pDoc recommends that I stay on the meds...

New to the forum!

Basically I have begun the process of weaning off 10mg Abilify (currently been taking 5mg for the past 4 days... so far all good) so now the question is how long to stay on the 5mg for? pDoc would prefer me to stay on the medication longer but i'm just getting sick of it all... Ill give you some more background information!!!

I had my first psychotic episode while on holiday in Vietnam (16th of March) ... a combination of weed (I only had one puff though), very high temperature, lack of sleep (that got worse as the psychosis developed) and not eating. Basically I got to the point where I believed that I was in the devil's part of the world and that all people food and water were contaminated... so no eating, drinking or sleeping! so I booked a flight back to Australia and somehow made it back!

Once I made it back to Australia it was clear that things weren't right so I was initially medicated on 15mg of olanzapine... after 3 months I tapered down to 10mg and then a month later I switched to 10mg of abilify!

Initially the abilify was HELL!! restless, agitated, hard to sleep but all the symptoms have gone away (thankgod!) and now I sleep like a baby (too much actually).

I am stable and have been for a long while (the almost 6 months i've been medicated)...well the whole time actually... and I have been diagnosed with first episode psychosis (and has been regarded by the pDoc as a rather short episode also)

My current situation is that the pDoc wants me to stay on the medication a little bit longer to prevent a 2nd episode from occuring... my thinking is that I want to get off abilify to stop any long term effects from the medication and generally just get back to "normal" or lets just say whatever the "new normal" may be. I've never liked the idea of being on medication and would rather risk the chance of a 2nd psychosis episode than being uncomfortable (with brain shrinkage and all the negative cognitive effect of APs) taking abilify for a longer amount of time.... I just don't want permanent side effects (or anymore at this stage)

Would love your opinion on my situation!!!!!

Personally, I choose the medications. I've been on them for years and they have to be changed every so often because the stop working. Right now though I had to go off them, except for Klonopin, cold turkey due to a conflict with another medication I had to take for a blood clot in my leg. I'm so depressed that I had just as soon not see tomorrow. They have just started me on Seroquel and have a little more energy but still depressed to the point that I don't care what happens to me. So I would do anything to get my meds back and them work. But only you can choose what is right for you, however, I would let sleeping dogs lie. Good luck with your choice.

They like you to be on at least a year to help prevent relapse . If you relapse you may find yourself in deep crap buddy, leading to a life time of illness . So do has the doc says you doing ok

If you've been on the medication for six months, you are probably okay tapering off. The longer you stay on it, the more your brain gets accustomed to it and the harder it will be for you to get off without rebound psychosis. I don't know if you are aware of the study that recently came out that showed that a higher percent of patients who had discontinued medication functionally recovered in the long-term, so if you are deciding, you may want to take a look at that. The group who discontinued did so after six months, which is why I use that time as a marker. You want to taper off very slowly--10% every 4 to 6 weeks.

Here's the study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23824214

"Dose reduction/discontinuation of antipsychotics during the early stages of remitted FEP shows superior long-term recovery rates compared with the rates achieved with MT. To our knowledge, this is the first study showing long-term gains of an early-course DR strategy in patients with remitted FEP."

Thanks for posting the link to that study! The pDoc actually mentioned that study also... making things more confusing! Im seeing the pDoc in a couple of weeks so Ill continue on 5mg until then where ill make a decision thanks for your help

I have been on some sort of shrink med 35 years, if you think I am a little strange you should have seem me before meds. Your like saying if you take omega 3 every day you will finish up looking like a dolphin

Wow! It is so good that a psychiatrist is taking to heart that study. It's a sign that times are changing, which is hopefully good for patient outcomes.

Just take it slow with the decreases and take care of yourself.

Appreciate your kind words onion!