Posted by SLS on November 12, 2005, at 6:55:27
In reply to Re: MAOIs and tyramine sensitivity » Chairman_MAO, posted by Larry Hoover on November 9, 2005, at 8:52:52
> > In general, people are needlessly scared away from MAOIs...
>
> I disagree with the conclusion, notwithstanding my full belief in the truthfulness of the personal information just provided us.
>
> The "cheese reaction" can kill. Individual sensitivity to tyramine (while under an MAOI) varies by about 100-fold. What one person eats with impunity, with reckless abandon, is a fatal dose for another. The difficult aspect of taking an MAOI is in learning about your tyramine sensitivity. Everybody's safety threshold lies in a different place. Rather than blindly living in fear, that tyramine threshold must be determined by experiment.An additional confounding factor is that someone can find a contraindicated food that they eat on a daily basis for quite awhile, only to one day suddenly react badly to it.
> If a person taking an MAOI finds that they are highly reactive to small doses of tyramine, they ought to discontinue the drug.
I'll have to think about this. This might be a risk versus benefit situation. It may be the only drug for which an otherwise refractory depression responds to.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:576446
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051112/msgs/577977.html