Miruvor
ME/CFS Very severe → partialBenefit faded or relapsedNeeds ongoing treatment

Abilify Shows Promise in Retrospective Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Study

Condition
ME/CFS
At worst
Very severe (bedbound, unable to do basic care)
Ill for
Not stated
Published
Mar 2021

Summary

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 outcome details. It instead reports on a retrospective Stanford study of 101 ME/CFS patients using low-dose Abilify (0.2 to 2mg/day, far below psychiatric doses) over a mean of 7.8 months, in which 75% of patients responded, average fatigue and brain-fog scores roughly halved, and PEM frequency dropped from about every 4 days to every 8 days, with 18 of the 101 reporting PEM disappeared entirely. Because Dafoe's individual case isn't broken out with numbers on this page, it isn't possible to say how long his own improvement lasted or whether it faded or needed maintenance.

Read it in their words

healthrising.org

What they credit

Credits Other prescription drugs, Low-dose Abilify / aripiprazole.

Symptoms mentioned

Symptoms: Brain fog, Post-exertional malaise.

Similar stories

  • Treatments. Yes, they do exist.

    Partial ME/CFS encephalogirl.substack.com Jul 2025

    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…

  • Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Turns Mathew's Long COVID / ME/CFS / POTS Around

    Full recovery ME/CFS SevereIll 4 years healthrising.org · sells Dec 2024

    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…

  • Drugs Get Mathew Most of the Way and Hyperbaric Oxygen Does the Rest

    Full recovery ME/CFS Very severeIll 4 yearsEffect faded healthrising.org · sells Jun 2024

    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…

  • Radical Rest and Beyond

    Partial ME/CFS Severe encephalogirl.substack.com May 2024

    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…