Goodbye, Abilify

In case you didn’t read my blog post about having a stroke, I’ll tell you now that at the age of 36 I had a stroke. Somewhere in the process of my carotid arteries tearing to a near fatal point, my right vertebral artery up and died. That’s correct, I only have three arteries getting oxygen to my brain. Which isn’t a huge deal. I can function for the remainder of my lifetime with the three.

I had been on the antipsychotic Abilify since 2004. It worked to take care of 80% of my psychotic symptoms. The voices mainly stopped and my paranoia dampened down a considerable amount. It may not have completely taken away the issues but 80% is better than nothing. I took it. Then in the fall of 2018, one of Abilify’s box warning side effects caught up to me. Abilify causes the muscles in the arteries to weaken, making it harder for the body to pump blood through it. This isn’t good for someone with naturally low blood pressure and only one vertebral artery. I ended up having fainting spells. I ended up in the hospital. Again.

The doctor at the hospital had to run several tests before coming up with the hypothesis of what was causing my fainting spell. What exactly was causing the lack of blood getting to my brain. He ended up with the triple threat theory, one vertebral artery, low blood pressure, and Abilify. He put me on medication to raise my blood pressure and informed me to talk to my psychiatrist about Abilify because he didn’t want to change my psych meds.

Of course the first thing my psychiatrist did was take me off of Abilify. I finished titrating off of it in November. I was nervous at first. I had been taking it, for better or worse, for fourteen years. I seem to be doing okay. Latuda seems to be handling the weight of my symptoms all on its own just fine. Fingers crossed. It could all go downhill at any moment and one moment it will. When that happens, there is Saphris, my new comfort blanket antipsychotic. It’s good to have a backup. That makes it a little less scary.