Has Anyone Had Experience of an 11 Year Old Girl Using Seroquel Medication?

I understand. I think it comes down to the faith in the doctor and starting on a low dosage. We've had doctors changing and prescribing left and right then we found one that I would consider a "maestro" with meds and we've never looked back.

Seroquel has some benefits as an anti-psychotropic medicine, but due to side effects, it can cause some concerns( as you noted) however, most medication has side effects, so it's important to trust the doctor . Depending on the dosage, and the duration and how it works with your daughter she may find it to be helpful. If she starts experiencing side effects, the psychiatrist will decrease and discontinue the medication and try an alternative medication. Most often this will stop any of the effects promptly.

Added: how long has she suffered with insomnia? It's sad to know that a child this young is having these difficulties. Does she experience racing thoughts with the auditory hallucinations?

We did not see any relief from hallucinations (visual and auditory) in our son on Seroquel, had minimal results on Risperal, but for us the magic bullet was Zyprexa. However, what works for one kid does not work for the rest (the Zyprexa took care of the insomnia as well - so no need for us to look for two drugs)..

Trust your doctor - if you don't, find a different one. Educate yourself, but honestly a good psychiatrist is about the best person to have on your team. If you are allowing someone other than a child psychiatrist to prescribe meds, I would have serious concerns. Learn what to watch for and what to journal when starting a new med. Your doctor should be your best resource for making decisions regarding medication and you should be his or her best resource about side effects and outcomes.

Oh, don't try any drug for just one or two days and then be like "well, that don't work, or causes dry mouth, or upset stomach,. or whatever", and stop giving it. Unless there is really a true reaction to the medication, it takes at least 30 days before deciding whether or not something may actually work. Yes, there are sucky side effects for just about every medication you are going to choose - don't let that be the defining factor in your final choices. Many side effects are simply termporar are

We waited ages to put our son on Risperdal for the same reason -- read scary side effects. The psychiatrist kept recommending it and finally we decided to try it for some extreme issues. It ended up being a wonder medication for our son! Calmed his repetitive negative thoughts about food and also solved his ODD. Tremendously helpful. Unfortunately, he got the elevated proloctin levels noted as a possible side effect, but since he was closely monitored, he got pulled off of it and all was fine. I share this because I learned from that to trust the doctor. I am learning to stay away from the Internet when researching medications and turn more toward the medical specialists and pharmacists. Talk over your concerns with them.

I've been taking a very low dose of Seroquel for many years to help with sleep and racing thoughts. All meds have side effects. I gained a lot of weight. But I'm no longer suicidal so it was worth it to me. If she's been evaluated by a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist suggested a medication to help her, I say do it. You said she's having disturbing auditory hallucinations. I'd much rather try a med and risk side effects than live with hallucinations. Keep her in therapy, stay in touch with her psych. Poor kiddo.

Without being overcritical at all, I strongly disagree in giving antipsychotics to children.
I think a second opinion, and a third one would give you peace of mind, but not necessarily from another psychiatrist. Psychiatrists try to treat "chemical imbalances" by experimenting and doing trial and error with children. Kids are exposed to dangerous "side effects" which leads to another drug, and then another probably stronger, and so on until the kid behaves like a zombie or looks "normal" to his/her parents until other problems come later in life.
Please start looking at what is happening at school. When did your daughter start with anxiety, depression and hallucinations? How is she doing at school in terms of learning, and social skills? If she is happy at home, and she is not happy at school something is happening, and you need to find out the root of the problem. I think all the problems she is having are coming from the same issue, but I am not a doctor. I had a similar situation indeed, and I stood up strong before some people would convince me that my kid needed a strong medicine to be happy and successful. He is now a wonderful teenager attending college at 16 and living fully his dreams in spite of all the "problems" a few people told me he had.
The doctor will keep "changing" dose, and changing drugs: the stronger, the better.
Depression comes from a specific situation that is happening at home or at school or somewhere else in which your child doesn't feel ok., and your job is finding out asap what is bothering her, or why she feels so stressed out that she is not able to deal with it. There are options, believe me, there are many options. Try some of them, and then see what happens (changing teacher, changing schools, home schooling, or online school just for a few months or a year. It is doable.).
As moms we have to do what we have to do even if things are not the "norm" for everyone else.
Blessings,and the best for you and your girl.

