Posted by Tomatheus on May 5, 2015, at 18:46:45
In reply to Qs about MAOIs for anybody who has taken them, posted by Smoo on May 4, 2015, at 7:28:01
Smoo,
I currently have what the doctors who've treated me would all consider to be an affective psychosis, which I think is most likely a form of bipolar disorder involving psychotic features and a mixture of depressive and manic symptoms. I took all of the MAOIs (separately, of course) during a span ranging from the summer of 2005 through early 2007, when I was experiencing what were mainly depressive symptoms without any psychosis. I experienced temporary relief from my depressive symptoms on all of the MAOIs, with the strongest effects coming from Nardil (phenelzine), followed by Marplan (isocarboxazid), Parnate (tranylcypromine), oral selegiline, and moclobemide. I would describe the temporary responses that I had to the MAOIs that I took -- especially Nardil, Parnate, and Marplan -- as being quite robust. At the time I took the medications, my energy levels were extremely low, leaving me to spend most of my days in bed. I found my energy levels, and consequently my activity levels, to be quite improved on the MAOIs when I was responding to them, but unfortunately, I never could seem to respond to the medications for very long (for longer than a few months at a time in Nardil's case and for longer than a few days at a time in the cases of the other MAOI medications).
I haven't taken any MAOI medications since 2007, and I probably won't attempt another MAOI trial in part because the nature of my illness has changed (I now have what's probably a mix of an anergic depression and a psychotic mania) and because I find it doubtful that I'd respond to an MAOI in the long run now when I didn't before.
Since you mentioned that you were looking to include information about Nardil's history in your article, I'm going to post a writeup with some background information on Nardil that I put together a few years ago. I wrote the "writeup" a few years ago, when I was thinking about creating a Web site with information about the 2003 Nardil formulation change, which affected Nardil produced for the U.S. market. I never did end up creating the Web site, though.
I'll post the "writeup" in a moment.
Tomatheus
Has long-standing difficulties with energy and concentration, as well as psychotic and cognitive symptoms
Taking Abilify & supplements
poster:Tomatheus
thread:1078650
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20150407/msgs/1078692.html