ive currently upped my quetiapine from 100mg to 400mg at night. The depot aint cutting it latley. Its a life saver for me - and if it makes me happier - thats a bonus.
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Yeah, I think lamictal is helping and just upped it so maybe we can drop seroquel in a bit.
Important think is to get some frikkun’ sleep!
I stopped quetiapine a week ago and took 1mg ativan and 1mg melatonin, I will drop to .5 until wednesday and then will up to 1.5 from thursday and through mar 9, the week my cousin is here.
I wanna try oxcarbazepine…lamotrigine seems to be doing something though, so that might be a talking pt w/the doc, who i’ll see on mar 18th.
we’ll see, im on steady lorazepam and that is not a long term thing. i might up both hydrozyzine (to 150mg) and l-theanine (to 300-400mg), otherwise, keep .5-1.0mg lorazepam…and that’s it.
I took my lamotrigine late today…you can’t do that with lamotrigine. It will help to be on two mood stabilizers. If worse, quetiapine.
I’m taking:
l-theanine 400mg – 9am 
{ lamotrigine 150mg – 5pm
l-theanine 200mg – 5pm }
melatonin .625mg – 7pm
{ lorazepam 0.5mg – 9pm
hydroxyzine 150mg – 9pm }
I feel okay and want to ask my pdoc to take the anticonvulsant mood stabilizer oxcarbazepine, which might help.
It doesn’t mess with the lamotrigine.
I feel mood stabilizers might help me tolerate the atypical antipsychotics if I ever get back on them.
And that will be 200-300mg quetiapine.
But right now, I feel okay, and I will see my doctor on March 18th. When I will talk to him about getting on oxcarbazepine.
I’m just curious, has anyone tried Latuda for bipolar depression? I’m not bipolar just Sz but I find it elevates my mood, but I suppose it could just be helping with negs or something.
I’m upset and worried, it might be either a mixed affective state or benzodiazepine withdrawal or both. I had a pdoc apptmt last monday but he went on vacation so it was cancelled, I had planned all my self-stabilization strategies since february around that meeting, I rescheduled for mid april, a month later, but still, I’m not in a good place.
On the one hand, if its benzo withdrawal, which I’m trying to slowly phase in, then I’m gonna have to stay off quetiapine…because I think it’s bad to go through both together. It causes tachycardia and it causes anxiety.
I wanna get on lithium…that will take time, and in the meantime; before mid-april, I may have to do something to keep from losing it. It doesn’t help that people are visiting. That throws me into a frenzy, so, that’s no good.
Mostly, I’m gonna have to try and stay stable until I completely titrate off lorazepam. In maybe a week or so. In the meantime, I’m mostly just trying to figure out if I can tolerate quetiapine, and at which dose without the racing heart, but certainly over 300mg as a last resort.
If my pdoc will allow me to start lithium without meeting him, if I remember to call him REMINDER: call pdoc on monday 3/25/19 asking abt lithium, that will help a lot, otherwise benzodiazepine relapse might compound the suffering. Another option right now would be to up l-theanine, that might help with the anxiety and withdrawal.
Plans:
-
call pdoc on monday requesting to start lithium (not divalproex sodium)
-
I will start taking 2x200mg l-theanine between 4:30-6:30pm hopefully, as that can help, that’ll be today, it’s okay I’ve got plenty on stock/
I did a graph for my lorazepam titration w/ the tool on nces.ed.gov, bcoz I’ve been experiencing withdrawals.
Whattaya guys think? Any tips?
For one, if it gets bad, I can ask for another 15 pills.
Otherwise, I’ll jump off .125-0mg lorazepam april 1st.
I just need 2-5 .5mg tablets which I can cut into a few more days of .25 and .125 doses, alternating and eventuallt every other day.
This will be my last time using this med hopefully.
I wanna try oxcarbazepine for stabilization, then continue w/lamotrigine long term, simply because I have come to believe; meaning that I am somewhat certain, that all other anticonvulsant mood stablilzers, meaning valproate and carbamazepine, might have interactions with lamotrigine, the medication which I have currently been prescribed, and from which I draw a modest, but necessary and well appreciated benefit.
I might have to really “try” in the sense of keeping calling all those folk at the clinic, lately it seems they’re dealing with things with everyone else and (eye roll) sometimes I just feel like I’m almost not on their radar!
Omg! So, I might have to wait a few days…oh well!
I didn’t take my .5mg tablet today of lorazepam, so gonna try and bump them all up a day and I yesterday and today they made the issue worse, so I felt uneasy.
I called my clinic for the 10th time today since last Thursday, and the stuff is just not going through. I need a real mood stabilizer. Lamotrigine is for maintenance, not the acute phase. Quetiapine is another option, but I’m hesitant because it makes me feel bad sometimes…I would much rather tie off the mania using a mood stabilizer alongside lamotrigine, so…oxcarbazepine, which has no interaction with lamotrigine, and requires no monitoring or long term commitment.
