can seroquel be used as monotherapy

Right now I am manic with mixed states and rapid cycling. seroquel takes care of that.

I saw my pdoc as i was convinced that it's time to add a mood stabilizer like the usual therapy. Back in time, I didn't tolerate neither tegretol nor lamictal. what is left is lithium or valproate. of course there are less famous drugs like trileptal, topamax,.....

i took 2 pills of lithium and i had serious insomnia for 2 days, intolerable, dry mouth,...the usual. i thought of depakote again the side effects are inflicting upon the liver instead of the kidneys.

many times i read about seroquel monotherapy, not only from astra zeneca. Some here used it for that purpose. So i need to know if it's effective. Of course there are side effcects but not more than the above ones. my question does it really help in depression. i take 100 but i presume it isn't enough.

forget abt diabetes, withdrawals, ....it's mainly the akathesia which is my main concern right now. can a pill of akineton take care of that

pls feedback on the use of seroquel alone without AD's . only seroquel

[ILADVOCATE]

It depends on the specific person but Seroquel does have strong mood stabilization effects. It was complex for myself as a person with schizoaffective disorder or people I knew with bipolar with psychotic features as there a mood stabilizer and an antipsychotic was neccessary. With straight bipolar Seroquel being an FDA approved mood stabilizer should work at a therapeutic dose. You can see if at a proper dose you can tolerate the akathesia. Akineton does work but it is one of many side effect pills. You can see if it works for you.

[erinbug84]

I've just come off of trying to switch to Seroquel monotherpy.  I maxed out on 800mg of Seroquel before I was able to totally get off of lithium and hadn't even started to lower my Lamictal dose.  I don't tolerate lithium well and side effects have gotten much worse over time.  Lamictal has been okay for me as long as we watch the dose - it's very reactive to hormones and that has been a huge problem.  Was soooo looking forward to only one mood stabilizer... have heard that it can work for some people.  I hope that you can make it work for you.