Posted by yxibow on May 4, 2006, at 13:08:01
In reply to Yxibow Q, posted by UgottaHaveHOPE on May 4, 2006, at 12:08:19
> You said you took 1100mg of Seroquel. What is its effect on you? Have you taken it at another dosage level and did it make you feel differently?
>
> Do you mind if I ask your diagnosis? Or do you mind sharing your story? Thanks, MichaelI don't mind sharing my story -- I have a somatiform disorder. Some will look up somatiform disorders and see them characterized as malingering, but that is not the case at all in today's thinking. It is pure anxiety expressed in a physical form. The most common form is a pseudoseizure which happens more than noted -- it is actual seizures that happen to people who have no epilepsy. Those usually resolve with a little medication and psychotherapy within days to weeks, maybe as long as a few months. Unfortunately thats not the kind I have. Since approximately Nov 17, 2001 (I think that was it, it was the date of the Leonid meteors when I tried to go driving up the mountain and I was blinded nearly by car lights), I have been affected by a disorder somewhere between somatiform and OC Spectrum -- more on the prior I think, that causes basically every visual sensation to be heightened. There's no psychosis involved, I'm rational (unfortunately, if I wasn't I wouldn't be bothered by it ironically). These phenomenons are things that everyone can experience for the most part but are amplified and more importantly not filtered out by my brain. Fluorescent lights, especially garish big box stores drive me nuts, the 60 hz spectrum from them flickers in my brain. I used to have problems with monitors at 60 hz -- I still dont like it, I have to have it at 70 or 75hz at least. But I use a flat panel now (which ironically does like all have a small fluorescent light to illuminate the LCD, but they're tiny and masked by the transistors mostly).
At the beginning, I basically stayed as a shutin, waiting for a opthamologist's appointment to tell me I had some sort of optic nerve damage or something -- but I had perfect eyes, except for a psychiatric disorder. And I waited, even into therapy until finally someone relented and I was allowed to have an MRI, to prove to me that I had no tumors or lesions.
At the beginnning, also, I was reluctant to take antipsychotics -- my doctor had identified this as a problem at D2 (which also controls vision) -- so I instead started off on Luvox, which by theory the serotonin downregulates dopamine. And it did -- not hugely, but dramatically enough to prove that something could help my problem.
Eventually I had enough of it and I tried Risperdal and Prozac. I still have a right index finger that will (barely) twitch for the rest of my life or until it gets tired of it.
So we tried Zyprexa -- it caused pseudoparkinsonism and I was scared it would be permanent so I withdrew from it. It provided real relief though unfortunately plus I needed no benzodiazepines, I slept like a baby. We tried a lower dose, it did nothing, but it also caused pseudoparkinsonism.
I have a timeline somewhere, some of this is out of order, but I took Remeron for sleep at some point and discovered that it, too, had an effect on my disorder. My belief anyhow is that it worked like half of an antipsychotic -- it blocks 5HT2. Unfortunately it balooned my weight to a level I've never seen in my life and I'm still going to the gym to get it off. My cholesterol dropped 64 points and I've lost nearly 40 lbs but I have a ways to go. I'm not trying to be perfect, just get back to a place where I last was "heaviest." So we dropped the Remeron.
Somewhere along the way Seroquel was introduced, and while it wasn't Zyprexa and didn't have as strong at D2, it provided some of the same relief.
Along the way in the picture Ambien was introduced as well because I wasn't sleeping properly -- I still take 20mg.
And somewhere along the way Klonopin was introduced, until we switched a crosstaper over to Valium. I am on very high dose Valium, although it hasn't changed for a while. The two medicines that help me the most are Seroquel and Valium. I also take Neurontin as an ajunctive. I take two non psychiatric medications as well, Ambien and Robaxin (for a spasmotic condition in my back and head from abrupt withdrawal from Tranxene 9 years ago -- I still believe in benzodiazepines but not in doctors who give poor advice and dont give you back your full dose of medicine after you have done something improper like cold turkey benzodiazepines).
I switched from Luvox to Cymbalta because my doctor found it helped my depression better and it has -- though my lifelong ruminative thought pattern from OCD is not blocked as well as under Luvox.
I am currently on 1100mg of Seroquel, the highest I have taken and probably near the ceiling I will go. At any level above around 200 for me, it causes profound daytime sedation, often requiring naps, if I dont go to sleep early at a set time (so two half lives of Seroquel pass by -- they're about 6 hours).
I have taken it in two doses daily at one point 400, and 400, if I recall --- maybe it was 300 and 300, I dont remember -- but I was on the road to the most northernmost point in Alaska (my dad was born there so you could say I was exploring roots -- I went to college in Seattle anyhow and would love to up and move back but I cant now) and I couldn't drive safely with that, so I tapered it over to night. It was better that way. That was the most fun trip I had in my life I could say, nearly so anyhow -- I drove all the way to the oilfields at the Arctic Ocean and stepped my toes in it -- you can walk out really far actually, its very shallow and surprisingly warm enough in the summer.
Anyhow back to the Seroquel, basically it blunts my affectation like most all antipsychotics unfortunately -- so that I may have delayed reactions to sad or happy events in my life, for example. It also is stupifyingly sleep inducing due to the H1 blockade. If I stay up too late after taking it, I reel back and forth to my room upstairs (yes, I still stay at home, it is a serious disorder and I am glad to have parents to support me) and pass out because it causes me to have a low blood pressure.
So there you have it, the good and the bad -- it certainly provides D2 relief in me, it probably provides general anxiolytic relief, but it also is sleep inducing at any clinical dose (usually around 300 and above). I am a fast metabolizer of some medications, and not so of others, I think. Seroquel has a very wide dosing range, up and beyond 800 as you can tell. There are people even as high as 1600, but we're talking super bad cases of Bipolar or Schizophreniform disorders, in people who can't take old line medications.
Tidings- J
poster:yxibow
thread:639943
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060504/msgs/639962.html