Seroquel and Cognitive Brain Function

Seroquel use at any dose will impair your cognitive brain function. Your doctor most likely will not discuss this with you at any length and will never tell you the  truth about the flat pancake your thinking process is about to become on the antipsychotic drug Seroquel even if he or she even knows it. The doctor will simply write the prescription and send you on your way, checking up with you every month and sometimes every three months for thirty minutes, maybe an hour.

Most doctors (and when I say doctors, I mean Psychiatrists), have no idea what Seroquel does to the human brain, with the exception of what the drug rep tells them or they read in a one page medical journal. I am not sure most doctors really care. That is not their business. Their business is to see as many patients in a day or week and rack up billing hours and send their children to prep school. Most doctors I know were more interested in collecting fees and co-pays than true care for patients. Think I am being cynical? Try asking your doctor - Psychiatrist for a FREE ONE HOUR SESSION! He or She will look at you like you are crazy.

 

Back to Seroquel and your brain and cognitive function; the first thing you will notice after a number of months is your short term memory starts to stutter. Where did I put that file? Where are my glasses? Do I have an appointment at noon or two today? When you meet someone new or see an old friend from years ago, what did you say your name was again? It can be embarrassing and frustrating. But then again, this is why they invented Post-Its! So you can write yourself notes and stick them every where !! You think I am kidding, right?

Eventually you will develop a system for putting everything back in its place, from the TV  clicker, to car keys, your cell phone, your laptop, your tablet, all the charger cords, your work, briefcase, wallet, important papers, letters, cards, photos, why you ask? This will happen about the one hundredth time you spend 15 minutes trying to find your cell phone when you left it somewhere the night before where you could not possibly forget where you put it.

Because once you have misplaced or can't remember where you put an essential item be it a wedding ring or car keys or cell phone - you will never find it again except for dumb luck. Seroquel makes you create a filing system for all your essential gadgets and gizmos making you put them in their place so you can find them again 12 hours later. 

At first you think, well so I am not paying attention, it's my fault. Wrong! It's Seroquel effecting you cognitive brain function at the most basic level - short term memory! And trust me, you will blame and scold yourself for being an idiot, forgetful, for not paying attention, and it will all be your fault. It could not be a medicine prescribed by your doctor. This thought will not cross your mind until your "forgetfulness becomes an ongoing joke," private or public.

This is just the beginning. After a couple years at a moderate dose, reading becomes difficult, if not impossible, remembering what you read another Herculean task. Names, dates, places, meetings, people, faces, simple things like shopping at the grocery store only to find you got home without the one main item you went to buy in the first place you forgot to purchase, all this is part of the Cognitive Impairment brought on by the use of Seroquel. A medicine that is supposed to help you! Prescribed by your trusted doctor, no less.

There comes a point where you simply except this is the way it is going to be and you resign yourself to thinking what else can I do my doctor says this is the best medicine for me. So what if you can't find your car keys and miss another appointment with your psychiatrist and he bills you anyway and insurance will not cover it if you are lucky enough to have insurance. So what is you dozed off two hours before your appointment and woke up 10 minutes late, now have to rush to his office for 25 minutes of a 55 minute meeting. He is still billing you for an hour. You begin to think that you are a lazy sloth who can't stay awake or you forgot to set your cell phone reminder alarm, again.

After a few years I had to put everything in its place. I had to write lists. I had to set date and time reminders on my cell so I would know when and where to be at what time. If I did not do these things I would continually lose items, forget things, forget that I forgot them, and I would never be anywhere I was supposed to be on time.

And of course I blamed myself through this process. Which created feelings of anger and despair and disillusionment as to who I was and who I was becoming. Trust me when I say that its not you. Your brain and short term memory are being impaired by Seroquel and that in itself will drive you mad.


Seroquel Sunrise is a blog describing the stages of that the antipsychotic drug Seroquel has on the body, the mind, the spirit and soul of the patient becoming dependent on Seroquel.

