Aripiprazole nausea

Aripiprazole (Abilify). Aripiprazole is indicated for the treatment of acute mania and for maintenance therapy. It is dosed at 5-30mg/day. Aripiprazole is well tolerated with the most common side effects being headache, agitation, anxiety, insomnia, and nausea. 

Daily doses of aripiprazole range from 5 to 30 mg. Aripiprazole is very well tolerated. Common side effects include headache, insomnia, nausea, dizziness, and constipation. 

The most common side effects associated with aripiprazole include headache, nausea, dyspepsia, agitation, anxiety, insomnia, somnolence, and akathisia. Dose-related adverse events include somnolence and akathisia. Early clinical experience indicates that akathisia may be avoided by starting the medication at doses lower than 10 mg and increasing the dose slowly. Aripiprazole is not associated with significant sedation, anticholinergic side effects, weight gain, or cardiovascular side effects (Petrie et al. 1997). 

In 142 adult patients who took aripiprazole (mean final daily dose 16 mg, 0.20 mg/kg) for psychotic, major affective, or other disorders, adverse effects occurred in 16, were three times more likely among women, and most often involved moderate behavioral activation or nausea, with no new episodes of mania (4). 

A 34-year-old African-American woman with schizophrenia had nausea, vomiting, and malaise for 3-4 days shortly after starting to take aripiprazole therapy. She had hyperglycaemia and a metabolic acidosis, which responded rapidly to standard treatment and did not recur when aripiprazole was withdrawn. 

Observational studies In a hospital-based postmarketing surveillance study 80% of 799 patients with schizophrenia from 122 psychiatric hospitals were treated for 4 weeks with aripiprazole 10-30 mg/day (mean modal dose 15 mg/day) [57 ]. There were significant improvements in clinical current scales and the most frequent adverse reactions were insomnia, irritability, restlessness, nausea, and vomiting. 

Antipsychotic drugs are more often used in the treatment of bipolar illness. Lithium was equivalent to aripiprazole, and both were superior to placebo, in a 3-week, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study of acutely manic patients [5 ]. The improvement was maintained for an additional 9 weeks (a total of 12 weeks), with a 12.7 point drop in Young Mania Rating Scale score for lithium and a 14.5 point drop for aripiprazole. The most common adverse events with aripiprazole were headache, nausea, akathisia, sedation, and constipation and with lithium nausea, headache, constipation, and tremor. 

Observational studies In a 6-week, prospective, unrandomized, open study in 20 patients with acute bipolar depression, aripiprazole up to a maximum of 30 mg/ day improved Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) and Mania Rating Scale (MRS) scores significantly [64 ]. The most fi-equent adverse reactions were nausea and akathisia two patients withdrew because of akathisia. 

The effectiveness and cognitive effects of aripiprazole (mean dose 6.7 mg/day) have been assessed in a 6-week, open study in 23 children with attention-deficit/hyper-activity disorder [66 ]. There was overall significant improvement from baseline on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and functional outcome measures. The most common adverse events were sedation (n = 18), headache (n = 11), nausea (n = 7), increased appetite (n = 6), musculoskeletal pain (n = 6), stomach ache (n = 5), hiccups (n = 4), and flu-like symptoms (n = 4). There was a significant increase in weight, with an increase from a mean of 37.6 kg at baseline to a mean of 39.6 kg at end of the study. 

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