Misc Quetiapine Withdrawal? Any experiences?

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with quetiapine withdrawal? I've been on the drug for 18 months now, and have really had enough of it. I'm no longer experiencing side effects - and my last major psychotic 'relapse' was six months ago - but I've been free of psychotic symptoms generally for around 15 months. I'm just fed up with the negative mental effects. I'm only a fraction as creative as I once was before the drugs, I can't hold my attention for more then a few seconds, and now have an extremely poor memory span - which has wrecked havoc with my education. I can barely remember a lecture even a few hours after, and by the next day I can even forget simple things like who I was sitting next to. So I've made the decision to take myself off of the drug. I'm aware that I need to taper down from my current dosage (200mg at night - meant to be 100mg twice daily but I changed it around 3 months ago to better effect) but I'm not sure over how long, in what increments (and whether it'd be worth going cold turkey), and what withdrawal effects I can expect...

Also, I have talked to doctors, and they all refuse to help - claiming that I need to be on them for life, which contradicts what my psychiatrist stated. I'm no longer seeing a psychiatrist because I was discharged 10 months ago, with my monitoring handed over to my GP who was given orders to taper me off within five years - although this seemingly won't happen now. Furthermore I'm also refusing my doctors offers to be referred for a single appointment with a psychiatrist to change my medication - as I have no wish to go through all the side effects again with a new antipsychotic drug.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

This thread may be of interest. I've gone through quetiapine withdrawl twice now and chronicled it over there. Ask away in either thread.

Everyone's reaction to every drug is different, so I can't say for certain what the best course of action would be. For me, the main withdrawl symptoms were insomnia and a mood swing at the end of the first one. I'd recommend trying 175, stabilizing on that if you can, then 150, and so on. The overall withdrawl period may take a week or a year; go at your own pace. Oh, and take it slow on the tail end. 50 --> 25 may be easy, but 25 --> 0 might screw you up for a while.

Hey there OP.

Are you still taking it in a way that its in effect during the day? I couldn't handle that either but taking at like 9pm to sleep at 11pm or so i dont get side effects during the day. Do you?

hm.... I am prescribed seroquel 100 mg a night and I went a week without it and didn't have any WD symptoms...was a little harder to get to sleep but....just take it at night and if you need it for reasons greater than sleep problems consult a pysch.

The.Ghost said:

This thread may be of interest. I've gone through quetiapine withdrawl twice now and chronicled it over there. Ask away in either thread.

Everyone's reaction to every drug is different, so I can't say for certain what the best course of action would be. For me, the main withdrawl symptoms were insomnia and a mood swing at the end of the first one. I'd recommend trying 175, stabilizing on that if you can, then 150, and so on. The overall withdrawl period may take a week or a year; go at your own pace. Oh, and take it slow on the tail end. 50 --> 25 may be easy, but 25 --> 0 might screw you up for a while.

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Thank you for the referral, read through the thread and it's been very helpful. Annoyingly I only have 100mg tablets so tapering off in doses of 25mg is problematic. I can break the tablets in half but they tend to shatter into a million pieces if I try to quarter them, So my only option is to go down in 50 or 100mgs as my doctor certainly wouldn't prescribe me smaller doses knowing that I want to come off of them.

blight12 said:

Are you still taking it in a way that its in effect during the day? I couldn't handle that either but taking at like 9pm to sleep at 11pm or so i dont get side effects during the day. Do you?

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I'm not - I take both of my doses before bed as I use them to help me get to sleep. I'm not meant to, of course, but I do (I couldn't handle the full on day time effects). But it's the permanent mental fogginess that gets me - There's a noticeable difference between my intelligence and creativity before and after I started taking them. Either way I also use quetiapine in combination with various other drugs such as benzodiazepines and melatonin to combat insomnia (quetiapine alone doesn't get me to sleep anymore). I was thinking about switching back to 100mg a day for a month or so, then tapering off those doses - but I'm not sure it'd be worth it.

I went down to 100mg last night and used 2mg of xanax as a replacement for the other 100mg and felt very weird the next day. That's likely more the xanax then anything, and I'm using a different benzo tonight to see if that changes things.

LOGan1314 said:

hm.... I am prescribed seroquel 100 mg a night and I went a week without it and didn't have any WD symptoms...was a little harder to get to sleep but....just take it at night and if you need it for reasons greater than sleep problems consult a pysch.

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I was given it without a diagnosis for 'possible schizophrenia' - but considering my psych never actually gave me a diagnosis, and that he discharged me after a fairly short period of time indicated it was probably just acute psychosis. Either way, I'm going to keep a very good eye on my mental health when tapering off of it - I don't expect to relapse, but the last time I relapsed it went from 'fine' to 'severely delusion' in a few hours and I just upped my dosage temporarily when I eventually noticed (6 days later). I'll be applying the same logic here likely - if I feel a change coming on I'll go back to my normal dose. It's just trying to distinguish a clearer drug-free mind from relapse that can be problematic.

