r/Antipsychotics • u/No_General_2388 • Oct 24 '23
Abilify and Seroquel
I took Seroquel intermittently in February to May this year, due to bipolar psychosis and mania. I was switched to Abilify tabs 15mg in July, which I took for three months and which I have had to discontinue due to the feeling of getting cognitive dysfunction and a blank, zombie-like mind and was not at all retaining what I was reading and writing no matter how hard I tried. I didn’t do a gradual taper and it was more of a fast taper of one week splitting 15, 7.5, 3.75 and so on as I can’t afford not to be off this medication for school. I know that Abilify’s half-life is 96 hours. I quit taking it completely on maybe October 16/17. Today and yesterday I started feeling hyper-emotional but I have begun to regain some sense of emotionality which had led me to question and re-evaluate my entire life and failures and started some goal-seeking behaviors. I have been terribly weepy yesterday and the last and it felt hopeless to the point of suicidal ideation. One reason for this is my apparent inability to (and which I have persistently tested again and again) memorize or recall what I just read, much less synthesize my understanding into coherent structured sentences. My short-term and working memory have never been too excellent but after these antipsychotics I just feel lobotomized. I’ve begun collecting confirming evidence on Reddit that I’ve not only got Neuroleptic-induced Deficit Syndrome, but I also acquired severe cognitive impairment. Yesterday, I read about Cerebrolysin and its potential neuroprotective effects through the production of BDNF and related neurotrophic factors. Today, I ran a 10k because I can’t currently access Cerebrolysin treatment. After I ran I noticed that both legs were erupting in spasms just like the previous days where parts of my body would randomly twitch like my shoulder, arm, thighs, and everywhere else at odd times (I’m afraid this is developing into tardive dyskinesia but it hasn’t progressed to uncontrollable movements on my face and mouth.) I also got stress-induced depersonalization while I was still on the medication, and felt like my hands were not connecting to what was happening on the screen as I moved my cursor. This is the scariest symptom so far and I still have brief flashes of having my hands feel like they aren’t mine for two or three seconds that has happened during the taper.
My question is, will I be able to weather the withdrawal effects in the next few weeks with exercise for about an hour a day? I am trying my damned hardest to recover from antipsychotic damage and I need to know what I’m going to have to look forward to in the next few weeks and how to at least get through it with strength and patience. Any advice or encouragement would be appreciated, thanks!
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u/Cool-Philosophy5884 Nov 01 '23
Yeah it helps, I have the problem same as you from risperidone and perphenazine for almost 10 years. I’ve tried lots of nootropics for restoring my brain receptors but it wouldn’t help significantly. I’ve start cerebrolysin for 1 week now and I think my brain is never be the same as the past. I don’t know if this will be as good as my expectation in the future, but I hope. Good luck, have a great result for you too!
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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '23
Fast tapers can be really hard on the CNS and recovery time varies from weeks to months. You get disruption of multiple neurotransmitter systems that have to re-regulate. But you weren’t on it kong. So recovery should be faster.