   

Seroquel Loves Sugar

If you are new to taking the antipsychotic Seroquel, meaning you have been on the drug less than two years, most likely you still have the energy to burn off the crazy calories you may have noticed your body is craving. This is just the beginning ... Seroquel loves Sugar.

As the drug takes over your body, brain, mind, behavior, you will find yourself sedentary and craving sugar. Any form of sugar from chocolate, candy, ice cream, and soda. My two addictions were a) Mountain Dew - and b) Skittles - and c) just about anything else created by sugar. 

                                                 

The craving for sugar comes on over time. At first you think well, "must be my sweet tooth getting the best of me." Then you realize 30 pounds later that you have been eating sugar, sugar, sugar. The long-term risk for becoming diabetic taking Seroquel is quite real. In many cases people taking Seroquel for 5 - 10 years or longer have an almost guaranteed date with diabetes. I bet your doctor didn't tell you that when he wrote the first prescription.

When younger we often don't think about becoming diabetic from a drug that is supposed to help us "become more healthy ....." As we get older and realize the drug is taking over our lives, if we can recognize this association, the threat of becoming diabetic becomes very real.
How could a medical doctor put a patient on a drug that will with long-term use leads to diabetes and all the complications that go with that disease, including death ??

With the use of Seroquel comes weight gain. In my case I may have maxed out at 40 - 50 pounds. Now this does not happen overnight, but it happens regardless of how you protect against it. I have read in forums where people have gained 100 pounds. So the range is all over the map. No question you will gain 20 pounds minimum taking the drug Seroquel.

The craving for sugar is a separate addiction all together. Now you realize you are addicted to a drug that has you addicted to sugar. And with every can of Mountain Dew, Coke, Pepsi, every snack, candy bar, you are adding on the pounds and spiking your sugar levels ..... and in time your brain says, "thank you." Your brain needs the sugar "kick" to get itself started or you feel like an ultra-zombie. Mountain Dew for me delivered the sugar needed and the caffeine that together gave me that jolt into alertness, a beacon out of the fog. But then you find yourself drinking pints, then quarts, then gallons of sugar sodas a day. Of course all this consumption is all pure poison for your body sending it literally over the edge into "sugar shock."

One last fun fact and this post will be written. Seroquel makes your gut bloat. Not just a small bloat but a beer belly bloat. Add the sugar to your list of needs and cravings and the bloat becomes double - add soda to the mix as noted above and the bloat becomes triple. Go try and run a mile after gaining 40 pounds and having a bloated gut because you are taking a drug to help you "function better in the everyday world."  

Seroquel Loves Sugar, and so will you beyond your wildest dreams.
                                                                                                             

 

Seroquel Seduction

The Seduction of Seroquel is more powerful than Crack Cocaine. For the patient in crisis, (real or perceived) Seroquel or Quetiapine offers hope in the form of a deal with devil himself.

Once you start taking the drug Seroquel the effects are immediate. If you have gone three, maybe four days without sleep or very little, Seroquel will knock you out like a Mike Tyson right hook. Seroquel will make you will sleep. The feeling of finally sleeping after days of wakefulness is delicious. You will sleep for 12 - 18 hours. And night after night sleep will be your friend. After taking your night time dose, you will pass so easily under sleeps dark and magic gate in the world of sedation. A freight train running through your bedroom will not wake you. And the relief is so overwhelming you think you have found the "Holy Grail" of all medications, finally. 

Once you are taking Seroquel daily, sleep becomes consistent. Take your dose, out like a light in 20 minutes. Once 30, 60, 90, days pass .... sleep without the drug is impossible. Once a year or two passes using Seroquel, you have cut the tether to the world of real sleep. Your body will not sleep naturally on its own. It must have Seroquel. That is what is known as addiction.  

                                                                  

Guaranteed your doctor will celebrate this new "break-through" in your quest for good health. Now you have a regular sleep schedule but your doctor will never tell you that you have just micro-fried all the circuits in your brain that allow you to sleep naturally, (without the aide of a drug). This is not like drinking too much one night and passing out in bed. This becomes a full blown addiction to a drug that puts you down like a lame horse lying desperately on the race track.

