Posted by TylerJ on April 10, 2006, at 11:19:21
There is no such thing as the perfect drug, it just doesn't exist. When I ask my Pdoc if a particular drug has side effects he say's, "Yep, there are no free lunches."
Even Parnate, the drug that has helped me so much has side effects. Through study, your help and advice, my doc's advice, and just waiting for some to dissapear, I finally feel like I'm getting the upper hand on these side effects.
For me there have been 2 side effects that have been probematic with my great response to Parnate:
1) INSOMNIA- most everyone gets Insomnia when they take Parnate, the Lucky ones just take ambien or lunesta and they sleep great. Well, it wasn't that easy for me. Unfortunately, niether ambien nor lunesta work for me. Initially Trazodone worked, but I had to keep raising the dose all the way up to 400 mgs. Yea, it helped me sleep, but man did I ever feel tired and sluggish the next day. Then for awhile I took Benadryl with the Trazodone and the hangover was even worse. Now after being on Parnate for about 2 1/2 mos. the insomnia is not so bad, I currently take 150mgs. of Traz and sleep just fine, no hangover or sleepiness the next day.
2) Fatigue- How can an activating drug like Parnate cause fatigue? Well, I don't know for sure how it does, but it can and does for many people. I still have a problem with this. When it first happened I blamed it on the Trazodone, and rightly so, the Traz was partially responsible. But even after traz was down to 150 mgs. I still had it, but not as bad.
These are the main theorys as to why Parnate causes fatigue: 1. It has a short half life-so you need to spread your dose out throughout the day. 2. It causes hypotension, which can cause one to feel fatigued. 3. Fatigue is a side effect that given time will dissapear.I have found all 3 to be true. I used to take my full dose all in the morning. Now I spread it out, dose in the morning, one at noon, and another at 2-2:30. Doing this has greatly reduced the fatigue. I also discovered that parnate was causing me to experience hypotension. To help with this my doc reduced my hypertension med, and I found that adding extra salt to my food has also helped. And finally I do believe that the fatigue I had was partially do to just getting use to the drug. With time Fatigue has become less of a problem.
Parnate is still the best AD I have ever taken, but is it perfect? No! There are no free lunches you know! :)
Tyler
poster:TylerJ
thread:631372
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060408/msgs/631372.html