I am concerned. These symptoms are not usually associated with anxiety. I've had anxiety and depression and had a lot of clients with those diagnosis. None of them, not one person I've ever worked with or had as a friend had any sort of hallucination that wasn't a disorder that had a side of anxiety and depression to go along with it, but never without the more serious disorder. Hallucinations as a part of anxiety OR depression? I would not ever suggest that was part of it. But it's been a few years since I've looked in a DSM.

If you are concerned about her meds please visit with the pharmacist and ask them ahead of time so they can take you over to a consult area and actually spend time talking to you.

Most people who're depressed take an SSRI and feel better because they have a chemical problem where too much Serotonin is going. When they take the med is reduces the amount taken and more makes a person feel better. If they are just having a hard time going through a trial or death or bullying period or anything that is environmental they can take an SSRI and it helps but it's not something they'll need to be on the rest of their lives. It's situational. They take the meds to help them feel better while they work through the issues then they wean off the meds and finish up with therapy and are back to how they normally are.

If your girl is normal at home and other places but hears voices when she's not at home I'd think you need to work very closely with a psychologist and then make sure they do some assessments such as an MMPI or some other format that tests for other disorders. She could have an underlying issue that is biological and the meds she's taking don't effect it. Her psychiatrist, not anyone but a fully licensed psychiatrist, should work closely with her psychologist so they are both on the same page with her diagnosis.

A friend's daughter was going through something and she went to a therapist for help working through it. She decided to take some medications to help her. Went to the psychiatrist and got the prescriptions. The psychiatrist retired a month later.

Went to the pediatrician and that doc decided to up the dose, more therapeutic, and it put the girl in the hospital for 2 weeks. She was so depressed she wanted to die within a few days of the meds being changed. That doc though he was doing right but he wasn't. He was playing with something he knew very little about.

I really want to stress that a child needs to go to a psychiatrist that does children in their practice. Those who deal with adults will have the same knowledge but not be so familiar with med doses and levels needed in kids/tweens. They don't process meds the same way an adult dose. It's not even really close.

My older DD was put on seroquel when she was 14. A deep depression had triggered some psychotic symptoms. She took it for about 3 months. I'm not sure if it decreased her hallucinations or if they just subsided due to other changes in her treatment. She did abruptly stop taking it when she noticed she had gained 40 lbs and her doctor told her that the weight gain was a side effect from it. Her hands were a little shaky at times, but she was on quite a few meds at the time, so not sure if it was the seroquel that caused that. It did make her mellow and sleepy. The one med that helped her the most was Lamictal, until she unfortunately rashed from that. But her depression lifted enough for her to be in remission. We kept her on a cocktail of SSRI and anxiety meds for "maintenance" for about 1.5 years. When we noticed she still struggled (but to a much lesser degree and no longer with psychotic symptoms) we could tell the meds lost their effect on her. So we took her off of all of them. Now at 17 she is med-free. She still has ups and downs, but we feel long term meds are not a fix for her challenges, and could cause more harm in side effects than good. When she is 18, she can decide for herself, but she will tell you she is much happier off meds because they made her feel like a "zombie"

There are some psychiatrists that utilize the GeneSightRx testing, which actually looks at your genetic make up to see which neurological drugs (antidepressants, antipsychotics) your body will metabolize.

If your considering an antipsychotic for your kiddo, I'd personally find a doctor who does this testing. I took seroquel myself, for awhile, as an adjunct to antidepressant therapy. It made me a zombie. It turns out, I don't metabolize it.