Medication Withdrawal rant and.. Seroquel Question

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So, I was on Paxil for YEARS and I started seeing a new shrink. Told me to get off Paxil. My life circumstances have changed and he thought I'd be able to handle it. Spoke to my spouse about it (a psych himself) and we decided to try it. I was quite hesitant for one reason only, the withdrawal. I am prone to forgetting and know how much life sucks with just missing one flipping day. I did get off Paxil all together after much, much misery. It just was not working out. Major panic attacks.

Saw a new shrink cause this guy was out to lunch and they put me on Effexor and Seroquel. I told him how I doubted my bipolar diagnosis and he tried this combo on me. Worked out fabulous. Seriously the best I've felt in years. However, am back to missing a pill here or there and it sucks.

Life is just not fun for me tonight. Diarrhea, spaced out, dizzy, feel like I'm gonna puke. NOT FUN!

PS.. Anybody with tips on dealing with restless legs from Seroquel? I take 75mg at night and get restless legs every stinking time. I'm blaming my recent bouts with insomnia on this.

Edited to Add: I am told that restless legs are only a problem in 1% of people. it's super rare. My shrink doubts it's the meds. When I take 25mg versus the 75mg, I do not get restless legs. I hate it when people tell me that I am wrong. Screw you. Oh wait.. am I allowed to say that?

Paxil is probably the worst non-controlled substance psych med to get off of. The diarrhea should stop within a week and should be treatable with pepto bismol and other OTC meds. A heavily weighted blanket helps some with restless legs, and you could ask your doctor if it's safe to have a glass of wine before bed. If you get an electric shock feeling, there's nothing you can do about that but let your brains' chemical balance re-adjust. There are also drugs that can reduce or eliminate the side effects of antipsychotics, but I can't think of their names off the top of my head.

For the restless legs there are things a doctor could prescribe. IIRC, Requip/ropinirole is one of them.

I'm not sure that there are any OTC meds that would make much difference, though Bendryl/diphenhydramine is known to make it worse, so don't take any of that.

Vitamin B6 could theoretically help a little.

I got the restless legs on Seroquel too. In my most humble opinion I say psychiatry needs to have some research money poured into it not funded by the drug companies themselves.

Seroquel is a very dangerous substance. You should absolutely avoid it if you care about your future mental and physical health, as well as avoidance of spaces in your memory. An incompetent therapist of mine recommended me it as a sleeping medication, which made me realize a few things about it. Here is a thread I started, back then... and updated with new experiences, later on. Good information from other posters, as well:

www.wrongplanet.net/postt144588.html

Erm, just because you had a bad reaction to Seroquel doesn't mean it's a bad or "dangerous" drug. Lots of people do fine on it, and for a lot of people, it is the drug that helps them the most. Unfortunately, like any drug, some people will have bad side effects but it doesn't mean everyone will. So, please stop the scare-mongering.

Anyways...@OP: benedryl can be helpful for restless legs. Is it akathesia? Benedryl is a cheap and easy OTC option, and you see if it helps. Otherwise there are drugs like Cogentin that are used, which are prescription medication.

I took Seroquel for a bit and found it very sleep-inducing. I slept 17 hours on 25mg, heh.

No, it's not "well known" to be a "dangerous substance".

It's a prescription medication, yes, but it's not dangerous. It's known to be a good medication for most people who take it, and it has a broad range of uses - at lower dosages, it can be used as a sleeping aid, at moderate levels, it is used as a mood stabiliser, and at higher dosages, it is used for anti-psychotic purposes.

By any chance, do you perhaps work for the pharmaceutical industry, or are you maybe one of those psychiatrists who get their information from that industry? Just wondering. Maybe you're simply just a patient who gets your information from such psychiatrists, though, of course... I guess that is what is the most likely scenario.

Yes, it IS unusually dangerous. I'm sure it helps some, but it also helps some to get part of their brain removed, like in the case of some people with certain cases of epilepsy.

I have no ties with the industry, and my doctor knows me as someone who will challenge him on medication issues [been there, done that]. I am not a passive patient who parrots what a doctor tells me about psychotropic medication.

Seroquel is actually rather benign for most people.

That's not to say that a) it is benign for all people and b) your experience didn't cause you distress but it is equally as harmful to run around telling people not to take medication when it could be potentially helpful for them.

Case in point: I took Invega for a few weeks. During that time, it gave me Parkinsonian symptoms [i.e. flat affect, rigidity], and I felt like I had been lobotomised because my cognitive faculties were so slowed down that I couldn't have a conversation with people. I was too busy word-finding to give more than one or two-word responses. Lots of people wondered WTF happened to me when they interacted with me. Oh, and my anxiety went crazy while I was on the drug.

However - that was just MY personal experience of the drug. I am well aware that Invega has helped a lot of people and that I was one of the unlucky ones who got hit by all the bad side effects. Am I going to run around screaming that Invega is a dangerous drug? No, because MY experience doesn't necessarily mean everyone else's experience will be the same.

So I guess my point is - you are free to talk about YOUR personal experience of a drug and how it impacted on YOU, but you can't generalise from YOUR experience that everyone else's experience is going to be similar.