Posted by Newly on August 10, 2008, at 23:06:24
Hi, longtime reader, first time poster. Part of the reason I felt comfortable trying Nardil for social anxiety and chronic low-grade atypical depression (dysthmia) was because of the posters on this site, so I wanted to post my own experiences as well.
Have been on this med for ~12 weeks now. Started at 45 mg for 4 weeks with now results but no side effects either. Then went up to 60 mg and within about 4 days started feeling unexpectedly better with the social anxiety. For the first time in my adult life I was able to make eye contact, say hi and smile at people. Not being able to make eye contact was a HUGE issue for me so this seemed like a small miracle. However, within 4-5 days I also started to experience dizziness, orthostatic hypotension, daytime tiredness, and constipation. I would wake up several times a night and would get so dizzy and disoriented that I'd fall several times trying to walk to the bathroom. If I stood up too suddenly I could not see or hear and would need to sit down immediately for fear of passing out. Fell and hit my head twice---once in parking lot of my office walking into work. All of this was probably due to BP being too low. Woke up one morning with blood pressure of 60/40 mmHg---my normal BP is usually ~100/60, so that drop would explain the dizziness and blackouts.
Insomina was also a huge problem.
Then, after experiencing these problems for about 2 weeks, based on a Dr's advice, I changed my meds schedule from taking the medication in the morning, noon, and night, to splitting the meds between morning (around 8 am) and midday (around 3 pm) only. Within about 3 to 4 days my insomnia and orthostatic hypotension were completely gone!! Within another 1 week (with help of gatoraid and a daily motrin) daytime dizziness was gone too. This was a realy big improvement and I still felt the beneficial effects for the most part. So, if anyone else is suffering with the insomnia/orthorstatic hypotension side effect, you might want to give this a try and it might help.I have been on 60 mg for about 8 weeks now. I still have problems with constipation and daytime tiredness but not as bad as I initially did (prunes help a little with easing constipation and coffee for tiredness).
The biggest problem now is that over the past 5 weeks I have gained considerable weight, which is apparenly also a common side effect. I've gained 15 pounds, from 122 lbs to 137 lbs in 5 weeks! My weight usually Never fluctuates, no matter how much I eat or don't eat, I used to never gain or loss more than maybe 2 lbs...
So far Nardil has been pretty helpful, helping about 40% with social anxiety and depression while no other drug has...but it hasn't been the wonder drug that it seems to be for some many others. I still struggle alot with SA and there are several days at a time I still get really depressed and discouraged.
Not really sure what to do now...I originally thought maybe going up to 75 mg would help, but now with all this weight gain I'm really scared to go up or even stay on the med at all...
don't know what to do. HAs anyone else had problem with weight gain like this? Did going up in med strenght make it worse? I'm hoping revamping my exercise routine will be enough to loose the weight, then maybe try to increase dose??
poster:Newly
thread:845469
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080805/msgs/845469.html