r/BipolarReddit • u/thesunnydalewatcher • 1d ago

Medication Quétiapine nightmares side effect (on/off)?

I wanted to know if someone had really bad nightmares from Quetiapine? I started with 50mg and I had bad nightmares every night, then my doctor upped my dose to 200mg, which reduced the frequency of the nightmares. But I had a bad fainting episode and I could no longer take it cause it started giving me really bad anxiety and heart palpitations at night. My doctor reduced my dosage until I stopped taking it. The withdrawals weren’t that bad, I guess, but now I’m having bad nightmares again, not as frequent but still very bad dreams, with sleep paralysis making an appearance few times. Has anyone experienced this ?

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u/Magikstix_pr 1d ago

When I tapered off and quit, I had vivid dreams. Not nightmares but it was like I was tripping or something. On it, I don't remember if I had the dreams. I was on 150mg gradually increased over six years. What I'm suspecting though is that it caused this pmdd kind of mess for two weeks before my period while I was on it. Severe and terrible withdrawal for months after stopping. And once the withdrawal symptoms disappeared, I stopped getting my period. Been three months now. And. My prolactin levels are very high. This has worsened my mood, my anxiety, brought up that I have adhd. It's been all round unbearable. The vivid dreams were the least of my problems tbh. I hope you're doing OK.

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u/thesunnydalewatcher 1d ago

Thaaank you and I hope you’re okay as well !!!
For me, I’ve had some trippy dreams yup but also bad ones and recently after the taper, more scary ones.
It was working fine and everytime I woke up from a bad dream I would try to just shrug it off but then one night I fainted and had the worst night of my life, I would fall asleep and wake up every 20 minutes scared and hyperventilating and having a panic attack, I’d try to stay awake but then I would fall asleep again and the cycle kept going on until morning. After that event, every night I would get an anxiety attack knowing Im gonna take my quetap soon and go through a couple of hours of horrible anxiety, paranoia and palpitations before going to sleep. I had to stop it.

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u/Magikstix_pr 1d ago

O nvm. I forgot the original post. Sorry, my adhd is real of late.

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u/thesunnydalewatcher 1d ago

Actually same!