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Misc Warning About Seroquel (Quetiapine)

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Actually it does just the opposite. Antagonizing the dopamine receptors briefly could trigger psychosis when the drug wears off, just a theory.

OP, for what reason was she put on 600mg of seroquel before?

Yep. I believe quetiapine partly caused my short psychosis during benzo withdrawal. I had been without sleep because I had rapidly tapered my benzo dose. Then decided to took quetiapine (yes, I knew it lowers seizure treshold) over the night 100mg - and didn't even got sleep, my withdrawals were hard. Well, by the next night I got psychotic. I think quetiapine was really a trigger as benzo withdrawal alone has never caused so psychotic reactions.

To OP: You mentioned she took also gabapentin. Are you sure that wasn't reason? My friend who took 300mg pregabalin went a little crazy. Also same friend took one day 100mg baclofen and he was about 24h like 90 years old alzheimer patient. So to sensitive person those meds could also cause significant mental status changes.
 
IMO mirtazapine is a whole lot better and safer (?) sleep aid than seroquel. High doses of seroquel shouldn't be used just for sleeping, it's a rather hardcore drug.

When I tried mitrazapine I couldn't wake up for hours, felt paralyzed sort of, and had the WORST dry mouth and wierd sensation when I ate for the whole following day. Once again, drugs effect everybody differently. You can't just claim it's better and safer :/
 
I once ate a piece of a 500mg ,my mom walked in the next morning and handed me the phone said it was my girlfriend I grabbed it ,still in bed and shouted "these people have welcome home signs ,I haven't fuckin gone anywhere".....I remember saying it but I don't know why,but if felt like it was real what I was feeling....scary
 
Will second the comment that Seroquel is a powerful drug, I have some left over from being prescribed for insomnia during manic periods. I was also on it regularly before but I can't remember the dose.
Psych recommended 150-300mgs for sleep, I found 150mgs did the trick but left me with a "hangover", feeling super sleepy. I could have slept another 12-18 hours.
 
To OP: You mentioned she took also gabapentin. Are you sure that wasn't reason? My friend who took 300mg pregabalin went a little crazy. Also same friend took one day 100mg baclofen and he was about 24h like 90 years old alzheimer patient. So to sensitive person those meds could also cause significant mental status changes.

This is also what I was thinking once I heard about the addition of the Gabapentin. IME, Gabapentin can cause anxiety and even paranoia with a high enough dose (or a low enough tolerance combined with a natural sensitivity to it). If you look around online you'll find that a lot of people find Gabapentin/Neurontin to be stimulating, and some even compare it to amphetamines (something I don't see, but whatever). If it weren't for the fact that this psychotic episode went on for such an extended period of time I would seriously consider the culprit to be the Neurontin, but it just seems that such a low dose couldn't possibly cause such an exacerbated effect, when after a single acute dosr, nearly all the drug would be eliminated after 48-72 hours with a 5-7 hour half life.. Anyway, this whole thing is pretty strange but Im glad your fiancé seems to be doing better.

My advice would be to not use serequel for insomnia. IMO its worse than most other sleep medications (aside from trazadone). In my experience, Serequel (like almost everything else) is only effective for a few nights (if that) at the starting dose for insomnia. Within two weeks I'd be pretty tolerant to it, but at that point increasing the dosage doesn't seem to increase sedative effects (after all, it's in high dosages that its used to treat schizophrenia). It's very similar to diphenhydramine in that way (another antihistamine), though granted it doesn't make you see huge dying insects (though it sounds like there can be exceptions concerning psychotic states).
 
One thing I've learned about drugs in general, but in particular those that fuck with many different parts of your neurochemistry, you can never take your personal experience with it and extrapolate it to others. Reason being is that although many will react the same, some will just lose it.

For example I find it difficult to see how anyone can be psychotic on quetiapine because when I take it it's the equivalent of full-blown catatonia. It just knocks me out for six, even simple conversation becomes near impossible. But apparently others get wildly different reactions as described above.
 
Mirtazipine seems to have very unperdictable effects - some find it a strong sedative, I tried it recently (am on a benzo taper) and it did absolutely nothing. Seroquel at low-ish doses (100mgs max) always knocked me out, even when 120mgs of diazepam or 6 of Xanax wouldn't, but the dry-mouth and 'cognitively challenged' effects lingered too long for it to be worth it.

