"You have a choice, Gwen," my doctor said to me while I was curled into a ball under a table in the hospital, watching my friends and listening to the TVs.

"We could either put you, on Clozeril or Abilify along with your Risperdal. Clozeril has been shown to be very effecitve, but it has some side effects, such as having to get blood draws. Abilify, however, is brand new, just came out a couple months ago and doesn't have too many substanital side effects."

I was getting annoyed.

"Why don't you just tell the people to leave me alone and turn off the TVs?" I yellled at him. "Fuiling me up with stupid meds is the stupidist thing I've ever heard. Just get rid of the people."

"That's what we're trying to do," he replied. "Get rid of the people."

I gave him a weird look.

"So which one do you want? The clozeril of the Abilfiy."

"The one with no side effects," I answered. "The Abilify."

I started taking the Abilify, and it about two weeks I was feeling SO much better. The Tvs were getting more and more muffled, and the people, when I did occasionaly see them, their presence were much more subdued.

Another thing that happened: A few months before this, I had started taking Risperdal and like I wrote in another comment,it made me SO restless I felt like I needed to explode. It was HORRIBLE. I was in AGONY. I couldn't enjoy ANYTHING.

But once I started taking Abilify, that restlesness practiclly disappeared. It was AMAZING! For once I could be free from the worst of pain.

No longer was I crying all day. No longer was I restless. No longer was I terrified that people I loved were going to die. No longer was I getting horrible inside information. No longer was I taken to parties.

Life was so wonderful, that everyone finally agreed to discharge me from the hospital and I was allowed to go back to my high school. It was WONDERFUL!

Unfortunatley however, it didn't stay wonderful as a few months later I decided to go off my medication -- which made my life a living hell again. I'll write about why I went off my meds some other time.

Anyway, in my mind, as well as in my parents and doctors, the Abilify did wonders for me.

I truly feel that if it weren't for Abilify, I would have been living in hell for all of eternity.

It was months, from about february to august and the mania WOULD NOT STOP...the intrusive homicidal thoghts would just not go away, i started to think, maybe if i acted on them they would stop....that's when i was hospitalized for the 9th time. my head was a mess....then they added abilify and the thoughts went away, the mania was calmed and my head was clear...I have 0 side effects from abilify and it has been a total godsend.

I've been out of the hospital and 100% stable on abilify and lithium for very near a year now.

I have a 26 yr old daughter who has been diagnosed with bi-polar w/schitzo-effective disorder and now may be schitzophenic. She has been on several meds for many years. She was just released from STATE hosital after being there for 1 yr and 5 mos on a 90 day committment. She was 7 mos pregnant upon being committed therefore could NOT take her medications til son was born, and was what they termed psychotic. Meds she is on at this time are
lithium,ativan,loxapine,welbutrin,topamax,geodon
and prozac. Her dr. is now going to start her on clozeril and stop the loxapine. My worry is the blood draw for clozeril. In otherwords, clozeril does what AIDS does.....break down immune system. IS this drug SAFE to use and does it work for thoughts and hallucinations? Our last and final step is ECTs and THAT horrifies me! Her son is in my care and is gonna be 2 in Janary. I want my daughter WELL so she can remain at home! Please give me some answers!

I have a 26 yr old daughter who has been diagnosed with bi-polar w/schitzo-effective disorder and now may be schitzophenic. She has been on several meds for many years. She was just released from STATE hosital after being there for 1 yr and 5 mos on a 90 day committment. She was 7 mos pregnant upon being committed therefore could NOT take her medications til son was born, and was what they termed psychotic. Meds she is on at this time are
lithium,ativan,loxapine,welbutrin,topamax,geodon
and prozac. Her dr. is now going to start her on clozeril and stop the loxapine. My worry is the blood draw for clozeril. In otherwords, clozeril does what AIDS does.....break down immune system. IS this drug SAFE to use and does it work for thoughts and hallucinations? Our last and final step is ECTs and THAT horrifies me! Her son is in my care and is gonna be 2 in Janary. I want my daughter WELL so she can remain at home! Please give me some answers!

Tammy,

I'm so sorry for all your struggles. It sounds like this has been a very painful time for you and your daughter. I'd like to offer you some thoughts:

In terms of clozeril, my unlce is on it, and it has really helped him. He does have to get blood draws ever couple of weeks, but beside that, he's never been on another medication that has helped him more. It has truly been outstanding for him. Everyone responds differently to medication, but your daughter may find clozeril to be beneficial. And really, as long as she's getting blood tests, it is a safe drug...it just has to be monitered.

Also, with ECT, I have a friend who has had 17 treatments done, and he found them to be extremeley theuraputic. He was so depressed he couldn't even function, and ECT really got him out of that state and allowed him to go about life normally. If your daughter is extremeley depressed (ECT is usually not used for anything other then dpresesion), then ECT will probably be fine.

And also, I have a question for you: When your daughter was pregnant, was she really not on her medication? Did they really deem that when one is pregnant it's better to be off of it? Becuase that's one thing that I'm horrified about: becoming pregnant and being on all this medication I'm on -- I don't want my kid to have birth defects or anything. Please let me know more of what the doctors were thinking...

Stay strong, and I hope for all the best for you.

My son is 6, and we have tried zoloft ( serotonin reuptake inhibitor ), risperidone ( "atypical" antipsychotic ) and now zyprexa ( same category ), but only risperidol has helped at all. In fact Risperidol was like a miracal for him, and the other two have had zero effect. My wife and I agreed to stop Risperidol after it seemed he had pain ( occasionally, but acute ) from increased prolactin, which is a known side-effect.

I was not excited about starting from scratch to try to find him a new med, so looking at the available options in "atypical" antipsychotics, I found that Abilify has a similar chemical construction to Risperidol - they are all unique, but even a child could see the resemblance in looking at their molecular picture that they are similar and the others are different from that. Zyprexa is in the thienobenzodiazepine family of molecules, and, although none of the others are, some of the others, excluding risp and abilify, do share a number of structural properties, for example, a sulfer ring, and a rather globular outline. Both risperidone and abilify are different from the others and share these properties: they make use of halogens (Cl and F ) and have a more elongated structure. see http://www.chemindustry.com/apps/chemicals for these details and pictures.
Getting to the point, ( or two ), I have consulted with the Dr to go with Abilify as a replacement for Risperidol for my son next week, since Risperidone has been so effective, and my other point is to try and find out as much as you can about these medicines to help you work with your Dr. I did not do this at first, and now realize the information is very accessible. both chemindustry.com/apps/chemicals is very good, as well as wikipedia, for the skinny on this stuff, in terms equally medical and lay.

And, oh, PS, don't be frightened by the chemical associations, of which names may appear on these sites explaining the chemical similarities, like chloroform to some meds, and pesticides to others - you wouldn't drink clorox, but you would eat salt. Both contain chlorine!; and your dr would not feed your kid ant poison. But knowing your meds at a detailed level is even more important than knowing how the engine in your car works, so give it a try. I was glad I did.