Posted by bleauberry on January 10, 2011, at 12:38:20
In reply to Savella, AKA InHella, posted by ThinkStopThink on January 8, 2011, at 12:02:36
I just wanted to comment that after failing every med you can name off, and after failing ECT for pete's sake, Savella lifted me from the dark rapidly and was getting better by the week. (think in terms of weeks, not days, that will help).
I had to stop because the side effect of difficult or impossible urination was serious. My withdrawals lasted about 3 days and were not too intense. Mostly the nausea malaise flu-like thing.
Here's what is interesting. The dose that was working for me was 6mg 3 times a day. Think about that. The final dose....the dose that worked....the dose that was tolerable (except for the urination) was halfway between the starter dose (12.5mg) and the lowest dose (25mg). I was on 18mg.
IMO, the titration pack is extremely aggressive and the doses are usually prescribed too high. If I can respond to such a tiny dose....less than the smallest pill....then someone else can too. I'm not the only one.
I am obviously well practiced at making my own custom doses with either capsules or tabs. Almost 2 decades of titrations and weanings have taught me that. And also taught me that low doses can work fine....they just take longer. There are a couple pubmed studies, one of them on milnacipran, that confirmed that hunch for me. My previous Lyme doctor saw that pattern a lot....regular doses were overdoses....extremely small doses worked.
They don't mention this often, but I think it is extremely important....Savella half life is only 8 hours. It is half gone in 8 hours. A single dose per day doesn't work. Two doses per day may not be enough. To keep a steady blood level requires 3 doses per day.
I think the best game plan is to take whatever dose does not cause difficulty...no matter how small....and increase it only by tolerable amounts and only when an increase is tolerable. In other words, let the body itself guide the journey rather than some preconceived plan on paper that has no clue of your personal chemistry.
Keep the doses low and only increase them as your body gives the go ahead. Take whatever your total daily dose is in 3 divided portions throughout the day.
Every single person I know of who followed the titration pack instructions had to bail out. It's too much too fast IMO.
poster:bleauberry
thread:976198
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20101231/msgs/976443.html