A few nights ago Don, Rye and I were watching American Idol. An ad came on for Abilify. A few seconds into the ad Rye looks at us and says, “What is that medicine they are advertising?”
“Abilify,” I say “that’s the medicine you took to stop hearing things after the Adderall reaction.”
“Oh,” Rye says. “That’s what I thought. So, why are they advertising it for depression?”
“Well, they are saying it makes a good add-on for an antidepressant and also in low doses it is considered to be more of an anitdepressant than an antipsychotic.”
“Well, that’s weird,” he says “I don’t understand how they can advertise it to help depression when the medicine makes you think about killing yourself.”
“What?” I say.
“Yea, that medicine makes you think about killing yourself.”
“What? I thought it helped you,” I say. “You thought about killing yourself on it? I never knew that. Why didn’t you tell me that? You only said you didn’t want to take it anymore because it made you feel weird.”
“Well, mom,” he says, “that is weird. Don’t you think? It’s weird to think about wanting to kill yourself. That’s why I didn’t like that medicine”
And with that, although Abilify did stop the hallucinations, it is gone as an option in this house.
So, why do I post this? Well, it’s not to be alarmist. And it’s not to be anti-medication. It is to show myself and others how we aren’t ever 100% sure what is going on with our children. And that our children themselves aren’t always sure how to communicate their feelings or experiences or thoughts to us, no matter how close we are with them. And this is important to know.
And this is a great concern of mine with medicating children, my own included. Children, due to their sheer age and level of brain development, don’t always know how to identify what is happening within them and then in turn can’t always effectively communicate about what is going on, even at 12 years old. If they are really young they are too developmentally immature to know what they should feel or should not feel or what is real and what isn’t simply because of their age. And the only thing adults have to go on is their behavior. With Rye, his behavior was actually a lot better on Abilify. He was less moody, more cooperative, and more even overall. I had no idea, however, he was having suicidal thoughts. He later told me that one of the reasons he took the med even when he didn’t want to [keep in mind, he only took it for about 2 months] was because the adults in his life, myself included, kept telling him how well he was doing on it and he wanted to make us happy. He did this in spite of having to fight off feelings of wanting to kill himself. Just to please others, including me. Thank God nothing terrible happened as a result. Thank God he started to get the ‘neck roll’ from the med so we stopped it only after about 2 months. Someone was watching over us, no doubt.
With that I’ve provided the link to the U.S. Full Prescribing Information for Abilify, which does warn that Abilify can induce suicidal thoughts, as well as some links to website providing other people’s experiences with the drug.
http://www.abilify.com/pdf/pi.aspx
http://www.askapatient.com/viewrating.asp?drug=21436&name=ABILIFY
http://www.furiousseasons.com/archives/2008/11/abilify_for_depression_ad_now_airing_on_tv.html
Please always read the full U.S. Prescribing Information provided by the FDA for all medicines you give your child, including all possible side effects and all black box warnings. Please never think this could never happen to my child.
Because it can.
7 Comments
Yes, I’ve been there, just telling how our kids react on a med can place us in anti-med psychiatry category.
BUT, this is how my daughter talked on Zoloft, Prozac, Luvox, BuSpar, Abilify…as you can see different classes of drugs, and the thoughts came with the med use whether doctors or drug companies want to hear it.
Good for him for telling you that, and I’d at this point, encourage him to chart all feelings if/when on any other drug after this.
My daughter had 3×5 cards for each med , the dose by mg, and how she felt on it…sometimes it was agitation, aggression, suicidal thinking, restlessness….looking at that list it’s a doctor’s dream to base a dx on isn’t it?
Yes, my daughter was dx several (MANY) diagnoses based on drug reactions.
Now the new doctor confirmed what we/she was told 5 years ago, about the PDD/aspergers and now we are learning that her reaction to meds is typical of that dx…I’ve been saying it for 10 years, and all I can say is, keep on plugging along off meds as long as possible. just my opinion.
I see your point. I am definitely not anti-psychiatry. In fact, Rye sees a psychiatrist (MD) for therapy. We love him. I am very pro-cautious medication though as psych meds often cause as many problems as they fix. But I also know they help a lot of people and I think that’s great. Whatever works for each individual family is what that family should do, no doubt.
In our case Rye is still trying to lose the weight he gained on the antipsychotics as well. He packed on 40 pounds in 2-3 months.
I’m glad that Rye shared with you how it really made him feel. He may have been scared to tell you at the time. Sometimes kids think that they will be in trouble even when there is no reason for them to think that. He may have not realized it was the drug causing the thoughts until after he stopped taking the Abilify. He may have thought it was a symptom of his illness or mood and that he needed to make it go away on his own. He probably didn’t want to upset you.
Having thoughts about suicide can be very different from actually wanting to kill yourself. I’ve been there. Sometimes the thoughts of death are just thoughts and you just want them to go away. Not act on them.
But sometimes people think that if they tell people that they are thinking about suicide or death that they will have to go into the hospital. But most doctors understand there is a difference between having the thoughts and actually planning on doing anything. However, it is still a scary thing, especially for a kid, I’m sure.
Thanks for the links too. I hadn’t seen that askapatient site before. It looks like a good one.
HB
HB I think you are right on all points. Thanks for the input.
More and more information is becoming available about the dangers of antidepressants and adolescent/young adults. I met a therapist who flatly refuses to prescribe them for young people without administering a psych/ed test and an abbreviated IQ test! His reasoning is that unless he can be comfortable that the kid has the verbal ability and developmental ability to tell him what they are feeling on such drugs, it is too risky.
Here is a cause of psychotic behavior in teens that I was not aware of–Lyme Disease!
I am a member of an online book club that has long since evolved into more of a friends chatting kind of thing. One member has shared with the rest of us the terrible experience of her 11 year old daughter. This child began experiencing a number of mysterious physical symptoms that their doctor struggled to explain–muscle tremors, fevers, aches and pains, fatigue–test after test was negative.
Then all of a sudden, the child began experiencing extremely high levels of anxiety. She could not function in school, was terrified to leave her house, developed a number of phobias that she had never had before–a complete puzzle. It all came to a head one night when she became hysterical and could not be soothed or calmed, saying that she “saw things” and that “people were talking in her head”, screaming, crying–just a terrible situation.
With no other choice, her parents took her to the ER and from there, she ended up spending three weeks in a psychiatric unit. The little girl was given several different drugs, something for anxiety, an anti psychotic, anti depressant. As her mother put it, she didnt so much get better, but rather, got quiet. She was released.
While in the office of a neurologist, questions are asked about the child’s activities, symptoms, etc. More tests are ordered. A few days later, a CT scan reveals lesions on the front temporal lobes. Neurologist orders an MRI, and contacts a specialist in Lyme disease, says he just has a hunch.
Tests are positive. His hunch is right. The infectious disease specialist is convinced that all the psychiatric symptoms are caused by the Lyme disease and they have discontinued all the psychiatric drugs. The little girl will receive IV antibiotics for two months and I think the decision on after care is antibiotics for a year.
She has returned to school and all of her other regular activities, or as many as possible.
Yeah, I thought about suicide all the time when I was on Abilify, a “symptom” I never had before (I was 28 and 29 while on it). I didn’t realize it was the drug until I went off of it and the thoughts subsided… I never did tell anyone my thoughts because no good can come of telling your doctor about your suicidal thoughts. Best case scenario, he increases the drug, cold turkeys the drug, adds another drug. Worst case scenario, you end up in a hospital with your rights taken away.