Abilify and Zoloft, Bipolar?
Question by asad k: Abilify and zoloft, bipolar?
is this combo for bipolar patients?
Best answer:
Answer by Scott K
maybe. zoloft is an antidepressant. abilify is an adjunct for people who aren’t responding completely to an antidepressant.
Answer by ransomher
No! Antidepressants should never be prescribed for bipolar patients. Some studies show that antidepressants don’t help or hurt people who suffer from bipolar. However, it’s been my experience that antidepressants actually hurt (mess with your brain chemistry) bipolar patients.
Standard treatment for bipolar disorder — which affects 5.7 million adults in the U.S. — consists of mood stabilizers such as lithium, valproate and carbamazepine. Antidepressants are often added to control severe depressive swings.
Researchers estimated that 50% to 70% of people with bipolar disorder take antidepressants, although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved none of the drugs as a treatment for the disorder. One medication, quetiapine (Seroquel), has been approved by the FDA to treat both the manic and depressive episodes of bipolar disorder.
The study included 366 patients at 22 academic centers in the United States. Of the participants who didn’t take antidepressants, 27.3% said they stayed well for 8 consecutive weeks; only 23.5% of subjects who took antidepressants reported staying well throughout that period.
These findings may help many patients and doctors reexamine treatment for bipolar disorder, says Gary Sachs, M.D., lead author of the study and director of the Bipolar Clinic and Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. Revolution Health asked Sachs to break down this news.
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