Posted by Peter on January 28, 2003, at 20:17:45
Hi everyone:
pdoc and I decided I hold off on taking the nortriptaline, so instead we titrated the lamictal from 50mg to 75mg @ a week ago. It does seem to have gotten me out of the awful depressed state I was in. But now my Social Phobia is really shining through. I get terrified at even the thought of going out to dinner or meeting new people, etc. Also, like with any other AC I've taken, I go through what I call 'wet blanket' periods-just feeling like there's a weight over me-sedate, spaced-out, losing track of words in the middle of sentences, foggy-headed, etc.. I'm also down to 30mg adderall, and I have no drive or excitement for anything. But my doc said the problem might be the 250mg depakote I'm still taking, so he's having me go off that, and he really thinks the lamictal will end up helping the social phobia! Wow, I never knew it could do that! Does anyone have experience w/lamictal helping SP?
If the lamictal isn't sufficient for my SP, he said that, if after stopping depakote I'm not too hyped up, we can either increase the adderall again (which he said is safer for me than starting back up on an ssri, even though I've experienced the most freedom from SP on ssri's-that is, before I start cycling). The other possibility, which we've been considering for a while, is an MAOI. He said they're the best-they would take care of my SP, depression, ADD, everything. But I'm just concerned about the food restrictions-what if you go to a restaurant and there's a little tyramine in some food-you gotta go to the hospital from a seratonergic attack? That's the only thing that really makes me wary about taking an MAOI. But he did mention some sort of antidote I can carry with me. So my second question is: What are people's experiences like with MAOI's, especially in terms of the tyramine thing?
I asked about the TCA route, but he said they do NOTHING for social anxiety. I don't know. I'd love any sort of feedback. Hope all is well with everyone-if not, I'm here to share and help out-so feel free to vent to me as I am to you (-: Thanks a lot,
Peter
poster:Peter
thread:138033
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030125/msgs/138033.html