Posted by Peter on March 1, 2003, at 0:30:28
In reply to Re: New Thoughts » Peter, posted by Ritch on February 25, 2003, at 13:18:38
> Hi Mitch:
I finally saw my doc today. I tried to adhere to the MAOI dietary restrictions for the last 2 days-just to get an idea of how I'd cope with them. I gotta say that, with my anxious/hypochondriacal temperament, it was very difficult. But I was still under the impression that Nardil was the direction we were going in. But as we got into the meeting, he decided that the MAOI wouldn't be a good choice for me now; as he put it: 'it's like I'd have to give you another drug to help you to take the Maoi.' He didn't say this harshly or anything-he and I are always joking around. I told him what I mentioned on a post here about that if I did start up on another med, I'd prefer it to be something most likely to help in the long-term (not just another med that will ultimately end up exacerbating instead of helping my mood trends, thus requiring further med trials). He said there's no guarantee that the Nardil would help anymore than anything else, so it's not quite worth my taking it, what with all the anxiety I have about it.
If you recall, my original other choice was Straterra; but he told me that he's been treating many patients with Straterra since it came out, and over the last week or two he's been getting a lot of complaints about it causing agitation/irritability. He also said that Straterra or a TCA would help my SP only to the extent that my SP is driven by my general mood; in other words, they do not directly treat social anxiety like MAOI's or SSRI's.
Believe it or not, he decided the best thing to do would be to keep me on the lamictal 100mg, using it as a mood-stabilizer, and start Prozac at very low doses. Firstly, he said I always took depakote with the other SSRI's and the replacement of the depakote with the lamictal with a SMALL dose of an SSRI-especially Prozac- might just be what I need to balance out the SP/periodic depression.
As for Prozac in particular, I've never tried it, and he said it has a good balance between energizing yet calming effects. And if it only works for a few months for me, its long half-life causes its cessation to not produce the level of withdrawal symptoms of an SSRI w/ a short half-life (like zoloft).
It seemed like a strange choice at first, especially after all he had said in the past about SSRI's NOT working well with me, but he was very convincing today in his reasons for my taking Prozac. What do you think?
BTW, have you taken Prozac? Also, out of curiosity, ever taken Nardil?
Hope all is well,
Peter
poster:Peter
thread:202089
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030224/msgs/204905.html