Posted by Jedi on August 3, 2005, at 3:51:43
Scott,
I’ve been following your posts for many years and I was wondering about your current thoughts on nortriptyline augmented with Parnate?I have extended periods of treatment resistant, atypical depression with social anxiety. This is interspersed with dysthymia, when I am in partial recovery. I am currently on 75mg of Nardil with 1mg of clonazepam. Nardil is the only medication that has brought me out of the major depressions. The main side effects I’ve had are the extreme carb cravings with associated weight gain and delayed ejaculation. I have had no noticeable orthostatic hypertension
I have been on nortriptyline combined with Nardil, which brought me out of one major depression. I later dropped the nortriptyline because it did not seem to be doing any better than the Nardil with clonazepam. I’ve also taken Parnate, combined with seroquel and clonazepam with no noticeable effect on the major depression. I had to switch back to Nardil to knock it out. I’ve also been on desipramine with clonazepam as a separate trial. The desipramine seemed to buzz me out, even though the blood level was below optimal. One short trial with Abilify gave me my only taste of akathisia, what a nasty feeling. I won’t get into the SSRI and SNRI trials; they just did not work or caused such amotivational syndrome, that I couldn’t do anything. My garage has yet to recover from these trials. A three car garage and I haven’t had a car parked in it for four years.
Anyway, it seems from your posts that you are doing much better with the nortriptyline combined with Parnate as part of your cocktail. I realize, of course, that we are all different, and react to drugs differently. What is your current diagnosis? The nortriptyline combined with Parnate sounds like a way to eliminate my side effects. If it would just work for my atypical depression, I would take the risk of coming off the Nardil. And make the switch. My doctor is pretty good about letting me try things, as long as I do the legwork. I search through babble for ideas and then print him out the actual studies that show efficacy and lack of danger.
I’m with you on the placebo-controlled studies. I’ve read some research where they did eliminate the obvious placebo responders. If a subject responds in a day or two to a medication that should take three to four weeks to show a real response, this is a placebo response. These subjects were eliminated and the rest randomized again. I can’t remember if they did anything with experienced subjects that could tell by the side effects if they were getting the actual medication.
Sorry about running on, it’s 1:30AM on the west coast and I’m getting kind of rummy.
Wishing you Well,
Jedi
poster:Jedi
thread:536982
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050728/msgs/536982.html