Since late November I've been dealing with nightly and now daily bug 'hallucinations'. I put this in quotes bc it's mostly tactile (sometimes visual) and I'm not sure what's causing it. For transparency I became a daily coke user from halloween to jan 14th (I was able to stay off it for 11 days at the end of December) and I was using coke when they developed. It's been over a month since I stopped using and they've continued to escalate, In the past week I've been unable to sleep Tuesday night, ( was able to fall asleep till 3 am Thursday morning) wasn't able to sleep Sunday night till 5 am Monday morning, and here I am again wide awake at 2 am. I'm prescribed Seroquel and my psych (who is still a resident) seems unconcerned with the increasing severity and just continued to up my Seroquel each month, even though it is only mildly effective at this point. Every night I take my meds I feel exhausted and loopy, before this started when I took my meds I would always fall asleep within 2 hours, but now it takes at least 6 hours and it is hell. I feel like I'm nodding out, unable to keep my head up or my eyes open but repeatedly awoken by 'bugs'. Most of the time I don't react, I know there are no bugs, but the moment I let my mind relax and try to drift off I lose control. It's like trying to hold in a sneeze, at some point you give in. I'm scared to take any sort of medicine that could make me drowsy or inebriated, without taking away the bugs, every night I do I regret it, but if I go to long without it I start feeling sick. The only thing that can completely take them away are benzos (again why I'm not sure it's true hallucinations) but the idea of having to go through WD again is nightmare inducing. I also can't afford to buy benzos at the rate I have in the past and the situation I was in previously was a very lucky one that I don't think I'll find again. Does anyone else experience anything like this, and if so what medication can help? Last week I drove to the hospital the day after no sleep but chickened out as soon as I got there. The only good thing about the psych is the ability to make quick med changes and monitor you during that. I'm trying to get into an IOP so I can do that in an outpatient, but I have no idea how long that will take. I don't know how much longer of this I can take, I've become an dysfunctional hermit unable to leave the house without breaking down due to bugs or my embarrassment from screaming or my sudden pat down body checks for insects. (also sorry if this needs to be moved to a different forum I'm unsure where to place it)
Hello, I specifically created an account Today(after 13 years using this website) just to reply to your Post. To tell that I exactly the same experience, not a single difference in Dec-Feb '26.
I literally ran out of home to check into a hotel all through the Christmas period (I stayed out of my home almost a month going through mental crises from "SEROQUEL"). The worst I did not realize on time that it was the meds I was giving me hallucinations, it took over a month before I realized it. So I am here to give advice and give you the solution that worked greatly for me just a few months ago!
First, let me tell the entire story. So I was taken to the hospital by my spouse to get meds for opiates withdrawal, from opiates that was prescribed to me years ago after a surgery. I got hooked on the meds. I had quit twice cold Turkey, but I still found back to these opiates meds partially because of pain and also because of the euphoria. Then my spouse being a psychiatrist suggested going to the central psyche hospital to find a solution for the craving as she was worried about the habit..fast forward a month later I was given Suboxone, Atarax, Seroquel, Olanzapin and Diazepam etc. I was told to take all of em once or twice a day, after a few days, I noticed the meds made me so sleepy that I was so unproductive during the days. So I told my spouse, I'm stopping most of it, I'll just take 2 meds (Suboxone and Diazepam). It worked great for me for almost a year.
Then I went through a tough break up with said spouse, found myself alone in a big house , memories, depression, pissed and somehow I relapsed !!. Fast forward a few months later, I did lots of Coke and the downer was bad, I couldn't sleep much...then I remembered I was issued Seroquel a year ago, which I still had a box of 30 tabs left. So I decided to get clean, started SUBS and realized I was out of Diazepam and my other antipsychotics meds, only Seroquel left, not wanting to go through the hassle of going to the main psych hospital and spend the whole day to get prescription, I Google the use for Seroquel, I though oh great, it will be a great replacement to my Diazepam and Rexapin, so I popped it, slept like a baby, and continued for several weeks to a month!
Every thing was good at first, suddenly a month after starting, I started to feel bug bites on my skin, I start to even see then flying around, crawling on my bed, clothe and all around,
. Trust me bro, I was going insane for a week, I could feel the bugs, I could see it, at a point I could almost smell it. Every tiny dot seem like a moving bug to me, I was loosing my mind, I thought my home was infested. A week before Christmas, I ran out of my house and rented a hotel for week, then it became two weeks, then three and finally a month out there...All for the fear of not going back to my house thinking insects will attack me!!. Mind you, while at the hotel first two weeks I kept feeling bugs too, I thought they came along with me on my clothes (do you see how insane that med can make someone?).
Now coincidentally, this act of running out of my home gave me the solution unknowingly. Because when I ran out , I only had a few pills of Seroquel on me, and I was scared to go back home, so I ran out of that awful med, but it took three weeks to feel a little normal from the mental bug bites while in the hotel changing rooms every other day, thinking the rooms have been infected by my clothes which I thought had bugs from home
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Mind you, in those 3-4 weeks at the hotel, I called a fumigation Company and a cleaning company to both go fix my home, spending money unnecessarily. I'm telling you this so you can how deeply in twined the thought and feeling of the bugs was in my mind, just like you are feeling at the moment (hopefully you have dropped the med Seroquel). Imagine spending Christmas in a hotel, just for the fear of bugs, now the meds have given a phobia for small crawling insects, but slowly I'm getting back to myself.
Now after running out of my Seroquel pill whilst at the hospital, I slowly began to feel like my old self, the bug scare, bites, and visuals started to subside at the third week. Finally about 6 weeks later it was fully gone. But then I need my antipsychotics meds, so I went to get back my "*Risperidone and Olanzapin*" which worked even better than the BS Seroquel. Your message is the first I have seen about the bug/bedbug scare, so I had to create an account to write to you and tell my story, in hopes that it helps anyone that might go through this in the Future.
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BRO I SUGGEST YOU STOP THE SEROQUEL AND ASK FOR " RISPERIDONE OR OLANZAPIN " AT YOUR LOCAL PHARMACY!!. It works better than Seroquel and I have never had the bug scare with these other meds. Sorry for your experience with Seroquel, that exactly thing happened to me for months, I was going mental !!
