Abilify: Mood Stabilizer to Treat Special Needs Children

Abilify is used a mood stabilizer used to treat mood disorders like bipolar or depression. Abilify is also being used to treat mood disorders in special needs children. Children with conditions like autism, bipolar, and adhd are being prescribed Abilify to help with their aggression. My daughter was prescribed Abilify and was on the medicine for about a year. This is our experience with Abilify.

Abilify was prescribed to my daughter who is nine because she was having fits where she would lie down, and then she would smack her head off the floor. This would last for an hour or more at a time. She would smack herself in the face, and pull her hair. While you may be thinking this is a normal tantrum for a child, I can assure you it was not. She would become agitated over the smallest thing like a shirt feeling to snug around the sleeves, or her favorite TV show was not on when it was supposed to be.

When my daughter began taking Abilify, we saw a difference in my daughter's aggression right away. She would not lie on the floor and hit her head anymore. She had fewer fits. The doctor started my daughter on 5mgs of Abilify. This seemed to help for a while.

Shortly after beginning the Abilify my daughter started to complain of being hungry all the time. We would finish eating a meal and five minutes later my daughter wanted a snack. She was gaining weight pretty quickly. The first month she was on the Abilify, she gained six pounds. This continued month after month.

While on the Abilify, my daughter also started to cry all the time. She would cry several times a day over things you would not normally cry. She also had an increase in anxiety. The aggression slowly came back too. While not as severe as when she was not on the Abilify, we still had problems.

The Abilify continued to cause my daughter to gain weight. She was feeling bad that her clothes were not fitting, and the kids were teasing her that she was getting fat. We knew we had to do something since the Abilify was not helping as well as it should.

The doctor stopped the Abilify and my daughter started losing the weight right away. She also stopped the excessive crying. We began having severe aggressive fits once she was off the Abilify though. The medicine was helping to some extent, even if we did not see it.

The doctor then prescribed a different mood stabilizer, Geodon. While Abilify has helped several special needs children with their aggression, it did not work right for my daughter. She needed another mood stabilizer to help control the aggressive fits she was having without the side effects of the Abilify.

Source: My personal experience