Sherri, I hope you're not going on and off medications without your doctor's approval because not taking them consistently prevents you from knowing how they REALLY work on you!  I don't think it's okay to just arbitrarily decide to take more of something to see what happens.  It can be dangerous!!!  I know Seroquel can really make you sleepy and if that doesn't get better in a few weeks, talk to your doctor about it.  Your doctor is the one who should decide how much of a drug you need and he can't tell if you're not taking them as directed.  Sorry about the lecture, but I feel really strongly about that.  Help him help you!

Hiya hun,

I have been on a few different types of medications - you may have seen my post on EffexorSR! - and Seroquel has been the best and least harmful of them all.  A lovely deep sleep is a gift sometimes, and waking up in the morning ready to face the day as a result of a nice sleep is priceless.

I'm afraid I cannot tell you off for self medicating by mucking around with dosages.  It's looking for an answer in pills yeh?  If one worked, how much better might two or three work?!  Two or three times as well maybe?!  And as you noted with Seroquels... you just sleep a bit more.    I don't know that discussing this with your doctor could get a good result aside from the usual lecture which you can get from anywhere without paying for it... lol..

However!... just before you think I condone self medication there is another side to it... The thing with taking extra doses, or taking less, or using someone else's prescription pills.. or whatever... is that it is an acknowledgement that something isn't right.  So there's a couple of different ways to go with this. 

You can talk to your doctor and say 'this is good, but it's still not as good as I want it to be'... and your doctor may prescribe something else, a higher dose, a different med. 

You could combine the meds with counselling.  I am sorry to say that the answer to how you want to feel - at peace, more in control of yourself and your world, capable, confident - does not lie inside a pill.  Medications can relieve your symptoms often well enough to give you a break from your own head.  But when this happens, that medications work, it can be easy to think you are all better now, or at least will get better the longer you are on this or that medication.

I think it is best to use the break that effective medication brings you to reach out to some therapy or counselling and understand what your head is doing.  Are there triggers for your depression which you can recognise and possibly avoid?  If not, can you keep a diary to reflect on and perhaps find these triggers?  Is or was there an event/s which you already know can send you into a tailspin when you remember?  How can the 'voice in your head' (the one that we all walk around with everyday that gives us messages about ourselves - you're good, you're pathetic etc) be brought under control and start to give you healthy messages you can live with? How can you rely on friends or other people - not by using them, but by making regular dates with them - movies can be a good way to give your head some space.

hmmmm.. does manic depression ever end?  I'm not sure that it does.  That is, I never see people on sites such as this claim to be healed, over it forever.  What can and will happen if you want, however, is that you can start to control it, rather than it controlling you.  This will happen through using medication and therapy and this site and others like it and friends and family and sun and vitamins and books and movies...... you see what I mean?  Every little thing helps. And instead of the manic depression ending - you become a better person, wiser, less judgemental, more spiritual, in tune with yourself and others.

Its not the good times that make us stronger - dernnit, if only it was! 

You're on the right road.  I can see that in the way you talk in your post. Just keep following the road, accept the help from 'refreshment stands' along the way (like a marathon runner), and keep going... whether sometimes its a walk, or a run, or a rest for a while.. keep going.

xxx

Sam