see if the wellbutrin worked by itself.  It's less likely to cause fatigue.  You might also consider supplementing magnesium citrate, a simple way to try and deal with the muscle problems.  I would also find a different psychiatrist, but that's just me.  Your diagnosis doesn't match the meds, and this guy isn't following proper augmentation.  For a closer look at he study of how augmentation works, you can find it on the NIMH website.

[lizard121]

I would read the ridiculously long side effects list before even considering that medication.  However, I wouldn't consider taking any medicine everyday for the rest of my life.  Especially for me mood swings and bi-polar tendencies are always at a greater risk when i'm exposed to any sort of medicine/drug, even food coloring and high-fructose corn syrup.

[Peter Forster]

As I mentioned in another post, I don't find that there is much of a correlation between the number of medications that are necessary to achieve good functioning and how well a person does on those medications. In other words, being on four pills is not a "bad" thing if four pills are what it takes to feel well. However, having said that, it is always useful to make sure that each of the medications that you are taking is contributing something to your wellness, because all medications do have side effects. To do that I suggest a simple chart or spreadsheet that tracks key symptoms (like stiffness, fatigue, sleep, mood, anxiety) over time. Then you can see what happens when you and your doctor try reducing one medication gradually.