My son walks (paces) a lot. There are reports about akathisia associated with quetiapine. Anyone else seeing this?
My son paces when he is unmedicated. Down the hallway, across the living room, into the kitchen and back. Easily four hours a day.
My son is medicated, both injection And pill form and he can walk out side 7 hours a day. He does take breaks for water or bathroom, we like it better than him in his room sitting on the floor cross legged, but I don’t know why so much.
Same here, but medicated (quetiapine) or not. Paces all day long.
Agree. Walking burns calories and helps keeps weight gain down on meds. I’d like to think of it as being voluntary self-care, but wonder if quetiapine is causing it.
My son doesn’t take quetiapine, he is on Abilify and clozapine
Aripiprazole can cause akathisia also. I’m wondering how much of the pacing is drug side-effect-related.
Beyond medication side-effects there’s a degree of pacing to be expected with anxiety and thinking through your situation when stressed. Caregivers often don’t realize how caged-in you might feel if for example you think you are being surveilled or pursued or plotted against. It’s a flight or fight response as if you are hopped up on adrenaline or stimulants. Often times you are afraid to go outside because of delusional fears or an intuitive understanding that you’ll get overstimulated, so you may feel trapped. (This is from personal unmedicated experiences)
Abilify is actually intended to be “activating” for two reasons: figgetting burns calories for a drug that might otherwise cause weight gain, and to overcome soporific effects of such medications. Personally I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. See if you can channel this extra energy into exercise like walking or other activities. As with autism and ADHD, walking, crawling and other patterning movements may benefit the nervous system and brain overall.
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Beyond medication side-effects there’s a degree of pacing to be expected with anxiety and thinking through your situation when stressed. Caregivers often don’t realize how caged-in you might feel if for example you think you are being surveilled or pursued or plotted against. It’s a flight or fight response as if you are hopped up on adrenaline or stimulants. Often times you are afraid to go outside because of delusional fears or an intuitive understanding that you’ll get overstimulated, so you may feel trapped.
This is insightful and could be what’s going on. My son will often say he’s “thinking” while pacing. The thinking could be how to handle what situations he’s feeling he’s in.