Quetiapine 50mg XL for resistant depression

[Nietz93]

Hello everyone,
I was started on Quetiapine 50mg XL (extended release) insomnia and as an add on to Escitalopram for my resistant depression on the 28th of January. It works wonders for insomnia, I'm able to sleep 8 hours and wake up rested. A few days ago I posted about side effects, but now they are completely gone, thankfully. Today is 1st day of week 3, I wonder I how it will take before I see some benefits with my depression? Also, do you think this dose is too low to help with depression?
At the moment my anxiety is completely under control with Escitalopram, but I have no motivation whatsoever. Getting out of bed is a struggle, also I don't have much energy to to anything which I think it's related to Escitalopram but that's the only medication that helps with anxiety. Should I wait a few more weeks to see if helps with depression and if not talk my GP about increasing the dose to 100/150mg? I currently taking the extended release.
Thank you 🙏🏻

@Nietz93 thank you! I will try them. We had a psych appt yesterday and he said the stock issues have resolved but ultimately we need to be able to source it every month without driving around for miles.
He also said she could try the IR but as @Superscientist said in her previous post it needs to be a split dose of 100 in the night and 50 in the morning. DD drives to college and I am worried about her being tired and groggy behind the wheel.
Xx

I was needing to drive when I was on the immediate release 300mg twice a day. So I used to drive to work and then take the morning dose. It was a 20 minute drive and it usually took about 20-30 minutes for the sedation to hit so I didn't want to risk taking it before leaving. I then had to have some low cognitive and also engaging tasks for the first hour so that I work through the fuzzy phase about an hour after taking it my head would then start to clear and I would be ok. At 150mg they might be able to take it all in the evening depending on how they respond to it. It might be worth trying before doing a split dose the advantage of the split dose is that you can get more even levels of the drug through out the day. If they take it all at night and find that in the afternoons they are start struggling with their mental health there would be a benefit of taking the quetiapine morning and night. If they don't notice when the quetiapine is wearing off at doses under 3-400 mg it can be possible to take it all at night but is something to discuss with her prescribing Dr.

The extended release has supply issues on and off for the last decade. My daughter and I have at various times had up to 8 prescription between us some of which have been difficult to source my top tips are to befriend a pharmacist, try different chains, set up a calendar reminder 10 days before prescription is due so you have a day or two to put the prescription in, a week for the repeat process and a day or two to get it the pharmacy for collection. If you can only put a repeat prescription in X days before you run out each month put the prescription in 1-2 day earlier. So month 1 put it in on day 22/28, month 20/28, month 3 19/28 from then on do 18/28. Once you have 10 days in hand order every 4 weeks. We have dosset boxes for our meds which helps.

Find out if you have a pharmacist in your GP surgery - they can be really helpful in ensuring you are being prescribed tablets that are in stock. I am on 600mg and whilst there is a supplier of 600mg tablets these are precarious and often don't have stock. 3 out of 4 months my pharmacist was having to go back to the GP surgery and ask for the prescription to be changed to 2 x 300 mg tablets. The pharmacist at my GP surgery has now changed my repeat prescription to 2 x 300mg and I now have no problem with getting my prescription as there are lots of different suppliers of the 300mg tablets.

The pharmacy in our town let me and my daughter run out of our medications. One we had to get the pharmacist at our surgery to contact them as they did have the medication in stock but there was a misunderstanding about the generic Vs branded prescriptions. The other one they said "if we can't get hold of it no one will be able to". I phoned the pharmacy in the next town over and picked it up an hour later. We moved to that pharmacy and it's only once he has not been able to get us out medications. He knows my face and our regular prescription so often ensures he has the medications in stock the week we usually put our repeats in.

If you are struggling speak to boots, they can search not only their stock but also the stock in the entire area. We one time our regular pharmacy couldn't get one of my daughters meds I was working in Manchester so I went into the boots in Piccadilly station. They searched the stock of their warehouse as well as all of the boots stores in greater Manchester. They were able to locate the last bottle of her medication in the county and it was delivered to them the following morning and I picked it up at lunch time. I phone around rather than visiting the pharmacies.