Posted by King Vultan on November 22, 2004, at 9:46:46
In reply to Best choice SP med in the UK? MAOIs?, posted by jclint on November 22, 2004, at 8:13:43
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> I'm in a bit of a rut at the moment, I really don't know what to do - I want to do what my doctor thinks best, yet I really feel he is not knowledgable about progressive SP meds etc. He wants to try a tri-cyclic, but I have very little faith in this helping, as I have never seen any clinical or anecdotal reports of this working for SP. Of course, correct me if I'm wrong!
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I found tricyclics helpful for my SP (80% effectiveness vs. SSRIs and Effexor at about 50%), but the relief came about because tricyclics were much better at reducing my panic attack like symptoms that I experience in certain social situations. In general, I have no great fear of people; my fear is of the runaway, profuse sweating that will sometimes strike me while I'm talking to someone or standing in a line at a store--situations where I tend to feel "trapped."
> The main point of this post (sorry for the life story) is that he would be willing to prescribe an MAOI instead of a tricyclic. I feel in a bit of a catch 22 situation. I think that Nardil would have, out of all the drugs, possibly the best effect for my symptoms (atypical depression, social anxiety, mild ADD), yet I have a difficult time deciding if I could cope with the extras it brings. The thing is, I am 18 years old, and fear that the restrictions and side effects might prevent me from doing things people my age do, which kind of undermines the purpose of treating SP. I'm not too bothered about weight gain, but the anorgasmia is discouraging. I have something of an over-active libido, do you think this would counter-act nardil's sexual effects to a degree? And do you think that the fact I had no sexual impairment on efexor suggests would suggest they wouldn't be too much of a prob on nardil?
>Your experience with Effexor is encouraging. Nardil doesn't cause orgasm difficulties for 100% of patients, but I'm guessing it's somewhere in the range of 20-50%. That still leaves a fair number who won't experience much of a problem.
> I think I'm fine with the diet, apart from alcohol. Obviously I will have to forget about narcotics - XTC, coke etc (not that I've done them). I'm not a heavy drinker but it forms the basis of most my social occassions, in England the age limit is 18 so that's what myself and my peers are into. I'm very confused as to the danger of this - some people say everything's fine apart from tap beer and aged spirits, others (like my doctor) say alcohol is out, period. I was wondering what people's opinions on semi regualar, social drinking would be. Although I know he is ignorant about the revised diets, I can't help feeling reluctant to go against his advice. I haven't yet discussed this with him, and am reluctant, as I fear my liberal attitude might clash with his old-fashioned MAOI attitude.
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I think you have it right that as long as you avoid tap beer and aged spirits, you would probably be fine. Nardil is also substantially more forgiving than Parnate is. I have some information on this that goes into the subject in excruciating detail but don't really have any way of e-mailing it. If you have a really strong interest, I could perhaps send it via post.Todd
poster:King Vultan
thread:418891
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041118/msgs/418916.html