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Mar 16, 2013, 09:42 PM
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Member Since: Mar 2013
Posts: 2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ultramar
After I was released I saw my psychologist, and she thinks I have bi-polar depression. She tried me on abilify, and xanax and that only made things worse, it made me restless, twitchy and paranoid. She then tried me on ativan and seroquel xr. The ativan made more paranoid, so I stopped taking it. The seroquel xr has helped me, but I feel so empty inside i'm not sure if it's helping me, or just covering up all my problems, like a bandaid on a sliced artery.
My question is, is it worth it to stay on the seroquel and feel empty, but remain sane, or take a chance and slowly ween myself off of it, to see how I feel drug free? I would really like it if someone with experience with seroquel could give me some advice. I'm on 200mg of seroquel, recently upped from the 150mg I was taking because I had a major panic attack, and was majorly depressed for a few days.
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It's funny you bring this up, because this is precisely the situation I am in now and I've been thinking about what to do about it lately. My Seroquel dose was increased a few months ago to 150 mg at night and 100 mg in the morning. It had been increased a great deal more than that due to a manic episode and then afterwards I lowered it by 50 mg every week until I settled on what I'm taking now, which is still 50 mg more than I had been taking before.
Point is, since this higher dose I feel far less anxiety which is wonderful. My overall mood and functioning have improved. But I feel, for the first time in my life with medications, that something very important is missing. My 'surface' mood (for lack of a better word) is better, calmer, more socialable. But my deeper feelings seem to have been erased -I just can't find them.
For the moment my plan is to continue on this dose. I don't know if it works this way, or if it will work with me, but what I'm hoping is that once I've experienced what it is like to feel this way for an extended period of time, I will be able to continue to do so on a lower dose --so at some point lower the dose little by little once I feel like I will be able to do so without too negative consequences. I guess I hope that this experience (and what I learn from it) will somehow rewire things or leave a lasting imprint in me so that I will be able to feel this much better on my own. Granted, not eliminating Seroquel entirely, or at least not at first, but with a much lower dose.
The idea is to ultimately continue with the positive things this dose of Seroquel has helped me with, while leaving behind this feeling like I've lost an important part of myself.
This is my 'plan' although I know it's a bit vague. We'll see how things go. I hope this has been of some help.
ultramar[/quote]
Putting it that way is perfect, it resonated with me almost exactly. Your plan sounds pretty good too. I think i'll stay on it for the recommended period of time and then see how I feel off of it. Thanks for your input.
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