Posted by Elizabeth on February 25, 2002, at 2:00:32
In reply to Re: My ambien saga--where I am now--info on Seroquel, posted by Gracie2 on February 24, 2002, at 23:26:37
> It's not clear to me either why an anti-psychotic like Seroquel is prescribed for us non-psychotics.
Calling it an antipsychotic is misleading. It's a dopamine and serotonin receptor antagonist. Psychosis is just one of the conditions that can be treated with quetiapine. The "atypical antipsychotics" (including Seroquel) are used to treat nonpsychotic disorders such as depression (usually in conjunction with antidepressants), mania, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and behavioral disturbance in dementia and personality disorders (for example, symptoms of mood lability, suicidality, aggression, and dissociation in borderline personality disorder). And, as you've discovered, they can cure even the most refractory case of insomnia! (I had various ones -- olanzapine, risperidone, quetiapine, even older drugs like molindone and thioridazine --
thrown at me for a while when it was assumed that if 10 mg Ambien wouldn't work, then no dose would. They knocked me out all right -- the next day wasn't so great, though. With olanzapine and thioridazine, the sedation carried over well into the next day. Molindone caused this weird sleepiness accompanied by inability to sleep! Risperidal caused "REM rebound"-type sleep (sleep deprivation may have contributed to the REM rebound), despite the fact that I was taking Nardil which should have suppressed REM sleep completely. I don't remember any dreams from Seroquel, but I felt lousy the next day. I tried to stick it out with Seroquel, but I continued to feel lousy and kept having to increase the dose to get the same sedative effect. I didn't get up to 400 mg, though -- that's a pretty hefty dose, and I can see how it'd cause daytime grogginess if you started out on that much.BTW, I got a good laugh from your Barnes & Noble story! Thanks :-)
-elizabeth
poster:Elizabeth
thread:95022
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020222/msgs/95409.html