How it went
Did it last?
- 7 of 22 said the benefit wore off (including the 4 who relapsed).
- 3 of 22 needed to keep doing it to stay well.
Read from what people wrote. A story that ends without a follow-up counts as lasting, so treat these as minimums.
| Outcome described | Accounts | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Full recovery | 4 | 18% |
| Near-full | 0 | 0% |
| Substantial | 6 | 27% |
| Partial | 7 | 32% |
| Relapsed | 4 | 18% |
| No benefit | 1 | 5% |
By how ill people were
| Severity at worst | How it went | n | Recovered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moderate | 3 | 33% | |
| Severe | 5 | 40% | |
| Very severe | 7 | 14% |
7 accounts don’t say how ill the person was.
Who published these accounts
Right-hand number: share describing a full or near-full recovery. Pages that sell something, and advocacy sites, tend to publish only the successes.
How often it comes up
Posts that mention Low-dose Abilify / aripiprazole, per 1,000 posts each year. Hover a point for the count.
Show as a table
| Year | Posts mentioning it | All posts | Per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 0 | 184 | 0.0 |
| 2010 | 0 | 682 | 0.0 |
| 2011 | 0 | 704 | 0.0 |
| 2012 | 2 | 1,491 | 1.3 |
| 2013 | 7 | 1,708 | 4.1 |
| 2014 | 0 | 2,352 | 0.0 |
| 2015 | 0 | 2,158 | 0.0 |
| 2016 | 0 | 1,431 | 0.0 |
| 2017 | 5 | 3,110 | 1.6 |
| 2018 | 0 | 2,201 | 0.0 |
| 2019 | 26 | 1,075 | 24.2 |
| 2020 | 331 | 2,581 | 128.2 |
| 2021 | 140 | 1,867 | 75.0 |
| 2022 | 32 | 1,166 | 27.4 |
| 2023 | 31 | 1,000 | 31.0 |
| 2024 | 7 | 1,237 | 5.7 |
| 2025 | 10 | 1,019 | 9.8 |
| 2026 (so far) | 23 | 840 | 27.4 |
Posts in the forum threads we archived, 26,806 in all, counted per year. A mention means the post names the treatment, not that the writer took it. These threads all contain a recovery story, so they show what those communities discussed, not everyone with ME/CFS or long COVID. All trends
All 22 accounts
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Treatments. Yes, they do exist.
In this follow-up post, Encephalogirl (Michelle) lists an expanded regimen: low-dose naltrexone, low-dose Abilify, guanfacine, about nine months of tenofovir as part of a planned minimum one-year antiviral course, six weeks of low-dose rapamycin at 1mg once…
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Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Turns Mathew's Long COVID / ME/CFS / POTS Around
Mathew developed long COVID with ME/CFS and POTS after a COVID infection in February 2020 and cycled through severe crashes for four years, at times 20 hours a day in bed, despite midodrine, low-dose naltrexone, Abilify and Paxlovid. In late 2023 he…
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Drugs Get Mathew Most of the Way and Hyperbaric Oxygen Does the Rest
Dr Mathew Robinson, a university professor, developed long COVID with ME/CFS and POTS after infection in February 2020 and spent 20-22 hours a day in bed. Midodrine, low-dose Abilify and low-dose naltrexone under Bateman Horne Center care brought him to…
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Radical Rest and Beyond
The author of Encephalogirl (who signs as Michelle) treats her ME/CFS-related dysautonomia and POTS with guanfacine and low-dose Abilify (titrated from 0.5mg down to 0.25mg after migraines, then back up to 0.5mg), an increased dose of low-dose naltrexone, a…
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List of ME/CFS Recovery and Improvement Stories (page 10 discussion)
nolongerdiseased, ill with post-viral ME/CFS from age 12 to 19, progressed from moderate (50% function) to full remission over about 5 months using a 3-month Goldner autoimmune protocol followed by roughly 2 months of low-dose Abilify (0.75mg), with PEM…
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List of ME/CFS recovery and improvement stories
Took low-dose aripiprazole and had every symptom domain - cognition, PEM, energy and sleep - improve dramatically within a short period, though no dose is given. The benefit lasted about two months and then disappeared completely, returning him to his old…
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List of ME/CFS Recovery and Improvement Stories (page 11 discussion)
Dude reported a 20-30% improvement within days of starting 2.5mg aripiprazole every other day, with less brain fog, pain and fatigue, and returned to 19 hours a week of work as a software developer. The gain was described as a meaningful but partial…
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Full remission after 7 years of ME/CFS - What worked for me
Followed the Golder Autoimmune Protocol for about three months (roughly 3 liters of water and 650g of raw cruciferous and leafy greens daily, plus chia or flax seed, iodine and B12, on about 1500 calories a day), then added low-dose Abilify at 0.75mg daily…
