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What Causes Restless Legs Syndrome While On Abilify?
Question: My husband has been taking Zoloft (150mg) for depression for about 10 years. His depression has slowly crept back to where he is noticing it more. His doctor gave him 3mg of Abilify to combat it and it improved slightly. He started to get restless leg symptoms and his Ambien was no longer effective. He increased the Abilify to 6mg, gave him Trazadone and another medicine for the restless leg symptoms. We then saw improvement. Not long after taking the 6mg dose he began to experience suicidal thoughts and anxiety. Because these thoughts were non existent before the Abilify, he just stopped taking them without telling anyone. He stopped taking them for about 2 weeks and the symptoms did not go away. When I found out what was going on, I had him start up his medicine again. That afternoon he had a full blown panic attack that rendered him not only physically debilitated, but when he finally did gain control of his body, he was unaware of where we were, in a simple, childlike confused manner. He regained his senses shortly thereafter. I took him to the doctor after this and told him what was going on. He gave him Xanax. The Xanax helped a lot but the anxiety is still there. We have now moved from treating a mild depression to severe anxiety, where no anxiety existed before, restlessness, where none existed before and restless leg syndrome, where none existed before. I am no longer afraid to leave him alone, but at the same time, he refuses to go anywhere (places he would have gone before) and he doesn't like to be separated from me. I am of the opinion that the Abilify is causing all the problems here. Is there any hope that this anxiety will go away if he changes medicines?
Brief Answer:
stop abilify,addition of another antidepressant.
Detailed Answer:
Hello
Welcome to HCM.
I understand your concerns for your husband.
He has been taking Zoloft for depression and was added abilify as the depression symptoms were relapsing.
Abilify in low doses is used to treat depression. But it being an antipsychotic, can rarely cause akathisia. It is also an activating agent and known to precipitate anxiety, restlessness, irritability and nausea at treatment initiation.
He developed panic attack after restarting abilify later.
In my opinion, your husband is not tolerating abilify and needs change of drug.
As xanax is working well for him, you must continue with it till the anxiety and restlessness subsides.
Restless leg syndrome should remit with stoppage of abilify.
Once the anxiety is settled with xanax, depression must be dealt with addition of another antidepressants from a different class, e.g. mirtazapine.
Kindly discuss this with your doctor.
Hope this helps.
Thanks.
stop abilify,addition of another antidepressant.
Detailed Answer:
Hello
Welcome to HCM.
I understand your concerns for your husband.
He has been taking Zoloft for depression and was added abilify as the depression symptoms were relapsing.
Abilify in low doses is used to treat depression. But it being an antipsychotic, can rarely cause akathisia. It is also an activating agent and known to precipitate anxiety, restlessness, irritability and nausea at treatment initiation.
He developed panic attack after restarting abilify later.
In my opinion, your husband is not tolerating abilify and needs change of drug.
As xanax is working well for him, you must continue with it till the anxiety and restlessness subsides.
Restless leg syndrome should remit with stoppage of abilify.
Once the anxiety is settled with xanax, depression must be dealt with addition of another antidepressants from a different class, e.g. mirtazapine.
Kindly discuss this with your doctor.
Hope this helps.
Thanks.
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
Answered by
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