This might be worth a try. I usually quarter my pills as follows:

1. Get a razor blade and a hard, flat surface like a mirror or glass plate (they're not that expensive).
2. Cut the pill in half; this should get you something like a 40% / 60% split.
3. Shave the larger piece down to 50% (in your case, 50 mg) with the blade and set the powder aside.
4. Take the other piece and split that for another 40% / 60% split.
5. Take the larger of the two pieces you just split and shave it down as before to 25% (of the original pill), setting aside the powder. (you'll have to eyeball this one)

You'll now have a half pill, a quarter pill, and another quarter in the combined powder + smallest piece.

If that doesn't work out, you'll at least have all of the original pill left in various chunks / powder.

Apologies if that didn't make too much sense; It's 02:35 where I am right now.

Is sounds like the ghost has you covered with weaning. I found the last jump the hardest, thw insomnia was cruel. I used clonazepam for a week at night and then xanax starting at 1mg for 3 nights and halving it every 3 nights until I could jump off and sleep. It worked for me and only took 2 weeks to come off 400mg. Good luck, I hated the side effect...and basically the intended effects also but I was given it for intractable insomnia where 2mg Clonazepam wasn't putting me to sleep after 3 days no sleep.

Thanks everyone! - down to 125mg at the moment. Sleep is alright as I have a stack of different benzo's saved up. I'll probably hang at 25/50mg for a while before making the leap to 0mg. Besides that my mind feels much more clearer already!

A lot of people will tell you there is no withdrawal from quetiapine but trust me there is. I was on 600mg a day for 2 years and when I stopped it cold turkey I experienced nausea, depression, racing thoughts and terrible insomnia. I didn't sleep for 2 weeks straight. I suggest you taper off very slowly so you don't experience these effects.

Have been on 100mg for a couple of years and got sick of not being able to think properly and the hypersomnia.
Recently said to my doc that I want to come off them, and he said it should be ok as long as I keep taking my Prozac, but to wean myself off it (Quetiapine). I went down to 3 pills for a week, then 2 for a week, then 1 for a week. I haven't taken any for 3 days now and im feeling like utter shit. The doc didn't give me specifics as to the dose I should have gone down to etc, so I done what I thought would be okay. The first night with nothing, I slept 2 hours. The next day, I wasn't hungry at all and forced myself to eat something at 4pm. I slept okay last night (from 4am until 12pm) but at about 3pm I started feeling sick and ended up having to vomit on the side of the road (was in the car) before returning home. I had something to eat and felt a little better for a small time. Its now6:30pm and I feel so sick. I cant bring anything up. My arms and legs feel like theyre going numb. Im getting the shakes. I want to lie down but cant keep still. This isn't cool

my experience: Stuck on 800mg at night because if i dont take it or if i dont take more than 800mg i wont be able to sleep. i wanna get of this but its hard

I experienced complete and utter insomnia when I lowered my dose from 150mg to 125mg despite smoking a massive amount of cannabis in an attempt to compensate. Think it's gonna be a major bitch to taper off it. I won't go down that road before october or so, but I'm expecting it to take many months during which I will be haunted by lack of appetite, nausea and insomnia and god knows what type of affective troubles. I honestly cannot wait for that!!^^

I've kicked month long habits of daily opiate/amphetamine/mdpv/pcp use and never had any major trouble with any of that, but I feel this one is gonna be a real bitch...


EDIT: I'd also try scoring some low dosed IR pills, that should help you to recover a bit during daytime when insomnia isn't so much an issue. E.g. take the same dose as you would with XR, but take half XR and half IR instead, so the effects won't linger for so long throughout the next day which gives your brain a better chance to recover than when being on it 24/7.

After maybe 2 months on the drug I quit a dose of 600 mg over the course of a weed. Only side effect noted was mania.

weekend addiction said:

quit a dose of 600 mg over the course of a weed. Only side effect noted was mania.

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/lol

Tonight will be my 5th night without any Quetiapine. Last night I couldn't sleep until 6am and was up again at 9am with no trouble. My boyfriend told me to try to get more sleep, and I managed from 12pm until 4pm. Im still feeling a little queasy, and needed to vomit again yesterday. I think being in motion makes it worse for me tho. I think ill stay home for the next few days.8(

Hybristophile said:

Tonight will be my 5th night without any Quetiapine. Last night I couldn't sleep until 6am and was up again at 9am with no trouble. My boyfriend told me to try to get more sleep, and I managed from 12pm until 4pm. Im still feeling a little queasy, and needed to vomit again yesterday. I think being in motion makes it worse for me tho. I think ill stay home for the next few days.8(

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Well that makes sense considering antihistamines are indicated for motion sickness amongst other things. Good luck to you, hope all goes well!

R(x)AGE said:

/lol

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*week not weed

Hey I'm
On 600mg a day 300 in morning and 300 at night I've been on this drug 6 years . A few years ago I was on 400 at the time I was in a mental ward and I had low white blood cells dangerous low the doctor was convinced it was medication mainly quitipine I'm on amitriptyline 200 and Valium and zopidem and subutex . The withdrawals are worse than any opiate I've been on inc herion methadone and subutex and benzodiazepines . I don't know how or where to start to get off qutipine in the end I was so ill without qutipine another doctor over ride the previous doctor and now I'm on 200 more than that admission . Anyone been
Through the feeling esp ex opiate users as we know what withdrawals are .

Hi I know it's years later but how did you do getting off this evil drug x

Evil drug, eh? Didn't knoiw drugs could be evil. It's a lifesaver the way I see it, literally!