Posted by Christ_empowered on January 6, 2014, at 3:18:57
In reply to Re: Is 15mg abilify too much for bipolar depression?, posted by ed_uk2010 on January 5, 2014, at 15:36:16
Seems a bit high, although I'm clearly not your doctor. 15mgs was (maybe is?) the "target dose," back in the day. That was one of Abilify's selling points back in the day: start your patients on the target dose from day 1!!!Yeah, wasn't the best idea (for the patients, anyway). Personally, when I started way back when, 1/2 of a 15mgs tablet helped considerably. I only went up on the dose initially because of increased agitation from tapering off a benzo (lame) and general bad doctoring. I'm now on 20-30 because, after a medication-free period, my symptoms shifted more to the agitated end of things than depressive.
Anyway, doses for depression are all over the map. Some people take 2-5mgs once every 3 days. Some people take 10-15. Some people high dose it because of agitation, psychotic features, so on and so forth.
If you're already agitated, I think Abilify is a weird choice. Not **bad** per se, just...odd. There can be start up agitation with Abilify, kinda sorta like an antidepressant. That's one reason lots of docs have to give sedatives with Abilify when they start (the other reason is that, when used to treat acute psychosis and/or mania, Abilify isn't sedating enough, so a sedative helps keep people calm).
Good luck to you!
poster:Christ_empowered
thread:1057696
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20140104/msgs/1057965.html