It’s been a bit since I’ve wrote on how I’m doing with my bipolar & ADHD. Bipolar is one of those disorders that can be pretty hard to treat. It seems that any medication you take for bipolar disorder seems to have some pretty hefty side effects. The two biggest side effects seem to be messing with your blood sugar and totally messing up your sleeping patterns. Some can also cause you to have a dependence on them, especially Seroquel.
I’ve been on Seroquel now for right at three years for my bipolar. Seroquel is the number one prescribed medication for bipolar. The good news is that it does an awesome job controlling bipolar. The bad news is that the side effects stink! The worst side effect is that if you don’t have diabetes you’ll probably get it. Unbeknownst to me is that apparently for years I’ve been battling borderline diabetes & no one ever caught it. Now I’ve got full blown diabetes and will probably have to go on insulin sometime this month. Yuk!
The second side effect of Seroquel is that it makes an awesome sleeping pill! The bad news is that until you get used to it you have a really hard time waking up in the morning! I got so attached to Seroquel that when the doctor started weaning me off of Seroquel a month ago it really messed me up! To make the withdrawals less offensive the doctor dropped me from 300 mg. to 100 mg. daily. Next week I’ll go off of Seroquel completely.
I’ve got a friend who has been a diabetic all of her life & she was on 400 mg. of Seroquel & last week they took her off of Seroquel cold turkey. Her blood sugars dropped so low that she actually passed out a few times! My last hope to stay off of insulin is when I get off of Seroquel next week that my blood sugars will drop enough that I won’t have to go on insulin, I can maintain my blood sugars with medications (pills).
In the mean time while all of this is going on and we look for new meds that will help I can tell you my bipolar is back, sleep stinks. I either don’t sleep at all or I keep waking up all night long, every 1-2 hours and then I can hardly get up in the morning. I should also mention that my OCD (obsessive/compulsive disorder) is also starting to rear its ugly head, not real bad yet but I do notice it every once in a while!
To make matters worse, Abilify, the new to the market and new to me med that the doctor put me on to replace Seroquel has now just released the same warning about diabetes that Seroquel has. Now I get to look forward to changing meds again! Double Yuk!
The good news now is that the kids all go back to school this Monday so I’ll have time to work with my doc’s to get things straightened out, again!
Anyway, if you happen to think about me when you’re doing your prayers please ask the Lord to help my doctors get things straightened out.
Be Blessed!!!
BIG SCOTT
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