Posted by King Vultan on June 2, 2004, at 8:07:02
In reply to tolerance to desipramine impotence and tachycardia, posted by Chairman_MAO on June 2, 2004, at 6:24:05
> I have begun my second trial of desipramine, starting at 75mg/day. In addition to the coarse, virtually instantaneous coarse mood lift and partial remission of ADD, I am experiencing impotence and tachycardia. The impotence is even worse than the last trial, because I am already on 75mg of Effexor. Man, my girlfriend is going to be really bummed about this!
>
> Thus, my question is, has anyone here ever developed a significant tolerance to one or both of these side effects?
>
I did experience a fair amount of tachycardia when I was on desipramine last year. Looking back on my notes, it looks like there was some decrease as time went on, but my resting heart rate would still occasionally go up into the 90's. I'm not sure how high your resting heart rate is, but I would not start to be concerned until it was over 100, or possibly even 110, but I am not a cardiologist. Incidentally, I'm finding the heart rate and BP decrease on Nardil to be a much bigger pain in the neck, as I've come close to blacking out on several occasions. I experienced a BP decrease combined with noticeable orthostatic hypotension on desipramine also, but the reflex tachycardia induced by that drug helped compensate much better. I had my blood plasma level checked a couple times while on desipramine, and I did make it into the therapeutic range of 125-300 ng/ml--my level was 207 at one point.As far as the impotence/erectile dysfunction, I experienced this on the somewhat similar but far more anticholinergic Vivactil but not on desipramine. Ultimately, this was the reason I dumped Vivactil, as this is one of the few side effects I find intolerable, and I am not about to start messing around with Viagra or something in order to combat it.
Todd
poster:King Vultan
thread:352932
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040602/msgs/352945.html