As a patient you should take whatever helps you. I don't care about anybody elses treatment for CFS. I respect everybody's choices.
The only reason I care about Seroquel at all is because all the doctors now believe now it is "safe and effective" for off-label use. And this is because of a massive sales and marketing program by AstraZeneca. This propaganda has effected every patient's interaction with their physician. That also applies to Pfizer heavily marketing off-label use of Neurontin.
If you see any doctor nowadays (and that includes many of our own ME/CFS specialists) the first thing he.she is going to do is fly out of that office and bring you back all the Seroquel samples you can carry. There is a "hard sell" in that little examination room to get you to take Seroquel, Neurtontin, Lyrica, Cymbalta. This is not a conspiracy theory; the government has sued the makers of these drugs for this very reason.
I have yet to hear of anybody on these forums for whom this stuff has worked over the long term. As in "I took Neurotin for years; I am still taking it; it hasn't caused problems to make me go off of it." If you are cycling on and off, then you might as well be taking Klonopin or Xanax. Or pain killers; because almost everybody can avoid addiction if they stagger their doses.
The U.S. Department of Defense bought into this scheme, and they were throwing Seroquel pills at the soldiers as fast as they could get them. Now they have retracted all prescriptions, and have removed the drug from use. For several years, every service member going to Afghanistan or Iraq was given 180 doses of Seroquel for insomnia,to take whenever he/she wanted, as a preventative.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2012/06/military-dod-cracks-down-on-off-label-seroquel-use-061412w/
Off-label use soars
Prescriptions for Seroquel have exploded in the past decade, especially in the U.S. armed forces, where it often is prescribed off-label as a sleep aid.
In 2003, service members were diagnosed with insomnia at a rate of 30 per 10,000; by 2009, the rate had risen to 226 per 10,000. Prescriptions for Seroquel, or quetiapine, have subsequently soared, multiplying 27-fold in the same time period.
The drug is known to cause drowsiness and chase away nightmares associated with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Navy Capt. Mike Colston of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs said medications become popular as providers learn about them and as they receive new approvals for use by the Food and Drug Administration — in the case of quetiapine, as an add-on therapy for antidepressants.
Yet questions have been raised over whether its off-label use for insomnia was more than a grass-roots movement by physicians. In April 2010, manufacturer Astra-Zeneca agreed to pay $520 million to the federal government to settle a civil suit alleging that it illegally marketed Seroquel for a host of off-label uses such as Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, PTSD and sleeplessness.
According to The Associated Press, in 2009, the Pentagon spent $8.6 million on the drug, while the Veterans Affairs Department spent $125.4 million.
Recent moves by the Pentagon to restrict prescriptions for atypical antipsychotic drugs were the result of a search for safe, proven therapies for troops, Colston said.
“We aim to … discourage the use of off-label medication treatments with antipsychotic medications before established evidence-based strategies have been implemented,” he said.The U.S. Department of Defense was a huge customer of Seroquel.
As for Neurontin, it is also heavily pushed by its owner Pfizer. If you MS, especially, the docs will practically force feed you Neurontin.
It turns out that Neurontin does have a signficant association with mental disturbance, withdrawal symptoms, and even recreational use. And its therapeutic uses are fabricated by the manufacturer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabapentin
Suicide
Gabapentin has been associated with an increased risk of suicidal acts or violent deaths. In 2009 the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning of an increased risk of depression and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in patients taking gabapentin, along with other anticonvulsant drugs modifying the
packaging insert to reflect this. In July 2009 the manufacturer of gabapentin (
Pfizer) went to trial regarding the association between gabapentin and the increased risk of suicide.
Withdrawal
Gabapentin should not be discontinued abruptly after long term use. Abrupt or over rapid withdrawal may provoke a withdrawal syndrome reminiscent to
alcohol or
benzodiazepine withdrawal. Gradual reduction over a period of weeks or months helps minimize or prevents the withdrawal syndrome.
Side effects upon discontinuation of gabapentin that have been reported in medical literature include
insomnia,
restlessness,
agitation,
anxiety,
disorientation,
confusion,
light sensitivity,
diaphoresis,
headaches,
palpitations,
hypertension,
chest pain, and
flu-like symptoms. In one case, abrupt cessation of a high dose of gabapentin triggered a
seizure in an individual with no history of
epilepsy.
Recreational use
Although gabapentin is not a controlled substance, it does produce psychoactive effects that cause it to have potential for recreational use. Even in low doses, gabapentin causes sensations of reduced acute pain and reduced anxiety. Larger doses can cause the user to become numb and even fully insensate. Tolerance to gabapentin occurs extremely rapidly with recreational use, with the user often needing to double the dosage within a day or two of misuse. Although it is widely regarded as having little or no potential for misuse, it is often a misused drug in Canadian Northern communitiesand among inmates in California State prisons. However, Pregabalin, a subsequent Pfizer spin-off, is a controlled substance under Schedule V of the United States' Controlled Substances Act.
Off label promotion
Off-label use of gabapentin for psychiatric
off-label use also resulted in convictions.Although some small, non-controlled studies in the 1990s – mostly sponsored by gabapentin's manufacturer – suggested that gabapentin treatment for bipolar disorder may be promising other more recent and better controlled studies have found it to be no more effective (and in one study, slightly less effective) than placebo. Subsequent to the corporate acquisition of the original patent holder, the pharmaceutical company
Pfizer admitted that there had been violations of FDA guidelines regarding the promotion of unproven off-label uses for gabapentin in the
Franklin v. Pfizer case
In addition, the FDA black box warning states: "Antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), including Neurontin, increase the risk of suicidal thoughts or behavior in patients taking these drugs for any indication."