OP: does sound like an idiosyncratic reaction, maybe related to the recent infection? Gabapentin's not supposed to interact with anything much, but some use it as an opiate potentiator: I think that's the wrong way round, and opiates actually potentiate gabapentin. I've slept for 16 hours after mixing the 2.
 
I was prescribed Seroquel a couple years back. I took 5 200 mg pills within a 6-8 hour period and than drank an entire 750 ml of Absolute vodka. I ended up breaking my buddies front door (glass), threw the empty glass bottle at a moving car, and had my dad pick me up. When I got home the pills REALLY kicked in and all I remember was being in severe pain for some reason. The hangover the next day was easily the worst I have ever had in my entire life (and I have drank A LOT of alcohol). Pure hell, that Seroquel.

I remember when I first starting taking it back in high school. Me and my buddy took 2 200 mg pills each and a half hour later he passed out in the hallway between classes. Funniest shit I have ever seen. He just flopped right on the floor and woke up a minute later laughing all chink eyed like some kind of fool.

I would ask her if she has consumed any alcoholic beverages lately. That is what did it for me. Although, I have never experienced paranoia, it actually made me really relaxed all by itself with the correct dose or a little more.

Taking ridiculously big doses of any medication and then combining with large amounts of another intoxicant is always going to be pure hell.
 
I am a big fan of seroquel as a sleep aid. A dose of 25mg - 100mg is a good dose for insomnia. 600mg is the recommend dose for schizophrenia. I would want to know more about her pre existing conditions. 100mg of seroquel puts me out for 9+ hours guaranteed!!!
I take 1000mg every night. What does that make me?
 
My sister takes seroquel to sleep, don't know how much to be honest, and never had anything like that. Everyone is different though, but are you sure she didn't take any other drug with it?
 
Sometimes if you take a cure (Seroquel) for an ailment (psychosis) without really having the ailment at the time you take the cure, then the cure will cause symptoms of the ailment. This little understood phenomennon is probably what happened to your girlfriend.
 
There is a kindling/"rebound" effect with certain anti-psychotics, but this is a very extreme case, one that would be worthy of getting published in a medical journal; and to be quite honest I'm skeptical about it as far as Seroquel being the only cause in a person with pre-existing mental illness who quite possibly was using other drugs at the time.

This cannot be construed as a routine or even rare side effect of Seroquel and is not something that people should be concerned about (there are concerns with Seroquel, just not this or to this extreme ...)

Also, the doses people are posting here for sleep are ridiculously excessive. A dose of Seroquel for sleep is usually 50-100mg. 200mg is a very large dose for sleep. For psychosis doses go considerably higher but taking more for sleep is a bad idea as it will expose you to other side effects and, for most, a nasty hangover.

Also, this thread is more than four years old.
 
Note: before this experience I have never had a panic or anxiety attack at all ever. Guys you should be aware that Seroqual can actually cause panic attacks, well documented within sound scientifically literature. I was on Seroqual for almost a year and then suddenly one night I experienced the worst panic/anxiety/dread feeling I have ever felt in my life, even compared to a bad acid trip it was WAY worse. This same feeling persisted every night an hour or so after dosing with Seroqual and by the end of the week I quit it completely and have never had a panic attack since. I will never again use this stuff even if it is the only thing available to fall asleep.
 
Perhaps, but I don't think the OP is what we should lead with. Such an abreaction incredibly rare, and Seroquel is a useful med in many circumstances and we would not want people to believe that this is a common (or even rare, I'd say truly exceptional) reaction to Seroquel, it's a distraction, and we don't want to encourage people to willy-nilly go off Seroquel because of unfounded fears. I'd suggest closure of this thread, there are plenty of med threads, of this kind more in Mental Health (which IIRC didn't exist as a subforum when this was posted, but now does), and a major one, and med side effects are easily found in the literature, as well as reasonable doses for sleep (some of the doses mentioned here are ridiculous or outright dangerous for someone unfamiliar with the drug, although not in the way the OP describes, more low blood pressure, syncope, in rare cases respiratory depression, not to mention a lot of less dangerous but very uncomfortable somatic feelings.)

Also, the theory that "seroquel causes psychosis in people who don't have it because it treats psychosis in people who do" is total nonsense although somewhat reminiscent of homeopathy (which is in itself, total nonsense.) As a matter of fact, there's a lot of total nonsense here.

I don't, day-to-day, make decision about this kind of stuff for this forum, but I think mods ought to end it.
 
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