Hello,
my pdoc has prescribed me aripriprazole and it’s the only anti-psychotic I have been taking, does it related to schizophrenia or something else? currently my pdoc is only giving me some anti-depressant and etizolam to control my anxiety.
Hello,
my pdoc has prescribed me aripriprazole and it’s the only anti-psychotic I have been taking, does it related to schizophrenia or something else? currently my pdoc is only giving me some anti-depressant and etizolam to control my anxiety.
Short answer:
It’s mostly for schizophrenia, but out of the antipsychotics it’s one of the most useful for other disorders too.
Understanding Antipsychotic Medications and Abilify (Aripiprazole)
What are antipsychotics?
Antipsychotics are medicines used to help people with certain brain conditions, like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and sometimes autism or OCD when there’s irritability or self-harming behavior. They help calm the brain when it is overactive in some areas.
Positive vs. Negative Symptoms
In schizophrenia, doctors talk about positive and negative symptoms.
Positive symptoms are “extra” things your brain is doing that it shouldn’t. These include:
The word “positive” here doesn’t mean good—it just means something extra has been added, like testing positive for a virus.
Negative symptoms are things that are missing from normal brain function, like:
First vs. Second Generation Antipsychotics
First-generation (older) antipsychotics:
Second-generation (newer) antipsychotics:
Why Aripiprazole is special
Aripiprazole is one of the newest second-generation antipsychotics. It is sometimes called a “third-generation” because it is usually easier to tolerate, with fewer side effects like sleepiness, weight gain, or movement problems. This makes it easier for people to take long-term.
Key Takeaways
Auto generating responses on this kind of subjects is disrespectful.
And the response is largely irrelevant to the question.
at first I was confused if it’s a genuin or AI but now after seeing this comment I am sure it’s AI.
I didn’t auto generate it. I wrote it and used a tool to format it for clarity and to help me avoid excessively clinical language. I have ADHD and when I get to really talking about this stuff I have a tendency to create unorganized text walls full of words like pseudoparkinsonianism and oculogyric crisis (two things abilify is a lot less likely to cause than thorazine).
You asked what it was for and why it might have been prescribed, so I actually worked kinda hard to make a specific patient education snippet that introduced the rudimentary concepts then specifically focused in on the medication you asked about. I tried really hard to avoid a giant text wall of anecdotes about my ten years of professional inpatient psych experience and 15 years experience taking antipsychotics personally. I reread it several times to make sure that all of it was still accurate even after having the medical terminology simplified.
I took time out of my evening to create personalized patient education material for you for free. You’re really ungrateful and I really regret trying this hard to help you.
well this is the last time I spend 30 minutes customizing and formatting patient education materials to focus on a specific medication someone asked about