[tryp]

I'm on 45 mg of Remeron. Last October (pre-Remeron) I was on 1 mg of Ativan as night for sleep. I stayed on it for about two weeks, then started the Remeron. Early December, I started having sleeping problems again, so I was put on low dose Seroquel (150 mg a night) + 30 mg Remeron. Stopped that nearly two weeks ago, took nothing for a couple days, then went back to 1 mg Ativan for a couple nights.

Went to see pdoc. Pdoc suggested staggering the Seroquel dose for anxiety-control during the day. I didn't think that would work - 'Quel doesn't seem to do much for my anxiety. So she put me back on Ativan. I've been taking 0.5 mg twice a day and then 0.5-1 at night, as well as my 45 mg Remeron.

The ativan works like a charm for keeping off the daytime crazies, but it's not helping with sleep. So yesterday, I took my 1 mg divided dose as usual (0.5 at around 11 AM and another 0.5 at around 4 PM). When I went to bed, around 10, I took 150 of Seroquel, because I was sick of not being able to fall asleep.

Well, I slept great, but I had some sore stomach, so I woke up at around 3:30 in the morning. Well, that was TERRIFYING. When I woke up, I was super dizzy, could barely walk in a straight line. I kept trying to walk to the bathroom and my legs collapsed underneath me. I could barely stand up. Also, I felt like I wasn't breathing, somehow. I was breathing, but there was something wrong with my breathing.

Luckily, I woke up this morning alive and well, but I'm not sure what happened. Did I nearly poison myself? Has anyone else taken Ativan with Seroquel? Did I accidentally do something really unsafe, or did I just get unlucky?

[Nurse&Patient]

Seroquel does the exact same thing to me and I only take 25mg PRN but it has to be at night otherwise I'm one fall down the stairs away from a wheelchair. The first couple of nights I took it, there was no problem. Once my mixed episode resolved, the Seroquel had more knock out power.

Was this the first dose since you stopped a few weeks ago? If it was, I'd say it was the Seroquel.

[Stacia]

When you started Serquel initially, did you ever have the pleasure of waking in the middle of the night? What you describe sounds like S in action. Yes, that would be augmented by any benzo taken on top of it.

Call you pdoc about your troubles sleeping. She should be in the loop on what you are taking, and may have good suggestions, too. (Heh, one will probably be to not take Ativan and Seroquel together. )

[scatty]

The seroquel stupor dance! I felt that way on 500 mgs seroquel and had trouble breathing, swallowing. Surprisingly I had none of these problems on lower doses. I would put a call into your pdoc and report what has happened. You should have seen me on amitriptyline. It was like I was a drunk stumbling to the bathroom. Not fun. I got used to it after a few weeks and could walk a straight line to my bathroom. Which might not say much since my bathroom is just outside my bedroom door!

[Amy10]

Yep, that's Seroquel....I woke up for water once and fell on the kitchen floor as i staggered from wall to wall, smashing the water glass. Nice.

Believe me, the XR version is better with this.

I was an absolute moron from hell last yr on the IR stuff. I would get wasted on booze, take Ativan/Valium and THEN Seroquel and wonder why I would be falling asleep and forget to breathe, panic, jolt myself awake but would not be able to hold myself up. I really thought I was a goner many times. Luckily, my brain and some sort of self-preservation mechanism kicked in, not to mention the soothing tones of the emergency doctor on the other end of the phone.

Kicking myself.

But yes, S'quel is hell for that. Regardless of Ativan or alcohol.

[tryp]

Thanks guys. I'll check in with pdoc on Thursday. It was probably just that I've never woken in the middle of the night and tried to walk around before.

[Generica]

Good idea re: the pdoc. The number of night-time injuries I got on Seroquel! Unfortunately I'm a frequent bathroom visitor at night.

As for the breathing, yep, I got that too, until the dose was lowered (from 400 to 300mg). It's scary. It would send me into panic attacks & take about 1-2 hours in the middle of the night to get rid of & calm down. Usually by inhaling steam (though it's hardly sensible to play with a hot kettle in the middle of the night with the Seroquel staggers).

[kimquat]

I don't know if this means anything, but 150 mg of Seroquel is not necessarily a low dose. I'm on 25 and it makes me fall asleep. I take Xanex and it has never affected me the way your adivan and Seroquel seems to have. Scary stuff. You may just try a much lower dose of the Seroquel.

But, I'm curious, for anyone out there. Does the Seroquel really help with anything but sleeping? I can barely get out of bed in the morning on the low dose I'm on (25-50 mg). And I'm not sure it is doing anything for my depression and anxiety. I can't imagine functioning on it at those high doses.

[AirMarshall]

my pdoc first started me on Seroquel. The plan was to use a small dose for bed time and larger doses during the day for anxiety.

Seroquel has a paradoxical effect wrt to sleepiness. A very small dose of say 25 or 50mg makes you sleepy but doesn't have much psychological effect. When you go to much higher dosages it is more useful for anxiety and other things. So, you might try a schedule like that.

Of course the immediate cure for falling down when you get out of bed on Seroquel is "don't get out of bed". lol. You might try limiting your liquids after supper, etc. The smaller dose may be less troubling on your stomach. Too, you might have some milk and crackers when you take your dose.

If at all tolerable, try to give at least a month or more to adjust to the med. I found that serquel was much more tolerable after 3-4 weeks. For most meds, the side effects decrease with time. Seroquel really was great for helping me sleep.

Cheers, a.m.

[tryp]

Hey,

Just wanted to say - don't be scared.

This post was a once-off weird thing that happened to me, but I have overall had a very good experience with Seroquel. For me, it has been weight neutral and a real godsend in terms of nighttime anxiety symptoms.

The vast majority of people who take these meds have few side effects, or manageable side effects. Seriously.

Cheers,
Tryp

[Vitriol]

tryp, on Feb 10 2009, 06:12 AM, said:

Well, I slept great, but I had some sore stomach, so I woke up at around 3:30 in the morning. Well, that was TERRIFYING. When I woke up, I was super dizzy, could barely walk in a straight line. I kept trying to walk to the bathroom and my legs collapsed underneath me. I could barely stand up. Also, I felt like I wasn't breathing, somehow. I was breathing, but there was something wrong with my breathing.

Luckily, I woke up this morning alive and well, but I'm not sure what happened. Did I nearly poison myself? Has anyone else taken Ativan with Seroquel? Did I accidentally do something really unsafe, or did I just get unlucky?

I tried 3 times Seroquel XR 50mg + ativan 1mg at night and it was probably the worst 3 nights of my life.

I had vivid nightmares wich I dont usually have. I woke up in the middle of the nights and I felt like like you did. Breathing was the worst part. I was afraid of going back to bed because of that and I had to fight with the sleepiness at the same time.

So I stopped the Seroquel and everything is back to normal now.