Posted by christophrejmc on February 22, 2002, at 15:31:54
In reply to Re: dealing with hypertensive urgency » christophrejmc, posted by Elizabeth on February 22, 2002, at 13:59:29
> Hi there. Something similar happened to me with Parnate: I took a single dose of 20 mg, and my BP got to be about as high as yours got (don't recall exact numbers) after a half-hour or so.
Hi Elizabeth! The same thing happened to me as well. After a while, the dosing got to be an effing pain, so I went back to Nardil.
> I think it's more common with Parnate, but it can happen with Nardil too. It's definitely dose-related (hypertension is a common symptom of MAOI overdose, for example).
I've never heard of it happening with Nardil, but I would have definitely suspected that if I had.
> Did you take the entire 90 mg all at once? If not, how much did you take?
Well... I kind of lied. I was prescribed 75 and she bumped it to 90; I had been taking 90 so I bumped it to 105. Our target dose is 120, so I didn't do anything that terrible. I took it all at once.
> The tingling scalp seems to be a very predictive symptom of acute hypertension (I described it as feeling like my hair was standing on end). I also had a very bad headache and some nausea, and I was sweating like -- uh, something that sweats a lot.I was waiting for the "hit with a brick" headache! I'm almost disappointed I didn't have it. I had the tingling scalp thing with Parnate, but not the angina -- that was what worried me.
> BTW, "hypertensive urgency" is the technical term for these brief episodes of hypertension that aren't serious enough to be life-threatening. I've had a number of such episodes, but only one true hypertensive crisis.
Thanks! I had been searching for information on hypertensive crises, but most of it wasn't very helpful.
> One way to reduce the risk of spontaneous hypertensive episodes is to take the drug in divided doses. I developed hypertension whenever I tried to take 20 mg of Parnate at a time, so I restricted each dose to 10 mg.
Yeah, that worked for me with Parnate; hopefully it'll work with Nardil.
> I hope this helps. Let us know what your pdoc tells you; I'll be curious.
You always help, silly. I'll probably have to bring in some articles about the use of nifedipine in hypertensive cri, er, urgencies! She's a bit by-the-book (and by book, I mean the PDR), but she might reconsider it if I bring in some stuff to negate the PDR's warning.
Thanks!
-Christophre
poster:christophrejmc
thread:95075
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020222/msgs/95133.html