[Rooney25]

Hello,

I am new to this forum. I used to be on 300mg Wellbutrin and 10mg Abilify for anxiety/depression. Life was wonderful, except for awful pain I was experiencing in my hands and feet, something I read could be a result of Abilify. I spoke to my doctor about it and he suggested going from 10mg to 5mg. This is when my world started spinning out of control. After only 2 or 3 days, I was experiencing intense fear and panic, and couldn't stop crying. Fear unlike anything I had experienced in my life, and panic, feeling a total break from reality, worrying about everything and anything. I panicked and, without talking to my doctor, put my dose back up to 10mg. I learned later online that this may have been the worse thing I could have done.

My panic and fear only got worse. It was/is awful. This was about a month ago, and things are the same. I went to a psychiatrist who, stupidly, disregarded any possibility of it being Abilify related, and prescribed Gabopentin on top of everything else. When that wasn't helping I called him, and he still ignored my plea regarding this being Abilify-related and said that when I got home (I have been out of town on business --horrible timing--) he could put me on something ELSE (making this now 4 things!?) for the panic and fear, saying this was my problem and nothing to do with the meds, even though it was something I had never experienced in my life until my Abilify dose changed. Thanks a lot, pill-pusher. I spoke to my main doctor, who is the only doctor out there I trust, and he agreed with me that I need to wean off the Wellbutrin and then the Abilify. I should never have been on the Wellbutrin in the first place. My only original problem was anxiety. I was on Lexapro for 3 years, which worked like gangbusters, then I developed a resistance and went on Cymbalta, which made me depressed. Instead of going on something different for the anxiety, I treated the depression, which was only a result of the Cymbalta-- my mistake.

So, ideally, what I want to do now is get off the Wellbutrin (I am currently weaning off that) and then the Abilify, then get on something strictly for anxiety. Perhaps the Gabopentin I am taking will handle that, but I can't tell at the moment because, one month later, I am STILL suffering from this awful constant fear and panic. It's absolutely awful. All I want to do is curl into the fetal position and watch TV to distract me. It's awful, awful, awful. I'm scared of everything and obsessing over all of it. It's like a horrible headache that won't go away.

I'm SO SCARED off weaning off the Abilify. Will it get worse? Will it go away? Am I at risk of having some permanent damage and fear from this stuff? It's nuts to me that I am still experiencing this, even though I have been back up to my original dose for almost a month, though I did read that putting my dose back up was one of the worst things I could have done.

Any advice or experience anyone has with this would be so greatly appreciated. Thank you so, so much.

[spondiferous]

Hopefully the weaning off went well for you? I weaned off of Abilify and didn't have any issues. But I get paranoid anytime there's a med change because I have really intense and sometimes violent reactions to meds.
It would be nice if you checked in and gave us an update on your current situation.