A few years back I wrote about how my son (who was 12 at the time) took Abilify as a stand alone medication for a few months and had suicidal thoughts while he was taking it.   This was unusual for him as he is not a suicidal kid in general and when we discontinued the medication due to it giving him tics of odd tongue movements and neck rolls, the suicidal thoughts discontinued-as did the tics.

Over the years since then I have received quite a few emails from people relating to that post and sharing similar issues of suicidal thoughts or tendencies while taking Abilify – either with themselves, their loved ones, or their children.  Because I have no way to verify the legitimacy of these emails, I have not written about them.  However, a few days ago I received an email from a man saying that his fiance completed a suicide attempt and he is now devastated by the loss.  I was struck by that email.   He attributes the suicide to her taking a combination of Pristiq, Abilify and Adderall.

He says:

The pills made her more and more irate, unapproachable, wild, irrational, paranoid, and completely not “herself”…Definitely not the person I met and fell head over heels for. She nose dived in a matter of 2 to 3 months with the biggest hit coming with the addition of the Abilify.

_______

I cannot get this email out of my mind.  As you know, stimulants caused huge issues for my son and Abilify was not good for him either.

If your child or family member is taking stimulants (Ritalin, Adderall, Focalin, Concerta, etc.) and/ or SSRIs or SNRIs (antidepressants like Prozac, Zoloft, Effexor, Paxil, Pristiq) and/or Abilify and they are suicidal and/ or worse than they were before they started the medication and/or simply cannot get stable, PLEASE consider that the medications that are supposed to be helping them could be making them worse.   Do not discount their behavior as simply a part of bipolar behavior or as you having a child that simply cannot get stable.   Stimulant medication and medication with stimulant-like properties does help people that can tolerate it but it can also wreak havoc on people that can’t and even more so on bipolar teens, children, and adults.

This has happened to us, it has happened to others, and it can happen to you.

“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.

On the good side though Don and I were talking last night and we have both noticed that Rye’s nightmares have disappeared.  For weeks now.  At least since before Christmas and including through the trip to New York.  No more night talking.  No more night walking.  No more night screaming or night half dreaming/half awake times.  He now takes children’s benadryl (50mg) before bed every night and sleeps well with no disturbances.  We both attribute the disapperance of the nightmares to the Abilify finally be completely out of his system.  Abilify is a powerful med.  He only took 2mg for about 2 months and then once for about 3 days for a what I call an aftershock mini manic attack. And it has now taken this long (a few months) to completely get this drug out of his system.

I’m so glad the nightmares are gone for now.  He has never in his life had them as bad as he did from the Abilify.  I hear that Seroquel and other aytpical antipsychotics can cause the same effect so we will be staying away from atypicals unless we are in a true emergency.

So, so long for now NY

and hello Mayberry

After being in New York the town we live in feels like Mayberry, no doubt about it.  It also feels like we are living back in small town America in the 1950’s.

But that’s ok.

We love it.

First, I got my test scores back from the standardized test I took for the teaching/grad school program to which I recently applied.  I studied relatively hard for the test as I was worried about passing and ended up scoring in the top 15% of all test takers in the past few years and got a nice certificate to say as much.   So, that was kind of cool.

Second, I got word that I was offered an interview with the program to which I applied and that I could go ahead and schedule that interview.  Now this was really exciting!  I have been waiting months and months to apply for this program and get this news!

At the same time all of this was happening, Rye was winding up and this culminated in a manic episode the likes of which I have not seen in months.  He was really up there and we ended up having to give him a few doses of Abilify to adjust him back down again as he was really suffering.   He missed some days of school and unfortunately missed the last days with the holiday party etc. but he did not seem to mind. I guess he was pooped and overdone and was ready to call it a holiday for the next few weeks.  The good news is the Abilify did help and he only needed it for 3 days to correct back down [note: Rye is extremely med sensitive so he is greatly affected by very small doses of meds] and he now back off of it and is doing well.  In fact, his good friend had a sleep over birthday party last night and so he went to that and I’m sure he is having a blast.

So, what to do now… what to do now.  I’d be ignorant to think that my news and excitement about the program I applied to and Rye’s emotional state were not related.   You see, the program is across the country from where we are now.  And while we are all very excited about the prospect of moving to said location, it turns out Rye is petrified of moving and also having me work full time and go to school.  It is all just too much change and stress at once.  He does not do well when I work full time, let alone tack school on top of it.  And in this case, there would be moving involved as well.   Now, Don working full time?  No problem.  But me doing it or me being gone for extended amounts of time for any reason for that matter always ends in huge anxiety on Rye’s part and subsequent emotional instability.

Knowing this, the question becomes what to do now.  It looks like I will not be interviewing with the program and I will have to put that on hold for a while.  And that’s sad for me because I can’t tell you how much I was looking forward to being a part of this program and having my own career back and being back in school (even though I already have a graduate degree but, hey, I love school) and being involved in something as meaningful as this program is – as it is a social advancement project that is doing great things in this country.

When all is said and done, though, it is most more important to me to have Rye be ok and feel secure and for him to be able to stay off of continual meds for as long as possible.   And he told me directly twice this week that it is really hard for him when I work full time and he really wants me to be at home.   So, I will stay home for now.  Or at least just teach part-time with a flexible schedule as I have been doing for now.  There is an immediate and direct correlation between Rye’s stress level and his emotional state and I have been reminded once again that I cannot ignore that or minimize it.  And actually, I am grateful that I am able to work part-time since Don works full time.  So, thank you Don for doing that!

Now, onward and upward.

The next two weeks will be really nice as we are on holiday and can really enjoy the time together and time with family.  Right after Christmas we head to New York, New York – City of Dreams – to visit family and friends we have not seen in a while and that will be great fun!

So as one door closes, a window opens.

I look forward to seeing what comes through that window.

[PS...and as a side note, I cannot stop playing that Lashisse video - that thing is so darn funny it makes me laugh out loud every time I watch it.  And the Brooke Shields Latisee one is just plain scary.  Why the heck on God's green earth would someone risk all of the side effects of Latisse just to have fuller eyelashes?  Crazy!]