Seroquel-Day One
Posted By atorturedsoul on August 28, 2009
If I make any sense at all today, it will be a miracle.
Last night, I took 50 milligrams of Seroquel. The doctor told me to take it about three hours before bedtime. I honestly forgot and didn’t take it until 8:20 PM, but it turned out to be okay. By 9:00, I was completely out of it in my recliner. I vaguely remember my oldest daughter asking me if I was going to bed before she went to bed. I’m not sure what time that was.I woke up around 10:15 and went to bed. My husband called me four times between 5:30 and 6:00 PM. I finally heard the phone the last time he called. I remember, vaguely, that he said something about me giving him a heart attack and something about high school football games being canceled because of a flu epidemic.
I got up and made sure my oldest daughter was awake. My two youngest children came and got in my bed. Yesterday was my youngest child’s birthday and the poor thing came home and wasn’t feeling well. It wasn’t long before she was running a temp. My youngest son wasn’t feeling well either so the youngest two stayed home today.
Good grief, I am rambling off into nowhere. Anyway, I got my oldest daughter up and she started getting ready for school. At 7:10 AM, she came into my room screaming and asking if I was ever going to get up. I jumped out of bed and walked out onto the porch to watch her get on the bus. When I came back inside, the two youngest kids were in the living room with their blankets. I gave them something for fever and had them lay down in one of the recliners and on the couch. I laid back in my recliner and the next time I knew I was in the world was 11:15 AM, when my youngest son woke me to tell me that my phone was beeping.
It is 12:03 PM now and I am (barely) awake. This isn’t normal for me. I usually get up before the kids do and get them on the bus and then start working. I am totally screwed today. I have six documents that need to be edited and returned. It is an ESL clean-up and today I am barely speaking English myself and it is my native tongue. I can’t even understand what I just said. Good grief. I mean the documents were written by someone whose first language is not English and it is my job to clean up the grammar and punctuation and ensure that the wording is correct. Thank goodness he gave me two days to do it. That leads me to another thing. They are 13 hours ahead of our time and I need to have them back by Sunday morning their time. I couldn’t figure it up and it is normally a simple thing. I had to ask my ten year old son to figure it up for me. Ack! Anyway, I think I have until Saturday afternoon to get them done…I think.
I usually take care of them as soon as I receive them and send them back but if I edit them today I am afraid that they would be all screwed up. Instead of doing three today and three tomorrow, I will be stuck doing six documents, ranging from 3 to 7 pages, all in one day. Lovely. Just frickin’ lovely.
Here’s the trouble with that: If I take Seroquel again tonight then I will likely sleep until noon (or later) tomorrow which won’t give me enough time to finish them. I never miss a deadline. In six years, I have only missed one and it was unavoidable. I can’t take it tonight. I have to sleep this off tonight and be able to function tomorrow. This is ridiculous. My train of thought has derailed somewhere and I can’t even find the track now.
Where was I? I am awake. Well, my eyes are open. I could sleep all day and wouldn’t be awake now if my son hadn’t woke me up. I have two sick kids at home and work to do and I can’t function. It’s ridiculous.
To top that off, my doctor told me I could take up to three if I needed it to sleep. I took one. If I took two, I would likely sleep for two to three days. If I took three, I doubt that I would ever wake up. This is what he added in to try to get me stabilized again. I don’t think I can take this.
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Seroquel-Day One- Day one may be the last day.
Related posts:All About Bipolar: Making adjustments The kids are o… http://bit.ly/o7vZV
Wow, the effects of this drug sound really scary! Maybe you need to take just a quarter dose… and even then, not until you’ve made it through your immediate obligations. I hope you manage to whiz through those six documents in time!
Seroquel-Day One- Day one may be the last day.
Related posts:All About Bipolar: Making adjustments The kids are o… http://bit.ly/o7vZV
This is difficult, I know. I tweeted you about it, but I have more so-called wisdom to impart.
Seroquel is often prescribed by psych docs as a sleep aid – incredible, but true. Not saying that’s what your doc is doing. As you know, if you go without sleep you are likely to become more and more irritable, etc. Seroquel can also knock you out if you’re out of control.
In my son’s case, he had real difficulty with brain fog when using Seroquel nightly, and like I tweeted, he had to have 12 hours to sleep through it and sleep it off. Any less than that and he was OUT OF IT.
You’re in such a tough position. You can’t afford to go off the rails, and you can’t afford to sleep through your life. My suggestion for you is to talk to your doc again and explain the situation. Perhaps reserving the Seroquel for trying times instead of a daily maintenance drug would serve you better. The only problem with that scenario is that you might not have your act together enough to take it when you notice a problem, know what I mean? Maybe discuss Ativan or a similar fast acting anti-anxiety med to have on hand instead?
Also, there are known weight gain issues with Seroquel for many people (my son included). He would take it, almost fall asleep, and drag himself around the kitchen finding (sometimes cooking) stuff to eat as he would be ravenous. Dangerous situation if no one is keeping an eye out…
I hope you can find a happy medium here.
I wish you luck with the Seroquel. For me, it was nasty, nasty stuff. I had such difficulties I had to go off it. I had the same problem sleeping most of the day then I was groggy the rest of the day and I gained 40 pounds in three months. I hope that it works better for you. I’ve heard from some that the sleeping all the time and grogginess can cease after your body adjusts to it but it never did for me.
Blessings,
Jane
I decided not to take it last night. I currently have not one, not two…but THREE kids sick with the flu. There is no way I can be so out of it.
I’m going to ask my doctor for something else. This just won’t work for me.
Thanks so much for your insight!
Hi, Jane! (((hugs)))
I have had to adjust to a lot of different meds over the years and this one is far worse than the others. I’m skipping it. The weight gain part isn’t going to cut it either for something that does me like this.
Seroquel has become the Prozac of the 21st century. I know very few people taking psychotropic meds that aren’t on it presently or haven’t been on it at some point in the last couple of years. The last few times I’ve been inpatient, pretty much every single person on the unit was taking Seroquel and that’s not an exaggeration either.
I think more people are prescribed the medication for off-label uses than for what it was actually approved by the FDA for, schizophrenia and bipolar. It’s most often prescribed for sleep, though comatose is pretty much what it renders people at first, as you’ve now learned first hand.
Take it for longer periods of time and it becomes an addiction, with the dosage needing to be raised periodically because it becomes ineffective. Then you get to the point where I am, so dependent on it that you literally can’t sleep without it. Weaning yourself off is out of the question because the lower doses don’t work, so taking less is the same as not taking it at all. Of course you won’t read that on the patient information insert.
I had always wondered if that was how it was. Most people I have talked to are taking or have taken Seroquel.
I have taken meds in the past that were really difficult to stop taking and I really don’t want to go through that again. I’ll pass on the Seroquel. I think I could get the same effect with a hammer…and not have to worry about addiction. lol
Hey you, I’m back. I just wanted to let you know that you have an award at my blog.
http://janedoesmusings.blogspot.com/
I hope you are doing better and your kids are recovering from the flu.
Jane