Posted by Sentience on July 28, 2007, at 4:23:00
In reply to Re: To Nardil or not to Nardil?))Sentience, posted by floater995 on July 27, 2007, at 20:41:07
Hey Floater
The main reason for deciding to discontinue the 45 mg/day Nardil, would have to be that old chestnut: Side-effects.
Although I had managed to adjust to many of Phenelzine's effects during the 1st few months of treatment and nearly all of them after several years, the drug was reformulated in 2003 and suddenly my condition began to deteriorate depression and anxiety came back and a bunch of new side-effects emerged.
I knew that the drug had changed cuz there was a short period here in Australia, where it couldn't be bought at the local pharmacy at all & I could only obtain it from my local hospital, which was importing Nardil from the UK. That situation lasted several months, and then I learned that pharmacies were carrying Nardil again, however, the packaging, labelling and even the drug looked different and now it was being distributed by Link Pharmaceuticals instead of Parke-Davis (Pfizer)
So for the last 3 or 4 years my situation had been one of feeling under-treated by the Nardil. Merely increasing the dose only seemed to increase side-effects but with no substantial gain in beneficial effects. At doses higher than my
usual 45 mg/day... anywhere between 60 and 90 mg/day, I would experience increasing delayed ejaculation, constipation, gastric pain on laying down at night to go to bed....(possibly related to slow gut motility leading to pockets of gas), increased sweating, and hypo mania at around the 90 mg/day dose.
As for the feeling of blankness going away eventually... there's always that possibility yes ..... but at the moment I feel as though I'm barely clinging to my job as a bookmaker's agent. Not that anything has been said to me regarding my performance, but I come home absolutely wrecked from the extra effort required to do what I used to do with my eyes closed.
I'm really not comfortable with the idea of going back to the inferior Nardil, however, I still think it's preferable to the way I'm now feeling.... even though its not exactly depression or anxiety.
I plan to continue taking 45 mg/day for a few weeks until it kicks in... however that long may take.... considering my 17 year relationship with the damn drug and then review my situation. If I feel wonderful and Nardil is once again the god-send miracle it used to be ..... then I'll stick with it... If the side-effects kick in with a vengeance ... then I may decide that Nardil really isn't worth the hassle any more and try to deal with BLANKVILLE Central of being 100% drug-free.
You also mention the dietary restriction as being the main reason for wanting to discontinue the Nardil. As for the dietary restrictions of Nardil.. I personally have never really had any problem with drinking beer or red wine ..consuming cheese of any kind ... pizza.. bananas .... avocados ... in fact just about most of the foods listed as MUST AVOID. This has been my experience on 45 mg/day over 17 years. I weigh 80 Kg.. and am now 48 and in very good health otherwise.
I realise that there are people who post on these boards who HAVE had a bad reaction from eating the wrong food.. so I wonder if that comes down to luck.... dosage or individual variation of tolerance & metabolism of tyramine. I have read anecdotal evidence and also some clinical papers where the Nardil diet is over-stated and may even be used by the drug company as an excuse to dump the drug and force us to use the newer more expensive SSRIs... which are pretty much useless for those of us who have arrived at Nardil as the last resort.
Hope there was some useful information in there for you and Jedi too. The Internet is the best thing to happen for us loonies who formerly had to rely on the crap the drug companies pushed onto us. With their under-reported and trivialised descriptions of side-effects. They WILL eventually become more accountable to us, the consumers of their expensive crappy products!!
poster:Sentience
thread:772210
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070719/msgs/772498.html