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  • TDS Moderators: AlphaMethylPhenyl | Eligiu | deficiT | paranoid android

Mental Health Coming Off Vraylar (cariprazine), Rexulti (brexpiprazole), or Abilify (aripiprazole)

I took a half dose (5 mg) of Abilify and the smallest dose of Seroquel (25 mg) for 2 days in a row and all my withdrawal symptoms went away. So now I think that’s the point i need to taper from.
 
I'm well over the worst at this point. (I won't provide details of what the worst was, so don't ask me please)

Dreams are more vivid and colorful. I manage my mood better. My hypersensitivity (that I've had for about 8-9 years is finally gone; as a result I'm less reactive to stimuli and more out-going and conscientious. Anxiety is more manageable too.
 
i still have knee problems due to abilify but my legs are getting better - i can tell.
 
Update: Almost exactly 2 years off Vraylar

Strange sensations caused by the medication - which a website revealed is a legitimate symptom - have finally gone away and I am ecstatic. Psychic pains can be painful, but I've never felt anything quite to the level that Vraylar did in that department. The psychic pains were so immensely painful at times it felt like steel poles were being jammed up my backside. After those persisted for a while, then came another psychic pain where it felt like my spine had turned to rebar and kept twisting.

Not a fun experience and my doctors have been most unhelpful and unsympathetic about the ordeal. Anyway. No complaints now, since I'm on Rexulti and the sensations are finally gone.
 
Was on this stuff for maybe 2 months. That quack of a shrink told me seriously, cariprazine was stimulating and diagnosed me with paranoid schizophrenia because I asked for an antipsychotic to have in reserve, not to really take it - brought me into the lands of schizophrenia and to taste a bunch of antipsychs which they made the requirement to continue the script of lisdexamphetamine (eventually got stopped because of non-compliance - I was too open with these quacks). Yeah, cariprazine is less toxic shit than haloperidol but it's still toxic shit which should only be given as a last resort. I got severely impaired ability to concentrate and enjoy things. Tried at least olanzapine (knocked me out), risperidone (triggered acoustic hallucinations, quack wouldn't believe me; got a full blown psychotic episode from it before when paramedics injected me with on an occasion of traffic control where I began an argument with the police officer - have no recollection whatsoever of that event but it costed my driving license), aripiprazol (the least worse somehow, also triggered acoustic hallucinations but only slightly), quetiapine (horror, physical sedation and full on panic attacks at 500mg), chlorprothixene (made me feel retarded) and some others. None did the slightest bit help me or feel like it could, rather they felt pretty toxic. Quack told me, if I'm not psychotic, I shouldn't feel anything from modern antipsychotics. Wanted to shove down the pills into his throat.

I don't have long term effects, for which I am grateful. For those who get such, memantine might be worth a try. It's once the opposite of an antipsytchotic - a dopamine D2 agonist - what helps to reverse the effects done by antipsychs and its other activity as a NMDA antagonist seems to help too. Just don't overblow it and go (first) with the therapeutic dosage of 10-20mg and explore that. Can help a ton, but it's difficult to get.
 
My doc recently put me on this.

I'm afraid to try it. Haven't found any real reports about it here or elsewhere.

She told me this drug would be "stimulating".. probably because it works on dopamine receptors, but so does ropinerole and that shit wasn't stimulating.

Wouldn't having another drug bound to your D receptors & and acting as only a partial agonist / antagonist make any other drugs you take feel less effective (as in opioids, thc, stims, etc.. anything that causes dopamine release)?
 
Yeah at lower doses it is stimulating. Ropinerole has a largely different mechanism, and is otherwise not from that class.

As things are for you now, it is better to stabilize on medication before thinking of getting high, no offense.
 
AlphaMethylPhenyl said:
Yeah at lower doses it is stimulating. Ropinerole has a largely different mechanism, and is otherwise not from that class.

As things are for you now, it is better to stabilize on medication before thinking of getting high, no offense.
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Is it really though? This class of drugs is known for causing tardive dyskinesia and I already have a movement disorder problem.

And I'm also prescribed several other drugs that act on dopamine & have been for years. So placing me onto a drug that is going to make them all feel less effective, whether I "feel high" from them or not is a big concern to me.

