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Two of the most important things to know when deciding on which med is the best for a particular condition2: how likely is it to work and how long will it take.

The odds of a med working for a particular condition and how long it generally takes to work should be fairly easy to nail down, and not need to be summed up by the Internet shorthand YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary). Aside from it being hard enough to get an accurate diagnosis when brain cooties are involved, why is it so difficult to figure out if Seroquel-XR is right for you and how long it will take for you to know that?

  • Because no one is quite sure exactly what causes various conditions.
  • Which is further complicated when everything is a spectrum disorder (e.g. bipolar 1, bipolar 2, all the others planned for DSM-V).
  • And they’re never really sure about how Seroquel-XR works in the first place.
  • Plus, if you have more than one condition for which you’re taking one or more medications to treat, things get really complicated.
  • None of which is helped by studies that produce contradictory results, if they aren’t questionable in the first place.3

See our page on the tests researchers use to measure the efficacy of medications, including during clinical trials to get FDA approval.

1.  How Long Until Seroquel-XR (quetiapine fumarate) Starts Working1

Unlike other antipsychotics, which can start getting your symptoms under control within 24 hours, Seroquel / Seroquel XR can take up to a week to work. It doesn’t matter what you’re taking Seroquel for, schizophrenia, bipolar mania, a mixed state, unipolar or bipolar depression, GAD, as an add-on or by itself, it’ll take 4–7 days before Seroquel does anything.

Unless you’re taking it for sleep. That first 25–50mg knocks out most people.

2.  Likelihood Seroquel-XR (quetiapine fumarate) Will Work for its Approved Conditions

Pretty good for schizophrenia, so-so for bipolar mania, fairly good for bipolar depression, and as an add-on for MDD (XR only).
Stahl prefers it for bipolar depression and schizophrenia’s negative symptoms, although its sedating properties can be useful for aggression. He also likes Seroquel for psychiatric applications if someone also has Parkinson’s or Lewy body dementia.
Everyone else treats Seroquel as a second-line med for its approved applications, with the consensus being it’s the first one to try if the problem is depression/negative symptoms combined with insomnia.

Looking at some of the online literature in addition

Bipolar depression

3.  Likelihood Seroquel-XR (quetiapine fumarate) Will Work for Off-Label Applications

Seroquel XR works so well when used by itself (monotherapy) for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) the only reason the FDA didn’t approve it to treat GAD is because the side effects suck too much when compared with what is already on the market. Take a look at these randomized, double-blind studies:

4.  How Seroquel-XR (quetiapine fumarate) Compares with Other Meds for its Approved Treatments

5.  How Seroquel-XR (quetiapine fumarate) Compares with Other Drugs for Off-Label Treatments

Seroquel vs. Paxil for GAD: Seroquel works better and faster than Paxil. You can take Seroquel and be fat, horny, lazy, and maybe shaky, or take Paxil and wait for it to work, and never want or be able to have sex.

‹ Expanded How to Take and Discontinue | Seroquel-XR Index | Expanded Pharmacokinetics & Noted Drug-Drug Interactions ›
Crazy Meds Comprehensive Seroquel-XR pages

Bibliography

1 In fancy doctorspeak: Time-to-response, or response time, or response begins at, or something with "response" in it. "Onset" refers to when the symptoms of a condition first appeared (presented). The only time you'd use "onset" with a drug is when side effects are involved.

2 Assuming you were correctly diagnosed in the first place.

3 Keep in mind that according to one study, most drug studies will skew in favor of the med made by the company that sponsored the study.* That's one of my favorite "no shit Sherlock" studies, although it did help in getting conflicts of interest showing up on papers.
Two additional papers along similar lines are Why Current Publication Practices May Distort Science** and Why Most Published Research Findings Are False***. So in addition to the books we use as source material, this is why we also factor a lot of anecdotal evidence (personal experience, experiences of people we know, case reports, what people have sent us in e-mail, and what is posted all over the Internet) into our conclusions regarding the likelihood of meds working, the prevalence of various side effects, etc.
While the drug companies are getting a lot more transparent and publishing more data in the PI sheets regarding the results of the clinical trials, they still don't publish how many times a drug failed a clinical trial.****


Date created 25 Jan 2011 - 17:03 Page Creator: Jerod Last edited by:

Seroquel-XR’s Expanded Efficacy and Comparisons with Other Meds is copyright 2011 Jerod

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*While there are plenty of books to help you with hypochondria, for some reason there’s not much in the way of websites. Then again, staying off of the Internet is a large part of curing/managing the disorder.

‘Everything is true, nothing is permitted.’ - Jerod Poore


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