I f**king hate Quetiapine. Discuss

[Stuffragette]

The bloody med has saved my life, yet I have gained 3 stone in weight. I've gone from a size 6/8 to a 14. I'm fat whatever angle I look at myself. I want to cry. It brings back all my self loathing thoughts. However in the majority I have come from attempting suicide to being able to smile again, all in a year. But today is a miserable day bitch day.

Anyone else feel like this? Do you choose happy and fat or miserable and skinny? Today I just want to cry

[whatishistory]

I'm sorry you're stuck with this. Weight gain by psych meds is a bitch. Im on 1100mg of Quetiapine and I'm lucky that it's never caused weight gain. However, carbamazepine made me put on weight at a frightening rate. I came down to 250mg and, thankfully, the weight came off. There's no way I'll be going on a higher dose.

My CPN has been very honest and said she couldn't cope with weight gain from meds. It made a change to have a psych professional admit that it's just not as simple as skinny and mad versus fat and sane.

[bellend123]

Hi, I am in a similar situation to you, I have been on antipsychotics for over two years and I've gained 5 stones, going from a size 8 to a size 16 . I look horrible . I am due my antipsychotic injection tomorrow and I think I'm gonna refuse it cos I desperately want to lose weight. On the other hand I don't want to become ill again. What to do

Sorry that I don't have any advice for you, I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone

[Smartleatherbag]

I'm on it, but only 150mg. Put on weight but lost it ok, I'm sure if I was on a bigger dose I'd not have lost it. I'm a former anorexic too, which helps with the weight gain Commiserations xx

[mawbroon]

I've been on it 3.5 years now. I went from 50kg to 70kg in 4 months because I couldn't get enough sugar.

I also thought that I was going to have to choose between happy and fat or miserable and skinny. BUT it worked so well for me that I got to a place where I was mentally strong enough to deal with the weight gain and I am back at 53kgs now.

Coming out of a shop changing room in tears was one of the things that spurred me on to losing weight.

Hang in there xx

[bellend123]

mawbroon how did you manage to lose the weight? Well done

[mawbroon]

I quit sugar completely for a while. I managed 11 weeks and I lost a kilo a week doing that. I found the cravings reduced enormously and was able to just generally eat less too which got rid of the last few kilos.

I have also identified what triggers my mood related cravings for sugar (it's always sugar!) and try hard to avoid it if I can. Sometimes I fail miserably and have a bit of a blow out, but mostly I've been able to keep my weight stable. Winter is harder for me, but then come spring each year, I make a big effort to shift the winter weight (last year was 5kg) so that I'm not starting each spring heavier than the last.

I won't pretend it's easy, but it's not impossible either.