She said I can’t get on oxcarbazepine until discussing it w/my doctor on Wednesday April 17th at 1:40pm. Anyway, I’m almost out of lorazepam, so getting on quetiapine might be an option.
If I don’t get worse (lorazepam withdrawal) around wednesday april 3rd, then I’ll maybe consider trying quetiapine, if it’s not bad, I can start taking 2x50mg hydroxyzine 2 or three times per day. Maybe sync it up with binaural theta.
Then I have my doctor’s appointment 14 days (2 weeks) after that, on april 17th. At that time I will discuss trying a mood stabilizer, either valproate or carbamazepine, to stabilize my mania while I’m on lamotrigine…after that settles down, I would ideally just remain on lamotrigine for long term maintenance, maybe with a dose increase.
Oxcarbazepine is my first choice because the side effect profile and the interactions seem minimal, additionally, it doesn’t seem to wreak as much havoc with one’s cognition as any of what I’ve read to be the other indicated non antipsychotic and non-lithium mood stabilizers.
I don’t want to stabilize my mood on quetiapine because:
- I feel short term acute side effects on it
- when it wears off as I discontinue it, then the lower dose seems to exert an antidepressant effect imo which makes my life hard
- It makes me feel anxious and traumatized
- I am willing to try it if I can first stabilize moods w/something other than it and my current medication, lamotrigine
I want to choose oxcarbazepine because:
- Less interactions, none with lamotrigine
- I read there was less sfx which I don’t want (weight gain, sedation, cognitive/memory issues)
…
I wanna opt out of valproate and carbamazepine because: –
- They boy interact with lamotrigine and cause their own side effects
- Still, one of the would be okay, assuming oxcarbazepine does not cut it…though carbamazepine seems like the easier option, and would likely be the natural choice
Back when I took Seroquel 800mg, it only put me to sleep. It’s an anti-psychotic so it was supposed to get rid of my auditory and tactile hallucinations, but it didn’t for me, so I got off of it… didn’t know it’s also used for depression. My friend takes it for sleep only. Check with your doctor to be sure if Seroquel can be used as an antidepressant.
I take 800mg of quetiapine but I did not know this had anti depressant properties…is this true as my mood feels no better…I take it as an a AP
Made another chart.
Took me an hour. Gonna go for a 4 mi leasurely jog. Even a walk jog is okay. I’m gonna listen to binaural theta throughout. I will leave in 30 minutes. I slept 4 hours last night, but will try to do more today. Sleep is important.
I’m gonna do quetiapine tomorrow. Today I’m gonna stop hydroxyzine. I’m gonna start w/200mg quetiapine tomorrow. I’m gonna try
Bipolar Mania - Adults Monotherapy or as an adjunct to lithium or divalproex
Day 1: Twice daily dosing totaling 100 mg.
Day 2: Twice daily dosing totaling 200 mg.
Day 3: Twice daily dosing totaling 300 mg.
Day 4: Twice daily dosing totaling 400 mg.
Further dosage adjustments up to 800 mg/day by Day 6 should be in increments of no greater than 200 mg/day. 400- 800 mg/day 800 mg/day
I started quetiapine on monday 1 April at 100mgs, the same day I finished withdrawing from lorazepam. I started having akathisia today, I took 400mgs yesterday and today. My pdoc apptmt is in 9 days on Wednesday April 17th. I wanna ask my doctor to put me on another mood stabilizer alongside lamotrigine. I choose carbamazepine instead.
I choose carbamazepine, it seems less impactful than valproate and lithium in these side effect areas:
-hair loss
-weight gain
-cognitive/memory
So carbamazepine means there’ll be less lamotrigine and we’ll have to drop that dose.
*Up the dose of lamotrigine actually 
I started the higher dose of oxcarbazepine and lamotrigine on april 7th but I still have mood instability…it gets worse now because there is some depression, before it was more of dysphoric and euphoric mixed mania. I might ask the doctor to up the oxcarbazepine if it doesn’t kick in soon, either this week or the next.
-300mgs oxcarbazepine 12pm and 5:30pm
-200mgs lamotrigine 5:30pm
-l-theanine prn 200mg (up to 3x per day - 600mg total)
-melatonin 3mg 12am
Might call the doctor after may 7th, when I have my apptmt with the therapist.
This is a hard question to answer as people have different sensitivities to Seroquel in terms of experiencing antipsychotic effects. What I can say is that some see a lift in mood with very low dose Seroquel at a dose as low as 50mg. It is not necessary to experience antipsychotic effects, which are more common around 300mg, to get an antidepressant effect. More detail can be found in the book “Stahl’s Illustrated Antipsychotics: Treating Psychosis, Mania and Depression.”
It’s an effective sedative. There are reports/studies claiming efficacy in depression as an adjunctive therapy (i.e., added onto an antidepressant). However, it is not marketed as such.
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I took 200mg last night, I woke up at 4am with bad dreams. I’m gonna take it up until Sunday.
It should be used to knock death row inmates unconscious. It pretty much knocked me out three times. Good luck best wishes on Seroquel.