Psychiatrist giving med options, can you weigh in with your experience?

[Sideways]

so I’m not quite sure what weaning off that would look like.

I think only the prescribing doctor should answer questions like that:)

 

[EveHarrington]

They were never supposed to be a permanent solution for me. You may be different. We are all different.

I guess you’re better than me in that regard.

 

[blackemerald1]

Do the pills get cut in half? Do I take one just every other day?

Yes Seroquel is often cut in half or even into quarters when starting to reduce or wean off it. But please do discuss this with your prescriber because it is a powerful drug and I think you would benefit from the support during and after.

I guess you’re better than me

No just different Eve.. and that's ok. :)

 

[IceQueencop]

I think only the prescribing doctor should answer questions like that

But please do discuss this with your prescriber because it is a powerful drug and I think you would benefit from the support during and after.

@Sideways and @blackemerald1 - Thank you both for your concern. I assure you I have no intention of changing my meds without discussing and coming up with a plan with my provider.
But, I will also tell you that if my provider was telling me to something I had never heard of before, it would be a problem for me. I need to have an understanding from others who have been there and done that. I have had too many experiences with providers telling me I’m not experiencing what I’m experiencing to blindly trust any one single person.

 

[blackemerald1]

g me to something I had never heard of before, it would be a problem for me.

This is always a problem for me and I completely understand you reaching out for more information. Google and even Providers do not know everything. Sometimes they do know a lot more than they tell in a misplaced idea that 'we' don't need to know and that is also another failing of some in the medical profession.

I never expected you to do anything without medical supervision. I know you will be really careful. :)

I found when coming off Seroquel that I was fine until I completely stopped it. I didn't notice any real withdrawal symptoms until I was 24 hours out.

I tapered down from 200 mg tablets x 8 p/day to 25 mg tablets x 1 using a pill cutter and reducing only a small amount every week.. over months. I should have been ok and I had remote medical assistance. But I still became very ill.

Both of my doctors learned a valuable lesson from my experience. Yet another example of being a bloody lab rat. Nobody told me that I would or could expect to be so ill.. Honestly, it's seems like such a benign drug when I was taking it but it turned on me when I stopped... Or my brain did.

I'm very biased about this drug. I should stop posting about it.. it's my trauma and I should deal with it better I suppose. I just don't know how. I was hoodwinked by the very people I trusted to care for me. I know they had the best of intentions. I will never know what I could have achieved or maybe would not have achieved whilst being on it. It's one of those puzzles.

 

[Sideways]

I'm very biased about this drug.

It’s funny because my experience with seroquel is practically the opposite of yours. I wouldn’t still be alive without it. I wouldn’t be as functional as I am without it.

But for me? The conclusions are much the same. Disregard the advice of people who give that advice flippantly when it comes to atypical anti-psychotic medications. They are incredibly powerful and complex drugs, and should be treated with the utmost caution.

And that includes caution from the doctors prescribing them.

 

[blackemerald1]

I wouldn’t be as functional as I am without it.

Are you now off it completely? I am glad you have had such a positive experience with it.

 

[Sideways]

Are you now off it completely?

Not at all. I take a daily dose of 300mg XR (I can skip the worst of the sode effects using the extended release), and I use 100mg of instant release as a prn dose (probably around 2-3 times a week).

I’d like to reduce it simply because I prefer less medication in my system rather than more. But it’s not a hugh priority, because each time I’ve started to reduce the dose in the past, I’ve realised pretty quickly why I’ve used it for so long!

 

[IceQueencop]

I’ve realised pretty quickly why I’ve used it for so long!

@Sideways - when you lower your dose are you experiencing PTSD symptoms or withdrawal?

When I first started taking it, it was like Ecstasy, everything felt great and was wonderful (not that I’ve ever taken a Ecstasy) if I woke up in the middle of the night I felt like there were pink cgampagne bubbles in my head popping joyously. When I tried to up my dose, though I couldn’t sleep at all I was so restless. So I stuck with just 25 mg.
I forgot my meds on vacation in August and it was awful. I don’t know if it was withdrawal or PTSD, though.

How can you tell?

 

[Sideways]

when you lower your dose are you experiencing PTSD symptoms or withdrawal?

I experience both.

The withdrawal issues I can handle. The symptoms that return? Not so much!

Seroquel is pretty much the opposite of popping champagne bottles for me. It helps switch off my head, and in high enough doses (at one point I was on 1.2grams per day...yeah, that’s grams!) it turns me into a complete zombie. Sometimes that’s been necessary for my own safety, fortunately I don’t need that at the moment.

I get a lot of chaos from my DID without it, and fairly uncontrollable switching. I also have my anxiety levels go off the charts, and become pretty much non-functioning.

But the game-changer for me is that it helps keep my suicidal ideation in check. It slows all those thoughts down, enough to help me coexist with them. Days where I’m really struggling with suicidality is when I use the instant release for prn. I’ve made multiple serious attempts, and given the persistence of my SI, I can’t really afford to let that symptom get back out of control. One day I hope it’s no longer part of my symptom package, but I’m not there yet, so seroquel it is.

I spent quite a bit of a 5 year period as an inpatient, which means that I’ve trialled mutiple forms of most types of psychiatric meds (including multiple atypical anti-psychotics). Being in hospital had the benefit of allowing me to trial more way more meds in that period of time than is usually safe. Seroquel isn’t the only med that helped, but it’s the only one that helped where I was also able to tolerate the side-effects (together with an antidepressant that I continue to use).