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Stopping Seroquel
- Post starter anonymous
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D
Deleted member 1860
Please don't stop suddenly. 200mg isn't exactly a small dose...if I recollect correctly. If you're using it for sleep, you will likely have rebound insomnia. Plus, its an antipsychotic so you could have other withdrawal symptoms as well. (Others have had major issues with antipsychotic withdrawals....there is a recent post about someones current struggles with withdrawing.)
There really is no way of knowing exactly when it will be out of your system. Drugs have a half life which means after so many hours, half of it will be out of your system. Then after so many more hours, half of what is remaining (25%) will be out of your system, and so on. And then you have to take your own body metabolism into account. Some metabolize drugs more quickly than others, so this affects the half life as well. A drug with a very long half life can still be in your system a month later.
There really is no way of knowing exactly when it will be out of your system. Drugs have a half life which means after so many hours, half of it will be out of your system. Then after so many more hours, half of what is remaining (25%) will be out of your system, and so on. And then you have to take your own body metabolism into account. Some metabolize drugs more quickly than others, so this affects the half life as well. A drug with a very long half life can still be in your system a month later.
joeylittle
Sponsor
Like @itsKismet said, half-life is complicated.
Nutshell: the average amount of time it will take the body to eliminate seroquel (assuming the immediate release formula) is 60 hours, or 2.5 days - if you stop all at once, which is not recommended.
Calculation - and this is why it's complicated - there is half life, which calculates the amount of drug present in plasma, and then metabolic half-life, which is the calculation for the amount of the drug's active metabolite present in the system as a whole (including amounts stored in tissue). These are almost always two very different numbers. Rate of metabolic half-life can get into the 200s and 300s of hours. It is also affected by where the drug is metabolized primarily, the age and weight of the person taking the drug, the amount of fatty tissue they have, and their overall renal function.
Seroquel SR has a mean half life of 6 hours. The active metabolite has a half-life of 12 hours.
After 4 half-lives (first half-life, 50%; second half-life, 25%; third half-life, 12.5%; fourth half-life, 6.25%), the drug is considered 'negligible', in terms of a very simple elimination calculation. The shortcut is to take the number for the mean half-life (in this case, 6 hours) and multiply by 5. So, seroquel SR has cleared the blood plasma after 30 hours.
The metabolic half-life is twice that rate (12 hours), so you can multiply the 30 hours (above) by 2, and that's how you get to 60 hours for it to have fully eliminated from the body.
That is - again - the average length of time, assuming median age, weight, no other drugs, and healthy renal function.
And that's what happens if you stop cold-turkey - which isn't recommended.
The titration I was given for discontinuing seroquel was to drop my dose by 50mg every 3-4 days, depending on how I was feeling. I used four, if I remember right. I was on 150mg. So, days 1-4, 100mg; days 5-8, 50mg, and then I was off.
So, altogether, on average - getting off of Seroquel at a 200mg dose is a 14.5 day process.
I am NOT a pharmacist. This is NOT medical advice. It's just what I know because of the drugs I've taken. In the case of seroquel, there are different factors that matter for geriatric patients - all of this is based on the adult non-geriatric dosing.
Nutshell: the average amount of time it will take the body to eliminate seroquel (assuming the immediate release formula) is 60 hours, or 2.5 days - if you stop all at once, which is not recommended.
Calculation - and this is why it's complicated - there is half life, which calculates the amount of drug present in plasma, and then metabolic half-life, which is the calculation for the amount of the drug's active metabolite present in the system as a whole (including amounts stored in tissue). These are almost always two very different numbers. Rate of metabolic half-life can get into the 200s and 300s of hours. It is also affected by where the drug is metabolized primarily, the age and weight of the person taking the drug, the amount of fatty tissue they have, and their overall renal function.
Seroquel SR has a mean half life of 6 hours. The active metabolite has a half-life of 12 hours.
After 4 half-lives (first half-life, 50%; second half-life, 25%; third half-life, 12.5%; fourth half-life, 6.25%), the drug is considered 'negligible', in terms of a very simple elimination calculation. The shortcut is to take the number for the mean half-life (in this case, 6 hours) and multiply by 5. So, seroquel SR has cleared the blood plasma after 30 hours.
The metabolic half-life is twice that rate (12 hours), so you can multiply the 30 hours (above) by 2, and that's how you get to 60 hours for it to have fully eliminated from the body.
That is - again - the average length of time, assuming median age, weight, no other drugs, and healthy renal function.
And that's what happens if you stop cold-turkey - which isn't recommended.
The titration I was given for discontinuing seroquel was to drop my dose by 50mg every 3-4 days, depending on how I was feeling. I used four, if I remember right. I was on 150mg. So, days 1-4, 100mg; days 5-8, 50mg, and then I was off.
So, altogether, on average - getting off of Seroquel at a 200mg dose is a 14.5 day process.
I am NOT a pharmacist. This is NOT medical advice. It's just what I know because of the drugs I've taken. In the case of seroquel, there are different factors that matter for geriatric patients - all of this is based on the adult non-geriatric dosing.
Sammyiam
Platinum Member
Sorry wrong thread
Last edited:
joeylittle
Sponsor
OK. I'd recommend you talk to your doctor about the weight gain and a transition off seroquel. To be honest, i find it odd that you are on such a low dose of seroquel and you take prazosin; ostensibly, they are there to do the same thing. You may have had the seroquel added at a time in your life when you were very anxious/ highly reactive? Anyway, talk to your psychiatrist. It sounds like its time to make a change. Definitely, the leading weight gain culprit in there is the seroquel.
Since this is a seroquel thread, and the original concerns were already address, can I just add I'd be careful with seroquel and risk of forming &/or intensifying seizures, both while still in use and especially as quitting it?
(Bad experience & heard it from quite a bit other people & mentioned in some medical journal as 'lesser known possible effects which are currently being researched'; read it about year and a half back.)
(Bad experience & heard it from quite a bit other people & mentioned in some medical journal as 'lesser known possible effects which are currently being researched'; read it about year and a half back.)
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