M'kay, no on the guinea pig thing

So I have been wanting to take Jack off of the Abilify. Since it's a pretty scary drug in general, knowing my son is on it does freak me out. Yes, I gave the go-ahead (mostly out of sheer desperation), but that doesn't mean I have to be A-Ok with it no matter what it could do to him. Having read the challenges associated with taking one's self off of it, the fact that Abilify has a half-life, etc, well now I just want him off of it as soon as possible. The challenge is having to figure out the best way to wean him off of 2mg by myself, since this new doctor at the clinic thinks it should be perfectly fine to cut him off cold turkey. Um.. no?

So I have about 2 1/2 months of pills to wean him off (Half a bottle left of pills, plus 2 months left on the prescription). Now that Jack is being seen by another doctor, his regular pediatrician will not want anything to do with it. (I'm ok with that since this isn't his area of expertise). But the new doctor wants to cut him off of the Abilify now, see how he does for the week, then start him on Straterra next Friday. After we get him on the Straterra, we can wean him off of the Intuniv... since weaning him off of the Intuniv is counter-productive, in that he will go hyper nuts when down to 1-2 mgs. That won't be good in school. (Thinking I should be fine to wean him off of this drug so long as I have about a week- week and a half of pills per mg).

So I need a pill cutter. I need to figure out the best method of action for weaning him off of the Abilify. This worries me because I was on Lexapro several years ago, and even though I weaned myself off of them (to the best that I could given the number of pills I had to work with), I felt like crap for a good two weeks. Poor Jack doesn't sleep well, he complains of headaches, he's overweight now.. and then I found out from his blood work that he's anemic. Sigh. (I need to find a vitamin for kids that's dye free, and has extra iron. Flinstones are ok, but I swear he's hyper sensitive to them).

FYI.. if anyone is trying to find Melatonin in a lower dose than 3mg, you might be better off with the liquid form. I have been unable to find 1mg tablets for months, and they don't seem to make 2mg. I have tried 3mg myself, and absolutely hated it- even Jack asked me "Why do I feel like this?!", so forget it!! I did find a bottle of 2.5mg in a bottle.. 2tsp is 2.5 mg, so you could adjust it as needed for a smaller dose. It's more expensive than I would like, but at least it's available. I found it in the Organic section of my local Kroger, but you can find it here (for about half of the price) on Amazon. Kinda irritated with myself I didn't check Amazon first.. but who does when they're looking for vitamin supplements? LOL