Posted by stargazer2 on June 1, 2007, at 7:31:05
In reply to Nardites UNITE » stargazer2, posted by UgottaHaveHope on June 1, 2007, at 2:25:11
Michael, lets see where I'm at this week...
My brain is focusing and organizing daily activities better and I'm starting to get bored, but not depressed, although sometimes the distinction is murky.
I have cut back on a few days from 45mg to 30mg with less daytime sedation but yesterday I took a 2.5 hour nap which gave me lots of energy and I slept pretty good last night. I take the last dose before going to bed. I am trying to avoid more medication by changing the schedule of when I take the meds, so I'm in an experimentation mode now.
Have you ever taken 30 mg at once or do you space out the 15 mg over the course of the day? When do you take the last dose?
I did have a horrible side effect when I started and I wasn't sure it was related to Nardil but it was. The medical term is flatus, aka gas, and the only thing that is helping is taking a product which adds fiber to my diet. So far it's helping, but not totally resolved. One poster, a few years ago, also had this SE.
The rest of the side effects are minimal, compared to the suffering and worthlessness I have felt for over a year. I had to persist in getting Nardil precribed (you know), although I'm not sure why there is so much reluctance when I have a medical background and know all about the side effects, and the diet and check my BP when required. The diet was harder after not being on a MAO for many years, but the sacrifices I am making are more than made up with the positives of the drug.
Doctors have to stop doing this to us. I lost many years of my life and resent that I was forgotten in the equation, because of a doctor's reluctance to prescribe a MAO. How may others out there are still suffering and perhaps dying because of this practice????? MAO's can't be the first line of treatment, but years of worthlessness is more dangerous than the side effects of the MAO's. My opinion and life, but so many wasted years trying to work with anhedonia and feelings of worthlessness is really no way to live.
Have the patient sign a waiver if the drug is so dangerous, it should be our informed consent to decide how much risk we want take in life with any medical treatment. Isn't ECT more dangerous than a MAO? I believe it is, although I came close to having it done once when I was so far gone. I was just too fearful of it and I feel the MAO's are less risky with careful monitoring of them for select patients that can follow dietary and medical orders carefully.
I feel it is imperative for MAO's to be tried for those patients stuck for years (even a few bad months) in a truly horrible depression (anxiety) before ECT or another invasive oprocedure like VNS is used. Those seem more dangerous and costly to me.
Who agrees with this assessment? It seems clear to me from this side of the abyss.
Stargazer
poster:stargazer2
thread:760120
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070524/msgs/760732.html