When you wake after your evening dose of Seroquel and 10 - 12 - 14 hours sleep, part two begins. What is part two: the task of waking up. Seroquel brings with it a sluggish hangover. Your brain will not think for at least 2 hours after waking. It will be all you can do to drink a few cups of coffee or tea, caffeine will become another best friend. Once your brain slowly kicks into gear, your body is next. The straight jacket you have voluntarily put yourself in takes another 2 hours to wiggle free from. 

When I do my math, and sleep 12 hours, and use another 4 hours waking to some form of consciousness that can make sense of something other than Woody Woodpecker or the Matrix there are only 8 hours in your day left to do anything.

In the beginning you may find those hours to be productive. But this is the beginning. Later in the addiction the drug leaves you more "spaced and zoned" than ever. I could not work a 9 - 5 job. I don't know how a human being could possibly function with any level of concentration or mental acuteness after taking Seroquel on a daily basis.

My doctor wanted me to take Seroquel in the morning as well as at night. I looked at him cross-eyed. "Are you kidding me? I will sleep all day?" I only took Seroquel at night 30 minutes before I wanted to sleep. I found I was wide awake with eyes wide shut at midnight with more energy than I knew what to do with .... so I would take my dose of 400 milligrams of Seroquel and be sleeping in 30 minutes.

My doctor encouraged, instructed, (demanded) this drug taking behavior. He was not a quack. He has all the Ivy League diplomas to prove he is an "Expert" in the field of psychiatric medicine. Never once did he ever tell me the drug was SEROQUEL was an ANITPSYCHOTIC class drug. Never once did he tell me it was addictive, (though I assumed it might be  .... I just did not know how addictive). 

Sequel Seduction in the beginning is so alluring. It brings relief to the patient in distress in the form of a goose down sledgehammer.

At first you think you have been kissed by God and all your distressing symptoms are gone. You are ready now to tackle the world. Only on Seroquel the world tackles you. Try making an 8 am meeting after a night on Seroquel. Try getting to your child's parent teacher conference at 10 after a night on Seroquel. Take a business lunch after a night on Seroquel - kiss that client, project, job interview "good-bye." You might as well show up on a heroin high. 

This is legal dope. Seroquel is the only Antipsychotic now being used on the street by meth-heads and strung out junkies to help the crash happen faster and come down after a few days smoking or shooting. "Quell" or "Suzie-Q" or "Baby Heroin" and "Q-Ball" mixing Seroquel with Heroin and other drugs.

How is Seroquel out on the streets? Doctors take so much liberty prescribing the drug that even teenagers are on it for sleep disorders and anxiety. How could you possibly go to High School on Seroquel? The cost of a 25 - 50 milligram tab on the street is approximately $10 US Dollars. A 100 milligrams tab or a handful can be a profitable venture.

My insurance company made me purchase a 90 day supply (by mail order) of 100 milligram tablets. I had bottles with 360 tabs of 100 milligram tabs!!

By my calculation, I had $9000.00 worth of street drug in my possession when that cash filled package would arrive at my mailbox.

Seroquel is seductive. If you take this drug as your doctor instructs slowly you will fall deeper and deeper into its welcoming arms. It is only when you realize that your life has crashed like a Formula One race car at the Grand Prix of Monaco will you understand the power of this drug. When you come to the conclusion that your life is worse now than it was before taking Seroquel - panic sets in. There is no easy way off this drug. It's a beast. It is like being hit on the "Blindside" by Lawrence Taylor, only there is no Sandra Bullock to save you from the horror to begin.  

Seroquel Sunrise

Warning: This blog is about the drug Seroquel and Seroquel addiction along with the potentially deadly health risks associated with taking the drug Seroquel. 

 

If you are reading this you are probably looking for answers and asking yourself - is the drug Seroquel helping or hurting me? What is Seroquel doing to my mind and body or am I imagining these side effects or simply over-reacting? The answer is most likely a very loud shouting voice that says  - "NO." 

