A Lifetime Prescription: Aripiprazole's Unseen Battles

Confronting the Challenges of Misdiagnosis and Long-term Antipsychotic Use

Photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash

More than fourteen years ago, I started on aripiprazole as the significant switch from olanzapine. Here I am today, the weighing scales hardly waver from the 85kg mark. Countless hours spent in the gym in previous years, strict diets followed, lifestyle modifications attempted - yet, my weight remains the same, as if permanently cemented in place. I've wrestled with nutritional supplements and pushed my body in weight training programmes - all to no avail.

Every six or twelve months, like clockwork, my blood tests reflect the same elevated levels of triglycerides and prolactin. The slow, almost imperceptible development of male breasts and visceral belly fat serves as a constant reminder of these unchanging results. This, it seems, is my body's response to a drug I was told would help me. This unshakeable body-weight in specific regions has always annoyed me because it’s beyond my control while still on this neurotoxic daily drugging for a ‘condition…