Posted by cubbybear on February 2, 2004, at 0:20:12
If you've checked this board regularly, you know that I've been an avid believer in Parnate since I've had superb results with it for nearly 20 years. It has always knocked out my (major) depression as well as the severe anxiety that I experience as a symptom of depression. My maintenace dose has been 30 mg./ day. It never pooped out on me in the past, but today I'm scared to death, afraid that it might be slipping. (There is no other AD that I would consider taking.) For your info, I'm also in the process of trying to complete my Klonopin taper, and have been taking a very small dose of .125 mg./day for the past few weeks, with occasional days skipped. (As I write this, I'm beginning to wonder if my anxiety might also be a result of the Klonopin tapering).
On some occasions in the past, certain negative circumstances and difficult people gave rise to a situation that led to heightened anxiety and my biggest fear was that the Parnate was quitting. My therapist in N.Y., who prescribes it, always assured me that it was not quitting, and that it is normal for one to experience occasional bouts of anxiety or other unpleasant feelings, even when getting the full benefits of Parnate. These feelings always subsided in time.
This time around, to be exact, I'm facing up to the scenario of seeing my mother, who is 75 and who has been suffering greatly with chronic back pain. This all started up a few weeks ago. When I visit her in March, I would also be seeing my stepfather in the midst of physical woes of his own. On top of this, I just had a serious crisis regarding my apartment neighbors as well as a visit from an unwanted ex-friend.
I won't bother going into other details. You can see that there are things going on in my life (as well as others) that would probably cause great stress for most people.
Over the past day or two, I've been feeling rotten with what I think is anxiety. I can't easily get in touch with my therapist since I'm living overseas. There is no doctor here (in Thailand) who has experience with Parnate since it isn't available here.
I would very much like to hear from anyone who was in a similar situation, i.e. who was afraid that their Parnate was pooping out. It seems to me that the most logical thing to do in this instance would be to try increasing my dose to 40 mg./day. Is this the generally accepted way to proceed when a patient thinks that their MAOI (or other AD) is maybe losing its effect?
(I don't want to get into augmenting the Parnate with any other med at this point, as I have no experience with that). And, I'm trying to avoid getting back onto a benzo for anxiety, since I'm also at the tail end of weaning off Klonopin, and getting back onto it or another benzo like Xanax would seem like a real defeat. So, what's the best way to proceed? Anyone who can offer an educated guess, please help.
cubbybear
poster:cubbybear
thread:308374
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040131/msgs/308374.html