increased anxiety with increase in seroquel dose.

[mrsloony]

I brought this up in the middle of another post without success so thought I try a new topic.

I've been having terrible irritability along with depression symptoms ( ? mixed state).

Since I recently got toxic on lithium and am now only on an ineffective dose of 300, pdoc suggested increasing my seroquel from 75mg by going up every couple of days by 25mg to 150mg.

My second night taking 100 and first night taking 125, got into bed ( also hoping this will help me sleep through the night), and about an hour or so later my heart started pounding. So of course by association I start getting more and more anxious and panicky. I mean real panic stuff.

I got up and took ativan and watched tv to distract myself until I fell asleep on the couch. ( increased dreaming too!)

I've been ever so slightly calmer during the day- needing ativan every 6-8 hrs instead of every 4 as it has been- so this is some improvement.

Is this high anxiety common with increased doses? and will it go away?

I'm probably going to have to brave going back on the lithium if this doesn't work as a replacement mood stabilizer- and if i'm all in a panic- that no good either.

[Rabbit37]

I feel like I'm starting to go on a crusade lately, lol... but have you changed your WB lately? That stuff had me crawling out of my skin. It was AWFUL for me. I don't know, I just can't picture seroquel giving you that kind of s/e, but it is always possible, ya know, YMMV and all that stuff. I've gone through such a med-go-round, and finally the depression started lifting, but I had horrible irritability as well. Lots of anger and rage. What killed it was lexapro, a small dose (10mg).

Just a thought. I hope you can find the answer soon, that's a terrible feeling.

[mrsloony]

Thanks Rabbit-

I know, the WB would have made much more sense to me too- but no- that dose has been the same for a really long time.

I did look up possible side effects of seroquel and they did actually include anxiety and panic attacks (for something that is supposed to be sedating- go figure)

Last night I tried taking 1mg of ativan along with the night meds including the 125 of seroquel. that seems to have done the trick- I fell asleep without the heart pounding anxiety- YAY!