i incresed to 30mg of Abilify to control some depressive symptoms, since it was basically the only drug i take that could be increased.

suddenly, i started losing LOTS of hair. i mean lots.

i told my doc, and he said it was my thyroid. i had to have blood work done. fine. so i went to my regular doc and had blood work done.

it came back wonderful, right in the normal range.

my psych doc still insisted it MUST be my thyroid!

i asked an endocrinologist friend of my husband's, and he said my thyroid is normal, and to blame the abilify. i also asked an independent lab tech and she said the same thing.

you're NOT supposed to play with your own meds, but i wanted to see if this was true. my pdoc wasn't taking any of this seriously and wasn't backing down on the dose, so i decided to try the 20 again just to see if my hair would stay on my head.

low and behold, i stopped losing hair!!!

now, i need to somehow admit to my doc that i fooled with my own meds and discovered this.

what do you think i should tell him? i have 3 months of the 20s left in my arsenal.

I'm not condoning altering your med intake without approval, but...

Tapering back on just one med to the level you were at recently is not such a big deal, and I think your doctor with realize that. Now if you were increasing something or making other significant changes, that would be cause for worry.

I would think that your doctor would understand how upsetting (and depressing) hair loss can be, especially when it's sudden like that, and that you were just trying to get to the... root of the cause. (sorry, lol)

My doc didn't believe that Abilify was causing me anxiety. I've been off of it for 3 days (5mg 2x day), and no anxiety. As a clarification, he took me off of it.

He did finally prescribe me Xanax 2mg, but I've been cutting the pills in half. I took two halfs today and one half last night.

I am not sure if I want to take it as a maintainance med or just if I really need it.

However, he didn't prescribe me anything in place of the Abilify, like another atypical. His response was if that I had symptoms like before, to go to the hospital (wtf). He's out of the office for a week or so. So, mainly out of fear that those old symptoms would come back (irrational thoughts, anger, etc), I started taking my risperdal again (I had 3 months worth that I just had filled before he changed it to Abilify).

I'm probably going to be looking for a new doctor in the meantime, anyway.

This post has been edited by dante1231: Feb 7 2009, 07:00 PM

Oh no not hair loss too with this drug, i have just had it added to other meds to even out my bpilor.On lithium i lost lots of hair but no way would pdoc admit it the drug, i know i am difficult cos i refuse any meds with high weight gain but will be so upset to lose hair again! has it helped with other problems you were put on it for? too early fo me to know yet, love amberx