Quote:
Originally Posted by bpcyclist
I just want to add one additional thing I neglected to mention before. I was in a very large hospital for close to five years where a large percentage of all the schizophrenics and bipolar patients were on Seroquel. Pretty sure the hospital had negotiated some kind of favorable deal with a distributor or the mfr., though I cannot document that.
Anyhow, that hospital had and still has a massive, massive problem with metabolic syndrome. Drug-induced diabetes is everywhere, so much so that the USDOJ investigated and demanded reforms. Long story.
My own community pdoc basically will not prescribe it. He feels it is much, much more dangerous vis a vis diabetes inducement than any other option and does not have enough upside for most people to justify that risk. He thinks it should be withdrawn from the market.
The more we learn about diabetes, even type 2, the more of a killer we discover it to be.
So, Seroquel is effective for many and safe probably for most. But once you develop diabetes, there is no getting that one back. So, I suggest paying close attention to yourA1C and other labs. And being very cautious with your diet.
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bpcyclist, I'm glad you brought up the metabolic syndrome issue. I neglected to mention in my post that my cholesterol has been high for a long time, most surely thanks, in part, to Seroquel. Sometimes, but not always, my triglycerides are quite high, too. Luckily, I have not been pre-diabetic since my Depakote and Invega days, over 8 years ago, when at my highest weight. My blood pressure has luckily been mostly normal all along, perhaps thanks to the propranolol I've taken for 11 years, for tachycardia.
I'll admit that at 600 mg and higher, my blood work results do tend to be worse. Watching my diet carefully seems to help lower my triglycerides, but it doesn't do as much at lowering my cholesterol. It's a stubborn bugger! It's easy for me to forget about my high cholesterol and triglycerides, because I haven't suffered any consequences from them...yet. My GP will not put me on a statin because he considers me to be still "low risk" at under 50, and with normal blood pressure, etc.
Diabetes is pretty prevalent in my family. It would be extra bad for me to eventually get it, because I already have mild kidney damage as a result of past Lithium usage. I need to be more vigilant about eating a healthful diet and exercising more. So easy to say, and less easy to do, especially because I don't think of myself as being that overweight. On that note, I have had high cholesterol, while on Seroquel XR, even when I was less than 10 lbs above my normal BMI. I know that weight doesn't always matter.