I gained 30 pounds after starting abilify. Has anyone else experienced this degree of weight gain?

My 22 year old daughter has gained 32 pounds since starting Abilify in May. She now goes to the gym 3 times a week, but can’t seem to lose any of the weight. It’s very hard for her as a young woman to deal with this when others assume she is pregnant. She did try cutting her dosage in half (under her doctor’s guidance) and she felt better overall, but started hearing voices again, so her dosage was brought back up to the original amount. My girl is determined that she will lose the weight. Looks like it will take some time.

I have a good friend ( female age 35 ) who's been on Abilify or I should say WAS on Abilify. Over the course of 4 months, she gained 50 pounds!
Her face is all round and puffy, she looks inflated. She has just gone off of them.

What are these drug companies thinking? You know they're capable of making an effective drug without causing people to blow up like a balloon. Its not right. If it were me, I'd probably rather be mentally unstable than be fat, no offense. Its unhealthy to be even 30 pounds over weight, not to mention it's extremely unattractive, not to mention it's extremely uncomfortable to be suddenly carrying around 30 pounds, clothing all tight cant bend down, the wear and tear on youR joints its HORRIBLE not to mention depressing.
What makes these companies think that this is ok?

I have gained 30lbs as well on it and still on the drug as well. I can not do any exercise do to a bad back. I just put my self on a slim fast diet due to this drug. I will let you know if it helps in 3 weeks will be 1 month if I lose any weight, if not I am gonna have to go off Abilify even though it has helped me so. My sugar level has also gone up due to this drug cause Abilify contains sugar. Diebetes is in my family and if this continues I will stop it. I do not have diebetes yet. Do to the sugar in this drug this is why we have these side effects.

Weight gain is a common side effect of Abilify. In studies, the exact percentage of people that gained a significant amount of weight varied from study to study, but most studies consistently showed that people taking Abilify were more likely to gain weight than people taking a placebo (a "sugar pill" with no active ingredient).

While a small amount of weight gain is typical during treatment with Abilify, some people can gain very large amounts of weight while taking the drug. This weight gain is thought to increase the risk of diabetes or other health problems. Therefore, if you are noticing a rapid or large increase in weight while taking Abilify, please seek medical attention from the doc who prescribed the med.

Take care, be well, please.