Posted by Rick on April 18, 2002, at 0:32:51
In reply to Nardil and tyramine foods » Elizabeth, posted by paulk on April 17, 2002, at 1:50:04
>An automatic blood pressure cuff used 1, 2 and 3 hours after eating restricted foods that shows a rise of the diastolic pressure above 90 is a big hint that you better stick with the program.
While sitting (not sure about lying) BP at/below 120 systolic and 80 diastolic is healthiest, 90 diastolic is far from an alarming reading for everyone. While lower is always better (to a point), blood pressure can vary markedly throughout the day, with the average being the key measurement. Many people with normal BP will be well above 120/80 at certain moments during the day. The typical sitting-BP goal doctors use in anti-hypertensive therapy -- which is not usually attained, by the way -- is an average of 140/90. But again, lower is even better, and I think more aggressive goals are being recommended of late.
When Nardil promptly turned me from hypertensive (typically 145-150/95-100) to hypotensive, my pdoc suggested eating more salt. Didn't work (I didn't expect it to, since there's no evidence I'm salt-sensitive). So then he gave me florinef, an oral corticosteroid which quickly moved me up into the low-normal range, with no side effects at all. I forget the details, but I've read that for some reason florinef doesn't have the risks typically associated with sustained corticosteroid use, although I personally didn't want to keep taking it -- especially since I was a baseline hypertensive at the time (losing some weight has readily remedied that, BTW). In any event, if Nardil causes severe and unrelenting hypotension, florinef certainly seems like a safer and much more predictable remedy than purposely ingesting tyramine! One article I read on MAOI's said that the initial hyotension than can occur is eventually replaced by a paradoxical *increase* in blood pressure. Hard to believe, but maybe it's true...I certainly didn't take Nardil long enough to find out.
The key factor in a hypertensive crisis is a *sudden and substantial rise* in BP, much more so than the actual resulting pressure. So a sudden rise to 150/100 for person A could pose much greater immediate risk than a rise to 190/120 for person B.
Rick
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> I think there is more than what we know going on with MAOIs and the banned food list. Before I start here – please don’t take this as a suggestion to eat food on the list – my hunch is that the blood pressure crisis problem is very dependent to the individual.
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> I was having a lot of problems with low blood pressure (BTW Viagra used with Nardil caused me to have fainting spells for 3 days! – Something that is not in the PDR) so I decided to try to raise my blood pressure with sharp cheddar cheese. (Again don’t try this yourself). (I have never been able to find tyramine in health food stores or on line anywhere so I resorted to the cheese. If anyone knows of a source of tyramine supplements please let me know.)
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> My diastolic pressure would get so low when I stood that my doc could not measure it. I started out by taking my blood pressure 4 times a day while lying down. My diastolic ranged 60 to 80. I started out with a very small slice of cheese three times a day and worked it up to 8 slices three times a day – with out getting any blood pressure help. I then tried Ramona cheese with the same result.
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> Seeing that I don’t know what the tyramine content was- this really doesn’t prove anything, but only suggests testing with purified tyramine.
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> Anyone who is thinking of cheating on their MAOI diet should consider the following:
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> Tyramine content could vary drastically from one block of cheese to the next. Don’t assume that if you got away with a restricted food one time, that you can completely ignore the guidelines.
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> If you are destined to cheat always start off with very, very small amounts of the food followed with a blood pressure check. An automatic blood pressure cuff used 1, 2 and 3 hours after eating restricted foods that shows a rise of the diastolic pressure above 90 is a big hint that you better stick with the program.
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> What really has my interest is that I have always craved sharp cheddar cheese and wonder if it is because it is a monoamine precursor. Perhaps tyramine could be used as a depression treatment?
poster:Rick
thread:92572
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020416/msgs/103400.html