Hello! Unfortunately, I can't answer your question... but I'm very interested in the fact that you're taking the same meds that I am. For a diagnosis I just recently received. What made you decide to go off abilify?
I'd speak to your doctor. Perhaps you need to adjust the rate of titration of the abilify. Are you feeling any better yet?
Not necessarily, no. The better way according to my research is to successfully withdraw from a drug before starting a new one. Most psychiatrists have their own way of doing it, and so you have to accept that they have had success doing it that way. But I believe in erring on the side of safety, and that means tapering off a drug at a pace that suits you, not one that suits the psychiatrist. Everyone is going to have their own experience and stopping and starting meds should reflect that. Because no two meds work exactly the same -- remember, even if they're in the same class of med, they have to work differently or else they cannot get FDA approval or a patent -- if you just copy what another drug does, that's a patent violation and the FDA only approves and patents are only awarded if you do something in a different way. This means no drug is an exact substitute for any other drug. So while they might be prescribed for the same purpose, they don't work exactly the same, and therefore when you taper off one drug and start another drug at the same time, you run a risk of suffering symptoms that might be start-up side effects of the new drug or might be withdrawal effects of the old drug or might be both, but you have no way of knowing if you do it this way. Again, many shrinks do it his way and many patients are fine with it. So again, I'm just really into doing this stuff as safely as possible so those of us who suffer from this insane crap don't end up with more problems when we seek treatment -- we have enough to deal with already. If it were me, and it isn't, I'd stop the Lamictal, go back on the Abilify, and taper off as slowly as you need to until you've done it successfully. At that point I'd try something else if you think you need to do that -- if the Zoloft is working, you might not. If it was working but not as well as hoped, then you might need additional medication. Nobody can tell you, including your psychiatrist, how long this will last -- it could end tomorrow or last for months. Who knows? We react differently, and we react differently to different meds. And again, you might be suffering side effects of the Lamictal -- most meds for mental illness take a few weeks before they start working but side effects start right away. The only way to know for sure is to finish the taper off of a med before starting another. It's your choice, in the end. As far as we know, most people don't suffer withdrawal for a long time, but that's little consolation to those who do. Why risk it? This is not a view I invented, it's one I discovered when I had a bad reaction to stopping a med and had to do a lot of research, and there is no consensus view on this. This is just mine that I got from researching different views that different psychiatrists and researchers have developed over time. Any way you choose, I hope it works out as you wish it to.