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Abilify plus LDN returns retired clinical psychologist to 80% health for two months
Marvin, a retired clinical psychologist, took low-dose Abilify (0.5 mg) combined with low-dose naltrexone (2.5 mg) from a compounding pharmacy after 11 years of fatigue, post-exertional malaise, cognitive problems, and unrefreshing sleep. The combination…
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Extremely Severe ME/CFS - A Personal Account
Tube feeding: after roughly a decade of ME/CFS progressing from mild to extremely severe, Whitney Dafoe developed severe gastroparesis and was fed first via a PICC line with IV nutrition, then via a jejunostomy (J-tube) for total enteral nutrition, going six…
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Abilify Shows Promise in ME/CFS Study (Dian)
Dian takes Abilify at 4.5 mg along with low-dose naltrexone (LDN), a combination she has used for two years. She has had ME/CFS since a bout of mono as a teenager and is now 54; she went from needing a wheelchair or walker to walking 2 to 4 miles a day,…
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Abilify Shows Promise in ME/CFS Study (Mark Martinho)
Mark Martinho tried low-dose Abilify after being ill for more than six years. He initially felt great with no side effects, but after about six months the drug, like most others he had tried, "ceased to work." He stopped for roughly a year and then restarted…
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Abilify Shows Promise in ME/CFS Study (Ann McDonald)
Ann McDonald has taken low-dose Abilify (aripiprazole) at 0.5 mg daily since July 2020. She had moderate ME/CFS for four years before starting it and says the drug improved her health dramatically, markedly reducing her sensitivity to sound and light, with…
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Abilify Shows Promise in Retrospective Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Study
The piece states that Abilify (aripiprazole) enabled Whitney Dafoe, one of the most severely affected ME/CFS patients on record, to communicate again for the first time in years, but it does not give his personal dose, treatment duration, or other individual…
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Abilify - Stanford Clinic Patients
Butydoc, confined to bed 90% of the time with PEM every few days, micro-dosed Abilify from 0.1mg (9 days) to 0.2mg (8 days) using a tuberculin syringe under Dr. Bateman's guidance. Within 2 days of starting he had more energy and was up more often, and on…
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From very severe to moderate in two months
Combined low-dose Abilify (titrated up to 4mg), LDN 4.5mg and Celebrex 100mg under a GP's supervision. Went from very severe -- fed via a PEG tube -- to moderate within two months, stating "I don't need my PEG anymore" and managing about four hours out in a…
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From Very Severe to Moderate in Two Months
Martin, tube-fed and very severely ill for 2.5 years, started Abilify (titrated 2 to 4mg) with LDN 4.5mg and Celebrex 100mg in September 2020 and improved from very severe to moderate within about two months, coming off the feeding tube and regaining enough…
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From very severe to moderate in two months
Martin's GP prescribed an anti-inflammatory combination of 4mg Abilify (titrated up from an initial 2mg), 4.5mg low-dose naltrexone, and 100mg Celebrex. He had been very severely ill for two and a half years beforehand, to the point of needing a PEG feeding…
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Abilify and Energy
erist, who described mornings as swimming up "from the bottom of a dark lagoon," took low-dose Abilify (0.5-1mg) and got more energy, better appetite and easier waking, alongside some agitation and a wired/tired feeling similar to methylation-protocol…
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Abilify - Stanford Clinic Patients
Index entry credits Jessie107 with 2.5mg daily Abilify; a related post on the same thread mentions her taking 3mg with no side effects and continuing energy improvement, but gives no duration-of-illness, severity, or long-term detail.
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Aripiprazole (Abilify)
Index entry credits Jaybee00, on the S4ME forum, with 2mg daily Abilify for ME/CFS improvement. This page was not fetched directly, so no further detail on duration of illness, severity, or durability beyond the index listing is available.
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Abilify plus LDN Returns Retired Clinical Psychologist to 80% Health for Two Months
Credits abilify and low-dose naltrexone. An unnamed patient had ME/CFS and reports a partial improvement. Improvement explicitly described as lasting two months.