[Tart Cherry Jam]

I find that I need more sleep than most people and it is hard to have a working life alongside colleagues who easily get up early while I can't.

I tried experimenting by cutting down on Seroquel.

I normally take 50 mg and I fall asleep while listening to an audiobook. So I took 25 mg and fell asleep fine but kept waking up in the middle of the audiobook and finally gave in and took another 25 mg.

Next night, I tried 37.5 mg (25 mg plus roughly a half of 25 mg). I slept less and was happy.

But last night I took 37. 5 mg again and ended up sleeping late. So it did not work the way I hoped for.

It is such a difficult illness: without meds, I cannot fall asleep at all, and on effective meds, I end up sleeping more than I would have preferred.

[bizi]

I used to just take klonipin to sleep at night. Now I am taking an antihistamine and requip for restless legs trying to prevent them ocurring.
and my sleep is not great.I wake up several times to go pee.
I tried seroqual and it did nothing for me. sorry you are having problems with it.
good luck finding a happy medium.
bizi

[MuddyBoots]

It truly is a balancing act. On a tight rope on a boat in a hurricane.

[Scooter9]

Yeah I'm on seroquel too, but the XR version. I could sleep 12 hours a night.

But I generally try to sleep between 8 and 10 hours. I use an alarm and I go to bed early to get up early.

Like others have said, it is a balancing act.

I take 350mg XR, but I used to only take 12.5 when it made me sleep so much. But now on the 350mg of XR, it's more manageable.

I do skip my dose sometimes like when I know I can only get 6 hours of sleep. I don't feel anything when I skip one dose.

I hope things work out for you.

[Soupe du jour]

I've taken Seroquel XR also sometimes with Seroquel IR for probably 12 years or so. Most of these years I've been on higher doses, mostly between 500 to 700 mg. Yes, my sleep schedules have been wonky, at times. Initially, it made me painfully drowsy, but that has varied over the years, depending on the dosages or where my moods were at. This past year or so, on top of about 600 mg XR, I was also put on 50 IR. The XR didn't knock me out early enough. I'd take all of the XR at like 7 pm, and would not be able to get to sleep until 2 am. Then, I'd get a nice 8 hours of sleep, but getting up at 10 am is not ideal, even without having a job. The extra 50 mg IR did help a little for a while, but now I'm still up until 2 am, or so. Sometimes I start to get very drowsy at around 10 pm, but if I don't make a huge effort to fall asleep, I then get a second wind.

Unless I'm getting some level of manic, even when I wake up in the morning I wake up feeling slightly "drunk" from the Seroquel. However, once I get my butt out of bed, the drunk feeling fades in about 10 minutes.

Only when very manic have I seemed a morning person. All other times, mornings have been difficult. Or very difficult. I remember when I still worked I'd have such irritable rage in the morning that I'd throw stuff against the wall and scream. That's not the case anymore, luckily.

In the past, when traveling abroad, I'd skip my Seroquel. Over time, I learned that was not the best move for me. Better to take it. Very often when I skip it (I rarely forget it completely), some hours after the normal time I become manic-like. I can more easily get away with forgetting my morning meds than the evening ones.