FDA Warns About New Impulse-Control Problems Associated With Abilify

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Yesterday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a warning that the antipsychotic drug aripiprazole or Abilify is associated with compulsive and uncontrollable urges. Research suggests that the drug may cause urges to gamble, binge eat, shop, and have sex but that the urges often stop when the drug is withdrawn or the dose is reduced.

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39 COMMENTS

  1. approximately 1.6 million patients received an aripiprazole prescription from U.S. outpatient retail pharmacies during 2015

    This is the shit they’re starting to rig with microchips so your minder will know whether or not you’ve taken your prescribed (&/or court-ordered) dose.

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    • Correct, “oldhead”. What Otsuka Pharm. is using currently, is more like the RFID tags stores use for their “loyalty cards”. It’s low-power, and short-range. It’s only designed to send simple signals to a wearable device. That’s what’s on the market, *NOW*. If allowed to continue at this rate, in a few short years, FULL, *2-WAY* capable chips will be in *pills*. Welcome, Brave New World Order…. My GOD, what have we done….????….

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  2. I am surprised that this report only associates Abilify with strange, impulsive behavior. My daughter has experienced bizarre impulsive behavior under the influence of at least half a dozen other court ordered ‘anti-psychotics’. Some cause behavior that is not unlike Tourettes syndrome, while others trigger a full blown case of obsessive compulsive behavior such as incessant hand-washing, counting rituals, etc. I believe that history will show that anti-psychotic drugs cause a spectrum of unrecognized symptoms that fall under the undereported category of akathesia. If you or a loved one committed a crime while under the influence of an ‘anti-psychotic’ drug, as mine did, good luck getting any justice. In Oregon, inder PSRB, if one enters a plea of ‘guilty except for insanity’ and is convicted, he crime will be viewed as confirmation of how ill you are and the judge will order you to continue to be on a court ordered cocktail of toxic drugs for up to 20 years, during which your probation officer will enforce your ‘treatment’ with the threat of going to jail, plus that person will also dictate where you can live, usually in a group home.

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    • which your probation officer will enforce your ‘treatment’ …

      If its not a Felony thing I think you can just go to a new state and that extradition thing is really difficult and they don’t bother.

      Would take money and advice from lawyer.

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    • Absolutely, effexor led me to drink too much alcohol, and didnt I lost the commonsense not to drive. So after a DD conviction, I now have a licence that says “”MUST TAKE MEDICATION AS PRESCRIBED”” WTF? Off the stuff now, got my brain back, god hard work getting off the shit. Taken me 4 years.

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  3. When are they going to admit that they have NO IDEA whatsoever about what these drugs’ random effects are likely to be?

    We have “anti-depressasnts” that cause suicide, homicide, birth defects and addiction, and many things besides.

    We have “anti-psychotics” that cause psychosis, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, movement disorders, shortened life and many things besides.

    We know that the effects are largely extremely unpleasant and debilitating and that those on them have a reduced chance of living any sort of decent life.

    And yet people can be forced by law to ingest them (or have them injected).

    When will they be banned?

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  4. It should be noted that Abilify affects serotonin levels as well as decreasing dopamine levels. Both of these could easily lead to impulsive behavior, as increasing serotonin is associated with manic behavior, and lower levels of dopamine are associated with poorer executive functioning and hence impulsive decision making.

    Or in layman’s terms, randomly messing with your neurotransmitters can have unexpected and unpleasant effects!

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    • And the thing is that when a person tries to come off the drugs they get worse. So either way they are a permanent customer.

      You could compare it to alcoholism – with the only difference being that alcoholics can recover.

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        • Well I am down to 36 mg of seroquel, last one to get off of. Wish me luck! Slow and steady. Oh I was presecribed this shit as a sedative, as the effexor, makes you unable to sleep. And then the mood stabliser, and then the all because I took a valium, that sent me nuts, and no one would damn admit it.

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          • Good luck, ang. But do be forewarned, and forewarn your family, that you might go through a withdrawal induced “manic psychosis.” And it may not happen until 6 months later, or even two years later. I’d recommend keeping a little of the Seroquel, just in case, to self medicate. That’d be much better than getting hospitalized, and told “it’s a return of your mental illness,” then massively drugged again. Best wishes.

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        • …and if they suspect the drugs might be a problem and tell their doc, they’ll either be dismissed and/or labelled as non-compliant and/or have their dose increased!

          Oh yes… and there’s the “underlying condition unmasked” line that shrinks are so fond of.

          Given the attitude of doctors when told about side effects, I am very surprised the FDA even got this many reports.

          Alcohol is relatively benign compared to this sh*t! At least not EVERYONE gets addicted to it.

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          • True enough. I read something just yesterday where they suggested that SSRIs sometimes “unmask” an underlying bipolar disorder! It’s beyond outrageous, not the least because they have no way of actually determining if someone has “an underlying bipolar disorder,” while a very simple expedient will tell them if the drug is at fault – STOP THE DRUG AND SEE IF IT GOES AWAY! I am never quite sure if it’s intellectual dishonesty or just garden variety ideological stupidity driving this kind of remark – do they REALLY not see that psychoactive drugs can have unintended psychological effects? What kind of idiots are we dealing with here?

