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."