If your doctor has prescribed Seroquel for you, be sure you need this drug. Do not be fooled, Seroquel is a serious drug and can hardly be called a medicine for most of the population taking the drug as AstraZenica, Big Pharma and the Psychiatric Establishment want you to believe. It is serious anti-psychotic drug developed for the use in patients with Schizophrenia and potentially serious cases of Bipolar One Mania.

 

Somehow our friends at the FDA look the other way and allow Seroquel to be used in minor cases of Bipolar Two disorder and Sleeping or Insomnia disorders as well as Anxiety disorders. There are numerous, what is known as "Off Label Uses." Less than .01 percent of the population is Schizophrenic. How else was AstraZenica going to make billions and billions of dollars from this drug with only schizophrenia to treat. They need a bigger market. Hence the numerous off-label uses on an unsuspecting uninformed public. 

I trusted my doctor of 15 years without question when he handed me the prescription and said something to the effect of "this medication*" - it will help. Lets try Seroquel. I had no idea how every piece of my life would slowly come to a grinding halt over the next six years of taking Seroquel. I quietly disappeared  into a world of sedation not really knowing what was happening around me or to me or to anyone else who mattered in my life.

I was following doctor's orders, a doctor I trusted. I gained weight. I craved sugar. Over time I lost interest in many activities that gave me pleasure and released stress. I lost interest in my marriage, I lost interest in my children's activities, (I am ashamed to say ...). And many other activities from holidays to family gatherings to simply watching football on television, (forget going to a game, be it high school or college - I could not find the energy or desire), other tasks like taking a short walk to the beach or a 10 minute jog, (running flew off the radar faster than a disappearing U-Boat in the Atlantic at midnight). I quit playing golf. I quit snow skiing. I had always been an athlete - now I was drugged into a waking coma. And hardest of all was learning anything new. My brain was too "zoned-out" on Seroquel that any consistent cognitive function was beyond laughable.    

The last two years of the six I barely had the energy to find the tv clicker. I recently asked my doctor of 20 years if he knew the side effects of Seroquel and the withdrawal side effects ... he did not. Does he know how to use Google? But in his words, "You can't believe what you read on the internet."

I have since cut my dose way down after trying to "kick - cold turkey" at 75 milligrams every night for sleep. (Once Seroquel gets its hooks in you - sleep is impossible without the drug). It was the most hellish experience of my drug addicted life that started 30 years ago at age 20. I could not do it. After 5 days and barely an hour of sleep a day, I caved and dosed myself with 200 milligrams and a couple shots of tequila to pass-out for 8 hours. That was just the beginning. The next 4 weeks I felt as though I had been in a head on collision with a Mack truck. It took six weeks, serious motivation and effort to regain any strength at all.

I have used many drugs illegal and legal. Seroquel by far is the worst drug to become addicted to ... and trying to get off it is a living hell. I am not sure there is another way to describe it. People throw that phrase around often. I do not. Seroquel may help some people. And I am sure it does, (in the short term). I often read comments in forums from people new to the drug that now they can sleep and relieves their anxiety and so on .... how grateful they are to have found Seroquel. The magic does not last. In less than six months you are an addict - a legal addict - but an addict non-the-less. A few years of taking the drug daily and the Seroquel addiction becomes Godzilla.

Because I am trying to rid my body and mind of this drug I am now what is known in the Psychiatric Profession as a "difficult patient." The label is not just in the doctor's office it has carried over into my private life and will most likely result in the destruction of a marriage and a family.  

This is my first post on this blog and I am embarrassed I let this happen to me.

I didn't do my homework  ... I should have known better. I trusted a licensed drug pusher who has no experience taking the drug or trying to get off it.

I suppose I am writing this blog to clear my own head and to speak to any of you who have serious questions about taking the drug Seroquel and what it is doing to your body and mind or to a loved one taking this "medication."