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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 1 of 1. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by smdd on April 23, 2001, at 15:52:14
Here I am on Day 7 of cutting my daily Nardil dose in half. I am weak as a kitten, not really depressed. I hope I am able to continue this. I have been taking Nardil since June of 1996. Since that time, I have tried to cold turkey per the doc on the stuff, but no success. This 50% reduction is per my orders this time and no one else. I am sick of taking Nardil. I spoke with my psych about 6 weeks ago about trying something else. I told him I was feeling 'dumb' most of the time, no energy and gaining weight AGAIN like crazy. I have just added 40 pounds to my weight since last fall. How can that be? I changed no eating habits, or dosage amount. Nardil is the only thing I take. I take 60 mg a day, well I used to until last week. He suggested I increase the dosage to 75 mg. I disagreed but until that last meeting I really trusted this guy.
Until my dosage reduction, I have Nardil to thank for over 60 pounds on this 5 foot 5 inch torso of mine. Me, the athletic one, the skinny girl from high school. I weigh more now than I did at delivery of either one of my sons. In fact, I weigh 50 pounds more than I did at the birth of either one of my sons. Until Nardil maximum weight had been 160 pounds at 9 months of pregancy. What a difference a little pill can make.
I have tried it all in the last six years. I have dieted, I have exercised, I have tried it all. My doc says that more people die from depression than from being overweight. Well I want to see the figures on that one. I can tell my heart is strained. I can tell my self esteem is crap with this weight on. I can't breathe, shall I go on? In addition, the chronic pain from RSD/CRPS was getting worse. I don't know if it was the weight gain or the nardil. Both of my arms were numb all the time. I could barely type.
At seven days of 30 mg a day, I have lost SIX POUNDS. Yes, SIX POUNDS. No dieting, no exercise, nothing different except going from 60 mg to 30 mg of Nardil a day.
I must say I am tired right now, not really hungry, but I think that burning all of this fat, is making me light headed. I had the usual similiar symptoms to "Paxil Head" the first few days and I am still suffering from a little of that, but the rest is the lightheadedness. Imagine if you will burning an extra 2000 calories a day without trying.
I also suffered from what I call reality bursts. I get these when I wean off of an antidepressant. I feel like it is caused from some of the things that I suppress while I am taking a anti-suppressant. Ooops I meant anti-depressant. ;-) These are thoughts about sad events, stressful events that I can usually brush right out of my mind. While weaning from a A/D I these reality bursts and I cant' brush them away and have to deal with each and every little one of them, until I am forced to take my contacts out for the severe salt build up in my eyes from crying. I have had some really big outbursts of crying just a few days ago.
I am not being cocky here by any means. I would like for someone to explain this dramatic weight loss, weight gain thing with Nardil. Does anyone else experience this? If I start back at my old dosage of 60 mg a day, I can expect to gain double what I loss. That is how I am in the weight mess I am in now.
And I would like to address some of the docs out there that insist that A/D's don't cause that much weight gain. I hear it all the time. The most common statement is that I feel so much better that I eat more and don't even know it. HA!!! Not true in the least. I consume approximately 1200 calories a day and have for several years. I don't like that statement and I feel it is a brush off from the doc. Then they have the nerve to put morbidly obese on my medical records. Well, let's do something about it. Just because I have depression does not mean I have to be fat. Is that some kind of trade off? I am not going to be depressed if I am fat!!! I am saying fat, not slighty plump, or again as the doc calls it MORBIDLY OBESE!!!
I rambled here. My follow up with my internist and my psych is in two weeks. Hopefully I can keep this pound a day weight loss going without making an inpatient stay to the local mental health hospital. I don't think I will, as I have family members monitoring for extreme mood changes. My dream is to walk in with about 25 pounds off since my last visit with these docs and hear them congratulate me on taking THEIR advice. The psych.. for adding more nardil to my dose, the internist for cutting my calorie intake by half of what it is now. Then I get the pleasure of saying I took not your advice, but my own advice and cut my Nardil dosage in half. I lost weight because I listened as you didn't ...TO ME!
For some and even for me Nardil has been a good drug. But in the days of assembly line doctors, I think it needs a little more monitoring when it can increase the girth of a patient by almost two times. What I am saying here is that perhaps there was more than just a depressed individual here and that maybe real bloodwork is needed before the A/D's start being written out.
smudd
This is the end of the thread.
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