My pdoc hospitalized me for a couple of days in mid Dec. and put me on Zyprexa 10 mg for dissociation. I began to put on weight immediately, although my eating habits hadn't changed. The weight gain was so bad that I had to buy some new clothes and was afraid to get on the scales. I developed a constant lower back pain, which I finally realized was caused by my huge stomach. I couldn't wear any shoes other than my sneakers, and I couldn't stand up for very long because of the back pain and swelling in my legs and feet. When I went for my next visit with him on the 28th, I complained about the weight gain. He gave me a prescription for Seroquel 200 mg and told me to take that instead of the Zyprexa. WOW! That stuff packs a wallop! I slept almost constantly from the 28th through New Year's Day. When I was awake, my back pain was constant, the area around my ribs was very sore on both sides, I had developed numbness in both thighs, my fingers and toes, and I was gaining weight even more rapidly. My family (who had been away from home) became alarmed when they saw me and when they noticed that my speech was slurred.

My husband called the Mayo Clinic on Sunday night, and the RN told him that I needed to either go to the emergency room that night or see my regular physician the first thing Monday morning. (I opted out of the ER.)
When they weighed me at the Dr.'s office on Monday, I had gained 33 pounds from Dec. 11th through Jan 5th! My blood pressure was also up by 20 pts. on the bottom number. My Dr. ordered emergency CT scans of my head, abdomen and pelvis and an executive 3 blood panel. He took me off of the Seroquel and gave me a diuretic (Furosemide 20 mg). He also told me to stop taking my estrogen.
I'm supposed to go back to my physician tomorrow to find out the results of the tests.

How common is it for someone to have such a drastic weight gain on these meds? Are there other substitutes that don't cause weight gain?