[nowIgetit]

hey everyone I haven't been on in a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG time, I had a baby last december and it was definitely before that. anyway tl;dr version, my baby was/is extremely high maintenance and the lack of sleep sent me into a bad depression which I of course thought I could get myself out of. I ended up going mixed, being very very depressed while also having severe anxiety and rage, being unable to sleep at night due to waking up panicking with my heart racing, etc. which of course all culminated in my pdoc doubling my lamictal and also putting me on seroquel XR and trileptal at least for a few months to get me out of this hole, then we will reevaluate.

can anyone tell me what to expect with these meds. also how long does the tiredness from the seroquel last? it knocked me on my *** last night which was kind of nice because I finally got a good night's sleep but doc said to take at 6 pm and it should make me sleepy around 10...well I was having trouble keeping my eyes open within the hour of taking it. also felt groggy/hungover until about noon today. normal? does it get better?

[vjdragonfly]

First off, congrats on the baby I've never taken seroquel, so I can't help you there. I do take lamictal and it helped stabling me a lot. Still have some problems but for the most part it does good. I hope you get to feeling better and I'm glad you finally got some sleep.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

Are you on regular release Seroquel or XR? I usually take XR which takes hours to put me to sleep (it's not the best for sleep for me anymore). In the hospital they only had immediate release and that knocked me out within an hour but that only lasted a week or so and then I was back to not getting to sleep easily. (that probably won't happen to you, I'm on a lot of it and it hasn't been working that well for a while now)

[nowIgetit]

I'm on XR

Originally Posted by BeyondtheRainbow

Are you on regular release Seroquel or XR? I usually take XR which takes hours to put me to sleep (it's not the best for sleep for me anymore). In the hospital they only had immediate release and that knocked me out within an hour but that only lasted a week or so and then I was back to not getting to sleep easily. (that probably won't happen to you, I'm on a lot of it and it hasn't been working that well for a while now)

[BeyondtheRainbow]

In theory then once your body is used to it that will take a while to kick in. I don't remember how long and I was switching from regular to XR when I started XR so it wouldn't be the same anyway but XR does usually work on a delay, but in the beginning Seroquel is really sedating no matter what for most people. For me XR evens things out and there is a lot less daytime sleepiness than there was on immediate release. In the hospital with immediate release I needed to nap after breakfast until the 10:30 group to be able to function and I fell asleep within an hour of taking it. Which was really nice; usually I don't sleep well IP. But for life outside of the hospital XR is better for me.

[nowIgetit]

I seriously love lamictal. It has saved my life and helped me soooooo much. I have been stable on just that for several years now. I'm annoyed that I let myself get to a point where it's not enough right now. I really think if I would have caught onto this sooner I would have been able to just up the lamictal and avoid all of these other meds

Originally Posted by vjdragonfly

First off, congrats on the baby I've never taken seroquel, so I can't help you there. I do take lamictal and it helped stabling me a lot. Still have some problems but for the most part it does good. I hope you get to feeling better and I'm glad you finally got some sleep.

[czarina1984]

I'm on XR and usually plan on being out cold after about 45 min and then not fully conscious for 12-14 hours.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

Well, hopefully this isn't forever. It's hard to catch these things sometimes and a new baby is a huge distraction and I'm sure you've been focusing on the baby and not on yourself. But give this some time and you'll feel better and maybe be able to wean off the other meds. It sounds like your dr feels that is entirely possible. Don't blame yourself though. It doesn't help. Easy to do though.

[nowIgetit]

so it's like that forever, even after you are on it for a while? That totally won't work for me. I have a job and two kids lol. I can regularly sleep 8-9 hours a night, more if needed short term, but I can't do 12-15 hours every night. and that's about how long it took me to feel normal, I probably got 9 hours last night but didn't lose the groggy feeling until 15-18 hours after I took it :

Originally Posted by czarina1984

I'm on XR and usually plan on being out cold after about 45 min and then not fully conscious for 12-14 hours.

[Victoria'smom]

I used it for sleep got use to it and started to wake up refreshed after 6ish hours

[99 FAIRIES]

After I had my 3rd baby is when my bipolar reared its ugly head and I was diagnosed 6 months later. She was a blessing, but the straw that broke the camels back. Having babies is so very hard. My thoughts are with you.

[nowIgetit]

I actually have had minor BP symptoms since I was a kid (in retrospect) but after my first is when I was diagnosed. I waited until he was almost 2 to seek help from my family doc and it was pretty bad mixed symptoms at that point. She tried me on prozac which had worked for me before, but it just made me crazier so she put me on lamictal and sent me to a pdoc asap. Pdoc says bp symptoms for women tend to be exacerbated by hormone changes, and some women are more sensitive to it than others. My whole family has always gone a little crazy with "PMS" so I guess we are some of the unlucky ones.

I always wonder, if I didn't have kids, if I ever would have been diagnosed or if it ever would have gotten this bad. Though I don't think I would trade my children for avoiding this illness

I'm sorry you had a similar experience. Kids are great but hormones are a *****.

Originally Posted by 99 FAIRIES

After I had my 3rd baby is when my bipolar reared its ugly head and I was diagnosed 6 months later. She was a blessing, but the straw that broke the camels back. Having babies is so very hard. My thoughts are with you.

[99 FAIRIES]

I don't think I would have been diagnosed had I not given birth. I was go go go and then crashed in bed for a couple days and then go go go again. I thought this was normal and I don't think I would have gone to a doc about it if it had stayed like that.

[chimera17]

THANK YOU both soooo much. I am in a similar situation - although not yet diagnosed, what I'm going through sounds very similar and it is amazing to know that there are other people out there who have experienced it too.

I can definitely tell that I have always had manic periods (just recently an old highschool friend asked me when I 'mellowed' out - I had actually thought I was pretty mellow in highschool and was hyper now!) I still don't know if I'm actually bipolar or if I'm just a high energy person who suffers periods of depression, but after my 4th little one, I've never been able to get to anything resembling normal inside.

I hope you get your sleeping situation straightened out - I can't imagine feeling groggy and trying to work and take care of kids!!

[nowIgetit]

omg I used to totally describe/think of myself that way - high energy, outgoing person who occasionally just burned out and had to crash with a depression for a while! now i know better.

I've been sleeping amazingly since starting the seroquel and the instaneous exhaustion I had the first night hasn't been as bad the 2nd and 3rd nights, seems I got a little bit longer each night before my eyes were closing on their own. we'll see what tonight brings. last night was the first night I have only gotten 8 hours of sleep as opposed to 9 or 10 since I started taking it Friday and I felt very dizzy this morning and throughout the day, not sure if the two are related. it definitely feels like it is helping though, I actually had some happy thoughts of what a gorgeous day it was yesterday which was interesting, I realized I haven't really enjoyed anything for quite a while :/

Originally Posted by chimera17

THANK YOU both soooo much. I am in a similar situation - although not yet diagnosed, what I'm going through sounds very similar and it is amazing to know that there are other people out there who have experienced it too.

I can definitely tell that I have always had manic periods (just recently an old highschool friend asked me when I 'mellowed' out - I had actually thought I was pretty mellow in highschool and was hyper now!) I still don't know if I'm actually bipolar or if I'm just a high energy person who suffers periods of depression, but after my 4th little one, I've never been able to get to anything resembling normal inside.

I hope you get your sleeping situation straightened out - I can't imagine feeling groggy and trying to work and take care of kids!!