Yes, antipsychotics are very powerful drugs with many adverse reactions. To add them to an antidepressant will cause even more side effects. Remember, too, that antipsychotics are also half antidepressant. So the likelyhood of being stuck down by serotonin syndrome or even neuroleptic malignant syndrome is more likely with this combination.

BTW, the antidepressants are also very powerful drugs. A man from California, by the name of Dave Short, graciously looked through the files of www.SSRIstories.com

He found, that just by using media articles, SSRI Stories was able to document 198 people on SSRIs or SNRIs who died from the side effects listed for antidepressants, 1,415 people who were murdered by someone who was either on an antidepressant or withdrawing from one and 627 people who committed suicide while taking an antidepressant.

So, both of these classes of psychiatric drugs are powerful drugs and can be extremely dangerous drugs. To take the two together is asking for a real tragedy. I hope physicians wake-up and start to use some common sense.

It's an absolute joke. The lack of efficacy and great potential risks of each of these classes of drugs has been acknowledged even by the FDA. Neither class is safe or efficacious on its own so now we're supposed to believe that prescribed together they somehow are? This isn't logical. The gullibility and/or desperation of medical professionals and patients alike seems to know no bounds. And the risk of serotonin syndrome which seems to be ill understood despite the fact it's occurring frequently is increasing by the minute.

Steve Nissan forgot to mention DEATH from profound hyperglycemia as a result of Zyprexa and, I am sure, as a result of the other atypical antipschycotics.

Lest we never forget...the subtle symptoms of hyperglycemia ....excessive thirst, excessive peeing, weakness (have to sit down, so weak), vomiting....all out of the blue, none understood or ever warned about. Death seems to be currently being left off the description: After one gets to diabetes, there now seems to be a period added. Don't ever forget the rest: Hyperglycemia and death.

Suicide can be a grave risk when treating a patient with severe depression. One of the advantages of the newer SSRI antidepressants is a much lower lethality in overdose compared to the older tricyclics and MAOI's.

What about overdosing on an SSRI now along with Abilify or Seroquel or the like? I've not seen that addressed at all, though the risk would clearly be of concern to a prescribing psychiatrist.

Rosie, Dave Short tip is fascinating - do you have a link? Many thanks.

David B. Suicide can be a grave risk when taking an SSRI. I don't call taking a drug that makes you intensely agitated and suicidal less "lethal" than one that might kill you in overdose if you took several tablets. You don't need to take an overdose to die on Prozac, Paxil or Zoloft. Just take your standard dose and you might hang, shoot or stab yourself -- and maybe some others while you're at it!

SSRIs, SNRIs, atypicals....lookin' for RESEARCH about death at the beginning, middle, end, taper, off these suckers. Not there. Just spoke with a WORLD AUTHORITY about tapering off....lithium. NOTHING THERE. Of course the clinical trials re taking them in the first place is phony baloney.

No money in it(re such as tapering safely and then what happens after if you CAN get off) But clearly, for the vast majority of people I know of who are dead, the answer is " Don't EVER start in the first place."

Hi Lilly,

Dave Short sent me the graph [with the stats on SSRI Stories] via an excel spreadsheet. I transposed it into an attachment for email.

I will find out tomorrow if my hubby can figure out how to make it into a link. Then I will post it to Furious Seasons.

I am glad you are interested because Dave Short worked long, hard hours on this for about two weeks.

Please don't wait for the FDA to do or say anything constructive.....I for one don't want you to keel over in a dead faint from holding your breath!

Perhaps the drug company was hoping to create a market for Abilify? You know, create a need where one didn't exist? Living with bipolar myself I was acutely aware when the bus stop posters and the TV commercials for Abilify started appearing a couple of years ago. The term bipolar (or manic-depressive) wasn't on most people's radar before then. Now its becoming the "in" disease. But not fast enough for them. They need to convert all of the depressives who are currently taking those low-cost generic drugs into Abilify users. But folks, it is not a cure. There is no cure. Thirty years of trial-and-error has taught me that. I finally swore off drugs for good when Lamictal pushed me to the edge of suicide. There has to be a better solution. For me, taking medications not only did not work, they kept me feeling like a patient, like I was ill, which only reinforced the disease. I am happy for those who get temporary relief from the drugs, but I worry about the long term effects, both psychologically and physically.

Rosie, thanks.

I do not know where to begin - so I will just make a list.

1) Having BP II, I spend most of my time depressed. Abilify twice (two seperate trials) sent me into the worst mania - i.e. no sleep, jabbering like a money, flight of ideas, ... of my life.

2) I read the recent Newsweek article on epilepsy and said - that is me! Only the psych symptoms. Even a red flashing light can set off psych symptoms.

3) Another writer has suggested there is a reason that temporal lobe epilepsy can be confused with bipolar disease. He did not however mention that the amygdala is part of the mid temporal lobe. What if BP is just epilepsy of the amydala?

4) Interesting that anti-eplileptics are often used for BP and can have an anti-depressant effect.

So WHY in the world would anyone think that anti-psychotics are a good adjunctive therapy for depression OR bipolar. Simple $$s.

When I was trying Abilify, I was astounded to find that a 30 day supply of 2 mg tabs was $520! Fortunately I have insurance. Unfortunately, this is why medical costs are so high.

(I also was put on a trial of Seroquel. Slept for 18 hours - even at a min dose. Guess that anti-psychotic was too much for my tired liver (all those meds).)

So I say - you are SO right. We are being sold a bill of goods, for the purpose of profit. Anti-psychotics have terrible side effects and should be reserved for those who are psychotic!

BPIIGirl