Aripiprazole - Abilify

[neophyte32]

Im taking LDA since may. 0,10 then 0,25 until august. Im at 0,45 now, but It's losing its effectiveness. I don't know if I should increase slowly up to 1mg... I'm afraid of the withdrawal afterwards. I'm between severe and very severe; I was doing 1500 to 2000 steps, then I dropped to 300 after a crash following a left side SGB that made me crash 3 weeks ago...
I dont know what to do with that fucking illness.

 

[leokitten]

So, the effect lasts a few weeks and then dissipates? If it is reliably reproducible, there must be something to it, least for your ME/CFS. Ability is a dopamine stabilizer, btw, so it may affect different people differently.

It doesn’t totally dissipate it just gets to the point where it’s decreased enough that I know it’s best to stop and take a break. But if I keep taking it it continues to have some effect that improves my baseline a bit.

 

[leokitten]

My worry, is that it just masks symptoms/PEM which allows you to do more, hence the very common “poop out” experience.

I know atleast for me I would have trouble telling between a short term improvement and a masking of pem/symptoms.

At least in my case whether it’s “masking” or doing more taking LDA in cycles like this doesn’t have any permanent baseline worsening effect

I know it’s hard to convey clearly but the way it truly feels for me is that it’s not masking but that dopamine dysfunction is in my case a downstream cause of many of my ME symptoms and LDA is improving that but LDA isn’t touching the upstream root causes that are creating the dopamine dysfunction in the first place, and for that reason it loses efficacy over time because the root causes end up counteracting LDA eventually, if that makes sense. That’s what it feels like

 

[leokitten]

Without going through 533 posts in this thread: up to what dosage do you go?
– and how quick ?

In general I’m interested up to what level responders go.

I used to take 0.25 and go up to 1 mg a day and would have a really good response that lasted two months or so before very slowly reducing over months. I would titrate up over a few weeks. This was 2021-2024. Going up higher than 1 mg didn’t help more.

But now I have a big confounding factor, I’ve been taking Zepbound since beginning of 2024 and suddenly after starting that I’ve required a much higher LDA dosage and it lasts about a month or so before it reducing in efficacy more quickly. I now take 3-4 mg a day right from the get go without titrating. Going up beyond 4 mg doesn’t seem to help more.

Zepbound has really mediated the dopamine response to LDA. This is a well known aspect of GLP-1 drugs in the brain they modulate and flatten dopamine signaling. I’ve lost a lot of weight on Zepbound and am at the same weight I was in high school now and much healthier in this respect. So I don’t really want to quit taking it to go back to being overweight even if LDA was better.

 

[neophyte32]

Avant, je prenais 0,25 mg, puis j'augmentais jusqu'à 1 mg par jour. J'obtenais de très bons résultats pendant environ deux mois, avant de diminuer très progressivement la dose sur plusieurs mois. J'augmentais la dose sur une période de quelques semaines. C'était entre 2021 et 2024. Augmenter la dose au-delà de 1 mg n'a pas apporté de bénéfice supplémentaire.

Mais voilà qu'un élément perturbateur important se présente : je prends du Zepbound depuis début 2024 et, soudainement, après avoir commencé ce traitement, j'ai eu besoin d'une dose de LDA beaucoup plus élevée. Cet effet dure environ un mois avant que l'efficacité ne diminue plus rapidement. Je prends maintenant 3 à 4 mg par jour d'emblée, sans ajustement. Augmenter la dose au-delà de 4 mg ne semble pas apporter d'amélioration supplémentaire.

Zepbound a vraiment atténué la réponse dopaminergique au LDA. C'est un effet bien connu des médicaments GLP-1 : ils modulent et atténuent la signalisation dopaminergique dans le cerveau. J'ai perdu beaucoup de poids grâce à Zepbound et j'ai retrouvé mon poids du lycée, en bien meilleure santé. Je n'ai donc pas vraiment envie d'arrêter le traitement et de reprendre du poids, même si le LDA était plus efficace.

Salut
u have not withdrawal s effets ? Im at 0,45, i increased very slowly (0,05 each 2 weeks) since may. It s not working as well when i was at 0,25 mg... i had two months with 1500-2000 steps. I was at 1000 in september. Now im in crash (a left side sgb, bad idea), bedridden, i m increasing LDA. I think 0,05 each week. I want to test a normal (1 mg). What do u think of my strategy ? U are severe ?