Posted by SLS on September 14, 2011, at 22:09:37
In reply to Re: Nardil + Desipramine » SLS, posted by Conundrum on September 14, 2011, at 20:26:32
> > > I saw my pdoc and we decided to add desipramine to Nardil
> >
> > Take care not to titrate desipramine too rapidly. Doing so might trigger side effects that wouldn't otherwise have evolved. I found this to be true for urinary retention / delayed micturition. Hypotension can get worse, too via the NE alpha-1 receptor antagonism exerted by desipramine.
> >
> > I once had luck adding desipramine to Parnate. Within three months, I achieved remission and lived a normal life for another six months. My doctor at the time withdrew both medications when mania became evident. Once I relapsed into depression, he stubbornly avoided using the same treatment that got me well the first time. I no longer respond to this drug combination.
> >
> > Good luck.
> >
> >
> > - Scott
>
> Thanks Scott,
>
> My doc started me off at 25mg which I thought was a little high. I thought it was normal to start off with 10mg. I think I'm already experiencing constipation, but it is too soon to say. I hope I have a response to it. I've tried so many meds I'm starting to lose hope that anything will help.I know the feeling.
Psychiatry is a field of medicine that is still primitive in concept and awkward in practice. There is just so much uncertainty as to what causes mental illness and why some drugs work to treat it. The uncertainty is what helps me remain hopeful. I have lived my life with depression, but I refuse to die with it. Why does one person respond to Pristiq and not Effexor? Were someone to entertain their vain attempts at figuring out how to cure themselves, they might forgo Pristiq because it is "nothing more" than the principle active metabolite of Effexor. This person is too smart to get well.
I guess what I am trying to say is that there is not a person alive who can guarantee for you that you would never get well. Where there is uncertainty, there is hope.
I wish I could find the words that would encourage you to look forward and keep your eye on the prize.
I am not immune from falling into deep, dark waters of dispair. I think I succumbed to the temptation to give up and euthanize myself a few times. I came closest to suicide ten years ago after failing to respond to reboxetine. I even moved money around so that my family would get all of what little I had and leave the state to pay for the funeral. When I told my parents that I was setting my affairs in order, they offered no resistance. I guess the Yankees were playing that day. Gosh.
I am often saved by logic. If I can conceive of an untried therapy with existing drugs or devices, I have every reason to believe that I might respond to it.
For reasons that I don't understand, I usually remain positive, constructive, and persistent despite having failed to respond to well over 50 drugs in perhaps 100 combinations. The number of permutations of drug combinations is virtually inexhaustable. The more drugs that come to market, the larger the number alternative permutations that will become available.
Do I actually believe all of this? Yes.
So, what about the times when I lost my belief in all of this? For me, my spirituality has been crucial. However, I don't want to open that Pandora's Box just yet.
- Scott
Some see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.
poster:SLS
thread:995974
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20110914/msgs/996798.html