I don't have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Only major depression & anxiety.

So prescribing me this med, sounds irresponsible. Not to mention it's new (no generic) and I wouldn't doubt it lined my doctors pockets for pushing it onto me.

Ropinerole and vraylar are from different class of drugs yes, but they do target D3 receptors, and some what D1 and D2, with ropinerole being an agonist and vraylar being an partial agonist / antagonist.


So far, I've had eye twitching and head jerking while on it & a slight lack of interest in doing the things I normally do (make music, read, etc..which I some times do anyway, but this was a 'blunting' of that in a different way)
 
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Yes. the D2 partials are known for being stimulating at lower doses. I think that the newer ones (like vraylar) are known for not having as much of a TD incidence.

Care to share what other dopamine-affecting substances you are on? Should be fine unless you're on an MAOI or something of the like.

Ropinerole works on a fundamentally different dopaminergic system.
 
It is not stimulating, my doc told me the same bullshit to make me try it but all it did was increase brain fog. But it might of course be just me. Neither did I find aripiprazole to be stimulating.

If ropinirole is anything like pramipexole then it will be primarily sedating, despite being dopaminergic (some D receptors are excitatory, some inhibitory)
 
It was definitely stimulating for... but in all the wrong ways. Head tics, slurred speech, high body temperature, insomnia, akathisia, etc..

but not in the "motivation/energy" sense of "stimulating". Or the concentration sense. In fact I've been typing worse and having to fix every other word.

Pretty sure this was thrown at me because I had been saying I wanted to try a stimulant (although I have decades of experience with m-amp, amp, ritalin, concerta, cocaine & various other stims). And probably because I mentioned that I was paranoid about current political climate (who wouldn't be though?)

I had to take 3mg of clonazepam to go to sleep the first night on it when normally i'm fine with .5mg once or twice a day.

I also noticed it completely ruined my thc. Rather than get a nice pain free buzz, I instead get really high temp, dizziness & nausea and extreme sweats. Including after eating when sober even.


I also completely lost the energy boost I use to get when taking my buprenorphine daily. I feel absolutely nothing from my ephedrine. And gabapentin feels like it does nothing anymore. I shouldn't say nothing, cause i'm sure they're doing something, but the perception of them working to me is gone because the feeling of the AP is so overwhelming.

I also feel like I've been given a chemical lobotomy. Very monotonous, don't feel like my normal self (not necessarily a positive) and have no idea what to do with myself or my time because I feel too strange. Definitely a very foggy, forgetful feeling. I already forgot to do something this morning that I do every morning. Kinda feels like I'm in some kind of alternate place & I don't like it at all. I'm not even sure I'm fit to drive feeling this way honestly.

Yesterday it felt like my skin was on fire and my temp wouldn't go down. So I had to go lay by a fan until I passed out, which I barely remember doing.

Also an emergence of headaches has come on, which I haven't had in awhile. No clue if related but I wouldn't be surprised at this point.

I'm also dependent on like 10 other meds. All of it prescribe it to me except the thc & ephedrine obviously. Everything from blood pressure meds, to SSNRIs, a tetracyclic antidepressant, etc... which I wasn't before I started here years ago.

And this shit has a half life of 5 days, meaning it will take 21 days for me to stop feeling this way.

I'm pretty pissed.
 
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Another rather upsetting side effect has left me. That one was rather curious in it's own right.

Also, my trips to the bathroom are less frequent.

Still sleeping a TON which is absolutely ridiculous. It used to be impossible to sleep on vraylar.

Looking forward to think whatever I want without this medication taxing me for it. Not sure if anyone else will experience a similar thing, but vraylar made it difficult to think whatever I wanted, even if those things were moral.

No other medication has made it so incredibly difficult for me to think simple thoughts, but this one was so horrendous I began hearing voices, which is not normal for me.
 
iridescentblack said:
No other medication has made it so incredibly difficult for me to think simple thoughts, but this one was so horrendous I began hearing voices, which is not normal for me.
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How would you describe these voices, were they clearly from within your head or like from external source, etc..? I too had intensified acoustic phenomenon on aripiprazole (which was given closer to the psychosis than cariprazine so this didn't trigger but I know they can) and risperidone - had I told my doc about that, for sure they'd just upped the dosage. It's a fake game.
 
iridescentblack said:
Another rather upsetting side effect has left me. That one was rather curious in it's own right.

