Tapering off abilify. Withdrawl?

That is correct for me. Addon for depression. 10 mg for a year and cold turkey. I dunno why my doc didn't taper. I could have had symptoms and not known it.

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A slow taper for a pdoc is sometimes still too fast...most patient advocacy groups do a ten percent reduction per month. Even doing what my pdoc did at 2.5mg per 6 weeks it would take 3 months to taper from a 5 mg dose...so it might have been a little fast. Can your pdoc not talk to you over the phone to get you on say 1 or 2 mg to lessen the withdrawal symptoms? They won't go away until your brain receptors change back...not much is known about how long this takes for APs because pdocs are much better about getting us on meds than off but for some meds like benzos the withdrawal time is 2 months to a year....better to taper slower than feel withdrawal for that long IMO.

Yeah 10mg is pretty high for an add-on that's the starting range for anti-psychotic effects so you could have had issues coming off. It I'm glad you didn't...

As far as your doc really there are no guidelines published for coming off the meds, they only know how to get you on...

I was on 15 mg Abilify and 36 mg of Concerta had to go cold turkey when I couldn't afford it anymore. Didn't notice any side effects at all. Made me wonder if they were ever really doing anything. But I've quit MULTIPLE meds cold turkey over the years and other than an upswing of depression never noticed any side effects. I do tend to be med resistant so maybe I'm side effect resistant to lol.

My Pdoc had a cancellation today, so I have an appointment to talk to her at noon. I'm hoping to get this straightened out today...sick of feeling sick!

This thread is why I joined PsychCentral - okay, and other reasons too...

Sometimes Psychotic, are you med free now and without psyhosis/schizophrenia?
Did you feel your tapering off went alright or do you wish it had gone more slowly, the 10% way?

I don't expect my psychiatrist to know all the answers, so hoping to research all this well before I even start tapering off.
I'm on 10 mg Abilify now which is according to my psychiatrist the lowest working dose for psychosis/schizophrenia.

I went from 20mg to 10mg fairly quickly without any noticeable side effects, so I'm hoping it wouldn't have to be 10% a month reduction from there, though I'm willing to do it slow if needed. What do you guys think?
I'm wondering whether to buy a scale or not, for cutting/scraping the pills and going the 10% way.

My psychiatrist is otherwise a fan of high doses and would like to have me on Abilify 'forever', but agrees that according to our system here after 2 years one is 'entitled' to discontinuation (though she thinks it very unlikely that I'd be alright without meds, that's why I'm looking for another psychiatrist ). I doubt her to be an expert to tapering off.

In the light of success of Open Dialogue Finland, which is a low/no med approach to treatment of psychosis, I wonder if 2 years are random time or if any real studies back this up? Does anyone know?

So I went by 2.5mg each time down and it was fine....I did get some knocking hallucinations at one of the lower doses but it went away. I was off for 9 months then I started hearing the knocking then music but no voices. I was under some stress and concerned about relapse so I just went back on that was about two months ago. also I was having visuals. My relapse was mild but it got treated right away. I plan on trying to go off again though after at least 6 months stable....I'm at about a week or two with no symptoms now so it will be a while.

My pdoc says 6 months no symptoms, I'm not sure where he got that number...there are two studies one by harrow and one by wunderink both suggest time off meds is good. Harrow set the two year mark, basically that study was naturalistic so it's just when people went off...no scientific basis...

SP thanks!

So your lowest dose was 2.5mg, half of 5 mg tablet?
No scales?

I looked up the studies, I've come across one before, I think, and gave an article about it to my psychiatrist, she said there were much more studies on long-term/high dosage use of antipsychotics (?) You were really lucky with your pdocs! (Or maybe it's also the different diagnoses? I was diagnosed with 'shizophrenia' even though I only heard voices for 2-3months and had visuals for only 1 or 2 days)

Yes 2.5 mg then off....

Well my pdoc was part of the same institution as one of the studies was carried out in so his perspective was different than most and I was super lucky to have him.