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Re: Anyone else fail trials of the MAOIs?

Posted by Tomatheus on March 12, 2013, at 16:48:03

In reply to Anyone else fail trials of the MAOIs?, posted by Roslynn on March 12, 2013, at 15:41:31

Roslynn,

Ultimately, none of the MAOIs worked out for me in the long run. Nardil is really the only antidepressant that ever put a significant dent in my chronic fatigue, or vegetative depression, for more than a few days at a time. However, both Pfizer's American Nardil and the Australian Nardil eventually became ineffective for me, for reasons that I suspect had more to do with changes in the medication itself than anything else, although I'm far from 100 percent certain about that. Goldshield's version of tranylcypromine (generic Parnate), isocarboxazid (generic Marplan -- a version I obtained from the U.K.), oral selegiline, and moclobemide all produced significant benefits for no more than three days at a time.

My condition is more complicated than it used to be, because about three months into a trial with a combination of Goldshield's tranylcypromine and SAM-e (a combination that's not recommended to be taken), I started experiencing cognitive problems and psychotic symptoms that I have yet to recover from six years later. Strangely enough, my chronic fatigue, or vegetative depression, is not nearly as debilitating as it used to be, but it may still be manifesting itself as mostly problems with concentration. So, basically, my depressive symptoms, though less severe than they were in the past, have become even more difficult to treat than they were in the past because of the cognitive problems and psychosis. I should probably also add that in the past, I attributed my cognitive problems and psychosis to a medication that I tried called aminoguanidine, but after I read some old e-mails that I had written, I found out that I took aminoguanidine about a month before I thought I had taken it and changed my mind about my cognitive problems and psychosis being related to my aminoguanidine use.

Anyway, I would encourage you to continue to look for any treatment options that might be available, even if you feel as if you've exhausted everything. I personally think that alternative medicine has a lot to offer to individuals with mental illnesses, as far as treatments are concerned, but like conventional psychiatry, trying to find an alternative treatment that works usually involves a lot of trial and error. Because I was frustrated with the whole trial-and-error process and felt like taking shots in the dark, so to speak, was basically getting me nowhere, I recently was evaluated at an orthomolecular treatment center. They basically just found my vitamin D level to be low and my white blood cells to be elevated (the second finding being something that I had known about because my white blood cells had kept coming back elevated when I was hospitalized), but at least the low vitamin D finding is something about my biochemistry that I know is off. So, now I'm supplementing with vitamin D, and although it's far too early to tell how I'll respond to the vitamin in the long run, I seem to be experiencing positive results from it early on.

I know that it can be discouraging when treatments don't seem to help and sometimes may even create new problems, but I somehow always end up finding something else to try even after reaching a point of thinking that I had already tried everything that was worth trying. So, I would recommend that you keep your eyes open to anything that might even potentially benefit you. And I think it would also be worthwhile to get some tests done (if you haven't already), be it with an orthomolecular doctor, a naturopathic doctor, or some other health professional, to help equip you with some information about yourself that might guide your treatment.

I don't know if anything I've said will help, but I did want to respond to your thread to let you know that you're not alone as far as being unresponsive to MAOIs (at least in the long run) is concerned and that you may still have some options, even though they may be difficult to find.

Take care,
Tomatheus


Dx: schizoaffective disorder

Treatments: Abilify & vitamin D3

tomatheus.blogspot.com


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poster:Tomatheus thread:1040142
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20130308/msgs/1040145.html