Also, my trips to the bathroom are less frequent.

Still sleeping a TON which is absolutely ridiculous. It used to be impossible to sleep on vraylar.

Looking forward to think whatever I want without this medication taxing me for it. Not sure if anyone else will experience a similar thing, but vraylar made it difficult to think whatever I wanted, even if those things were moral.

No other medication has made it so incredibly difficult for me to think simple thoughts, but this one was so horrendous I began hearing voices, which is not normal for me.
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I'm having trouble even putting sentences together, when I speak & type.

never have I felt a drug go so deep into my mind like this. It feels like it jumbled up my brain and everything is fucked up now.

I can't believe they give this shit to people and charge thousands of dollars a monthly script. Which honestly if this shit has such a long half life, why the hell are they making people dose it daily? I can't imagine taking this long term.

I'm upset that I was ever given this and wondering how long it will be, before I stop feeling like I've jumped dimensions or something and lost a few IQ points along the way.

I feel poisoned and violated. Profound how much this molecule changed me, no thank you.
 
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plumbus-nine said:
How would you describe these voices, were they clearly from within your head or like from external source, etc..? I too had intensified acoustic phenomenon on aripiprazole (which was given closer to the psychosis than cariprazine so this didn't trigger but I know they can) and risperidone - had I told my doc about that, for sure they'd just upped the dosage. It's a fake game.
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They were both in and out. Hard to describe, but it was like, even the radio would create distortions that sounded like that voice. It has gradually faded over time but some days I still notice it. It's horrifying.

DeathIndustrial88 said:
never have I felt a drug go so deep into my mind like this. It feels like it jumbled up my brain and everything is fucked up now.
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That's a pretty accurate description for what it does. Even as a schizophrenic, my mind is normally a pretty easy buzzing for me to stabilize or control. Put Vraylar in the mix and I literally can't stop my own thoughts even when I know they are hurting me to think them.
 
It's been almost officially 2 years off Vraylar capsules, for me. Halloween marks the approximate time I discontinued to switch to Rexulti.

My doctor doesn't like the idea of me taking Rexulti. She claims it's ineffective or something like that. Something about "the newer drugs not being proven to work as well."

I, however, think it's an excellent drug. It requires a person jumping through a lot of hoops to get on it, I hear.

Anyway, with vraylar almost firmly out of the picture, I can now go through my days with more ease considering I have far more energy and motivation... not to mention the extremely painful psychic pains that it caused me. Not much more to say on that note. Wish I could band together with some of the people around the world and form a sort of union against drug companies who push things like Invega Trinza and other drugs that have an obscenely long half life.
 
iridescentblack said:
It's been almost officially 2 years off Vraylar capsules, for me. Halloween marks the approximate time I discontinued to switch to Rexulti.

My doctor doesn't like the idea of me taking Rexulti. She claims it's ineffective or something like that. Something about "the newer drugs not being proven to work as well."

I, however, think it's an excellent drug. It requires a person jumping through a lot of hoops to get on it, I hear.

Anyway, with vraylar almost firmly out of the picture, I can now go through my days with more ease considering I have far more energy and motivation... not to mention the extremely painful psychic pains that it caused me. Not much more to say on that note. Wish I could band together with some of the people around the world and form a sort of union against drug companies who push things like Invega Trinza and other drugs that have an obscenely long half life.
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I agree. I almost feel like I was mentally injured by vraylar. I stopped taking it. No thank you!

I don't have schizophrenia or bi-polar & I can't see how it would help my depression with all the insane side effects.
 
n3ophy7e said:
Why were you put on it??
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I think for off-label treatmant resistant depression & anxiety. I've had many psychiatric meds thrown at me over the past few decades, but nothing that affected me as profoundly as this crap did. My doc has been wanting to throw me on an AP for awhile now. This is ontop of about 8-10 other medications.
 
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