Seroquel Experience

Pam BH

DH started Seroquel (Quetiapine) about 9 months ago due to ongoing hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia causing increased anxiety.  Already on Sertraline 100mg.  Started Seroquel at 25mg, then 50, then 75, and now 100mg taken at night when anxiety is worse from bedtime until morning. 

Experience with Seroquel has been increased sleeping for a couple of days, then a deep, restful sleep thereafter and anxiety reduced. Hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia are still there but not as troubling to him.  This improvement only lasts for 1-2 months and then he’s back where he was before the dosage increase with high anxiety and very interrupted sleep. 

Has anyone else experienced this?  Doctor has said we can increase the dosage for now but there’s a limit.  Is there some other medication that would address anxiety over his hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia?   

M1

Pam I think this is pretty common but I'm not sure anyone knows exactly why.  There's still a lot of room to move, if he's not having adverse side effects:  in schizophrenia doses of up to 800 mg/day are used.

I'm sorry it's not holding.  What makes the most sense to me is that there is ongoing brain deterioration that the drug is fighting against.  At some point the brain deterioration wins out, sadly.

Is he taking it only once a day?  I wonder whether adding another dose earlier in the day would help.  You could at least discuss.

Pam BH

M1, thanks for the info. It's comforting to know it's common.  I'll talk to the doctor about adding a dose in the morning. Seroquel has worked great as long as it's still effective and with no side effects. I'd much rather stick with it rather than trying new medications if possible.

60 falcon

My wife takes 12.5mg in the morning, 25 at noon, and 25 shortly before bed. Her doc is trying to find the right dosing and we've increased the dose every two or four weeks. My wife's issues are delusions, hallucinations, and agitation and things have improved a lot but are far from perfect.  There are times or days when it seems the med isn't working at all.  So frustrating.  But overall, I'd say it's made life better.  Prior to taking it, life was just absolutely miserable

storycrafter

It wasn't until my husband reached 300 mg a day that the doctor said he was at a base therapeutic dose. My dh weighs about 190 lbs. If increased it should be done in small increments over time.

shardy

Our experience is somewhat similar to yours. We increase and it works for approximately 6 months now. Then we increase again and 2-3 weeks later we seem back where we were..

Each increase is usually 25mg..he takes it only once, at night, before sleep.

In the beginning we were increasing more frequently. He has now been on it i think 3 years. 

He does still have rough sleep though his doctor says the seroquel is helping with that and its not as bad as it was...

JJAz

Our doc added Depakote to the Seroquel when it stopped being effective.  It was a good combo.

jmlarue

What I do not understand is the point of giving a big dose of Seroquel at bedtime when the PWD has absolutely no trouble sleeping 10 hours every night without it. It's during the daytime that my DH's behavior is off the dang rails. I'm sick to death of being threatened and keeping my distance so I don't get clobbered. I'm going back to splitting his 100 mg prescription into 3 doses a day - breakfast, 3 pm, bedtime. If his Psych doesn't like that, she can come to my house and deal with this feral animal herself.

French

My partner was also on Seroquel, dose a has been increased till 100mg 3 times per day. At each increase, there was an improvement but it lasted only few days. The issue was high agitation, mostly during the night. He was impossible to manage and was violent. He also had sleeping pills but they didn’t worked.

The neurologist and the psychiatrist proposed to stop quietapine and now he takes vaincor and memantine plus sleeping pills and an antidepressant. He is much better, sleeps and has less delusions. No more violence, he is easy and has good mood. Last week, the medication order has been missed. He was 9 days without his treatment and  he was crying and violent again. The medical follow up still leaves something to be desired. It wouldn’t be these  neglects, everything is fine for the moment. I alerted the direction because this could be very dangerous, but they still do as if everything was Ok.