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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.