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        • Worse than THAT, Steve…. I knew in high school, that I was alcoholic, heck, I grew up in an alcoholic home. But, I *TRUSTED* the Doctors, that the PILLS were “safe & effective”…. Little did I suspect. As much damage and hell as the booze put me through, the psych drugs were MUCH WORSE….
          Now, even after 20 years sober & clean, I will NEVER be what I “coulda’ – shoulda – woulda” been….. The alcohol itself was bad enough, but the LIES the psychs told me, and their POISON PILLS, came much closer to KILLING me, than the booze did….. The weed probably saved my life, but that’s another story! LOL
          (c)2016, Tom Clancy, Jr., *NON-fiction

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        • Absolutely true steve, very well said. And I went around saying how wonderful they were to begin with, and damn I feel guilty now. Others, like my sister, will never admit it. She told me they arent addictive, etc, etc, well she has found out they damn are addictive, and I realise all her mental health problems, divorces, bankruptcies, yes all due to these horror drugs, I had no idea till the effexor did the same to me. Weird, I only went off them because of the high blood pressure, the high cholesterol, the stuffed liver and kidneys, they went back to normal, and gradually so has my brain. I now know how horrific all these pills are. http://www.survivingantidepressants.org go there for help.

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  5. FOLLOW the MONEY…. For the last few years, Otsuka Pharma, of Japan, makers of Abilify, has sole well over $1BILLION worth of this drug, alone, globally. Here in Keene, N.H., there’s a quack shrink named Shawn Shea. For years, he worked with the local “Community Mental health Center”, “Mondanock Family (and Mental Health) Services”. He wrote a book roughly titled: “How To Elicit Suicidal Ideation in Teenagers”. Something like that. It’s on Amazon. Basically, it tells how to convince and coerce teens to say they’re “suicidal” – even if they aren’t. In 2014, Otsuka Pharm paid Shea over $10,000, in 4 separate payments, for “consultancy services”. As “oldhead” points out above, Abilify is being *marketed*, in limited overseas markets, with a *microchip*, that broadcasts to a wearable device, to ensure “compliance.” It’s pending approval with the U.S. FDA. Otsuka is also working on more powerful transmitters in the microchip, which will have a longer range. How long until those chips are able to *send* AND *receive* data? Brave New World Order, here we come. Thank-you, >propublica.com<, for your "Dollars For Docs" dataset…. I believe, and feel, that it's my DUTY to WARN.
    (c)2016, Tom Clancy, Jr., *NON-fiction

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  6. The company that produces this drug has told doctors that they should prescribe this along with whatever “antidepressant” a person is taking because it’s going to make the “antidepressant” work quicker and better!!!!! They even have a television ad stating this……”if your *antidepressant* isn’t working as well as it should be, ask your doctor about Abilify”……..

    I know someone who took Abilify, supposedly to make the “antidepressant” they were on work better and what it did do was make the person psychotic. I knew this person and had never seen them ever experience psychosis in seven years and immediately after taking this damned stuff began hallucinating and hearing things. When we got through four days of pure hell with all this the person took the Abilify and threw it away.

    All of these drugs are toxic, period, and people need to stay away from them.

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    • Yes, it’s well known by all doctors that combining the antipsychotics and antidepressants can result in “psychosis.” From Wiki:

      “The symptoms of an anticholinergic toxidrome include … psychosis … Substances that may cause this toxidrome include the four ‘anti’s of antihistamines, antipsychotics, antidepressants …”

      It’s downright unethical that the psychiatrists and pharmaceutical industry are knowingly recommending treatments that they already know can create “psychosis.”

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    • I was waiting for that. It was the obvious company thing to do, as the industry is into attacking symptoms. Double your medications, double your side-effects. Though hideous to patients, this is great for companies, because the side effects can “require” even more different medications.

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  7. It sounds like these “sex and gambling” side effects are drug induced mania, as we often see with SSRIs.

    Interestingly enough Abilify was originally designed to stop manic episodes in the short term. Sounds like these “compulsive symptoms” are “paradoxical effects” of the medication.

    It is beyond me why physicians and consumers alike still have any desire to prescribe and use these psychotropic medications considering the MASSIVE risks inherent in their use: “You might be less irritable or you might end your marriage gamble away your mortgage.”

    Near vegetarian diet, exercise, meditation, yoga, time in nature, hobbies and social support are the only safe way out of misery…Anyone still surprised why India’s outcomes for Bipolar and Schizophrenia are SO much higher than they are in the states?

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    • To be honest I prefer not to use clinical terms like “mania” because they’re too mechanistic and deterministic for my standards…There’s got to be a better word to explain “getting jacked up and not giving a damn.”

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      • Hey, “Rooster”, I’m not “arguing against” you, but let me instead “argue with” you….
        Wouldn’t you say “mania”, etc., are too VAGUE, and ARBITRARY, rather than “mechanistic” and “deterministic”? I think the psychs, and PhRMa, both conspire to play word games for profit, at the expense of persons. When *I* get “jacked up”, I still “give a damn”, so is that, or is that not, “mania”? Mania ITSELF is a weasel word / euphemism. How is “mania” any different from “hysteria”?….&”Manic-Depressive Psychosis” is SO much harder to push and sell than “biploar disorder”…. See what I mean? RSVP?…. Thanks for your comment, my friend.

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          • ..and it never was before the drugs.

            I am currently doing a series of challenges on meat.

            However, I am wondering whether the drugs screw with the dopamine, serotonin etc in the gut (microbiome) as much as they do with those chemicals in the brain…and seeing most of those chemicals ARE in the gut in greater concentration than in the brain, it would stand to reason that if the gut microbiome is knocked around, how our bodies process foods etc could also change.

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      • Get off all these meds, messed up more than just the brain. Expect diahorrea, vomiting, nausea, constant flu, inability to control temperature, physical pain, hair loss, scabby skin, and they are about 10% of the symptoms, some get electric head shocks, horrific nightmares, ruminations and irrational guilts about things that happened damn years before. Be prepared before you go off them, and do it slowly, sometimes takes years, not months.
        Yes your gut is completely messed up, as is liver, kidneys, blood pressure, liver, they damage all these things, but physically we heal, and mentally, we do also…………. Ignore the suicidal thoughts, and float on the waves, till you heal. THEN SUE THE BASTARDS!

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