Comments on: Once Again, I Appear to be a Big Pharma Ho

By: Seroquel Side Effects

Seroquel Side Effects — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 07:21:32 +0000

My name is Paul Harris and i would like to show you my personal experience with Seroquel.

I am 47 years old. Have been on Seroquel for 2 weeks now. I would NOT recommend this drug to anyone except those who only want to sleep all the time. Very poor!

I have experienced some of these side effects-
This drug knocks you out. Slept 17 hours with 200 mg dose the first time. Even 100 mg. makes me tired, dizzy, clouded mind, slurred speach and etc. all day.

I hope this information will be useful to others,
Paul Harris

By: Dano Macnamarrah

Dano Macnamarrah — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 04:19:26 +0000

Way back when, when knights were bold, I was diagnosed as Bipolar II with extra bits. I’m forty-two now, with a fantastic tolerance for large quantities of almost anything: legal or not drugs, alcohol, self-loathing, etc.
This means that about once a year I “crash” and spend two to three months on a psyche ward. Just as I don’t recall how many E.C.-”Treatments” I had, (over twenty in a few weeks), I don’t recall when I started Seroquel.
I started with 100mgs in the a.m. and 200mgs in the p.m.
As I have been able to streamline my meds over the past few months; this has been decreased. I only take the night-time dose. I tried halving that, but I got freaky within two days.
I do love the vivid dreams that I have, even if they are awful. I feel as if I am seeing another world that exists beyond ours. That I am being given a technicolour quantum leap to the future.
I don’t know which of the meds that I’m on curbs my hallucinations best. But I know that Seroquel is good for me.
I have high blood pressure, a problem aggravated by weight gain from meds and PTSD. But my blood-sugar is fine, despite the ice-cream! My grand-mother had diabetes and died of colon cancer.
But I digress.
I am a serious fan of Seroquel. But, the problem really lies with our society”s regard to mental health.
Most psyche meds take four to six weeks to take effect. This is rediculous. If a pain med took this long to work, it would not be on the market. The medical community needs to address the fact that they have let mental health and well-being be left in the dust.
It’s insane that we require people who are mentally ill to get up, put a smile on their face and face life without adequate medical and societal support. If a person was in as much physical pain as some of us are mentally, they would be bed-ridden at best.

By: Philip Dawdy

Philip Dawdy — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:05:57 +0000

liz, you came off fine as far as i could tell and you didn’t seem a pharma ‘ho at all.

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:34:51 +0000

As for articles that describe how BAD a medicine is, at least this listed the good it can do (and you are not a “ho” for being the example). There are so many articles about how bad Zyprexa and Seroquel are (and I will admit they can have some pretty serious side effects that the makers played down too much), but there is usually no mention about the number of people that are significantly help by these medications. Put the good and the bad together so we can put the usefulness in perspective.

Also, the article you refer to mentioned the comparison of atypicals with the typical perphenazine (sp?) in the CATIE trials. Those trials only compared those with schizophrenia. I am curious how bipolar patients would fare with a typical as opposed to the atypicals. From what I have learned in the literature, the only typical studied was haldol for treating bipolar. The problem was that haldol could a switch to depression. But I don’t know if any of the other typicals were tested in this manner. At least the atypicals aren’t known for making this switch (in fact they help with depression).

I ramble on too much. Interesting article. I would agree with you that atypicals shouldn’t be used in children, not until the medical community knows more about the bad and good with them.

Thanks for the blog. It is entertaining and informative!

By: Stormgazer

Stormgazer — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:58:28 +0000

LOL: Pharma Ho and Pimp Dawdy, the bipolar duo Now we just need to queue that swingin’ 60’s fight scene music and toss in a few BIFF!’s and WHAM!’s for the right effect!

By: Larry

Larry — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:22:55 +0000

They’re trying to pit two of our best and brightest (i.e., you and Dawdy) against each other. Typical media.

(Uh, whoops, I was a reporter for four years myself. Sorry.)

By: susan

susan — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:42:43 +0000

Hi Liz,

As someone who knows you irl, the last thing you are is a Ho!

That said, Eder’s article could have been brilliant. He interviewed the best and brightest (not to mention my own two muses) for his article.

But something left me hollow after reading it. I cannot quite put my finger on it, this is probably why I took Creative Writing courses instead of Journalism ones.

I, as you know, co-facilatate a peer run support group for uni and bipolar people. I’ve been doing it for 4 1/2 years. And we get questions about Seroquel, and almost everyone has had bad side effects from the drug.

Cept me. Other than the strangest dreams – like what would happen if Peter Max, Roy LIchtenstein and Yellow Submarine had a baby together- the drug did what it was supposed to do.

Maybe because my diagnosis is BP1 and schizoaffective?

I don’t know. All I do know is what I say in meetings. Something like Penicillin doesn’t work for everyone, your meds are the same way, and you need to bring this up with your pdoc.

Take care.