Posted by med_empowered on March 10, 2005, at 6:07:58
In reply to Re: Seroquel: Is My Doctor Right? » TomG, posted by fires on March 9, 2005, at 17:25:19
Your titration does seem slow...but its good to have a doc sticking to the "start slow, stay low" approach. My experience with seroquel was this: my doc rx'd 100mg tabs and told me to start at 50 and work up to 100mgs "as soon as possible." The whole thing was an utter disaster--I missed classes, nearly got in a car accident, etc. etc. etc.
Keep in mind that the people who push "target doses" the most tend to be drug companies. Responsible docs will try to find the minimum effective dose, especially with antipsychotics. Since anti-psychotics generally take about 6 weeks to "kick in" (though sedation can be immediate), your doc may be doing a low-dose trial run to make sure a) seroquel actually does something for you and b) you don't have any major side-effects from the outset (akathisia, neuroleptic malignancy syndrome, etc.).
You mentioned that Lithium helped you a bit in the past...recent research has tended to show that mood-stabilizers, alone or with anti-psychotics, can ease psychotic symptoms in both bi-polar and schizophrenic (even treatment-resistant) patients. The addition of a mood-stabilizer can help minimize the dosage of anti-psychotics, which is always a good thing.
poster:med_empowered
thread:468770
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050308/msgs/469122.html