Posted by King Vultan on April 15, 2004, at 8:03:22
In reply to Re: Nardil sleep quality » zeugma, posted by Flipsactown on April 14, 2004, at 18:18:39
> I just started Nardil 5 days ago, rx 15mg daily for 2 weeks, 30mg daily thereafter. I noticed the insomnia immediately but I do not seem to miss it. However, as I am still depressed I find myself trying to sleep in order to escape the pain of depression. As I am now suffering from insomnia, I am afraid that I will get even more depressed as sleeping was a coping mechanism I used to cope with depression. When will Nardil kick in? I hope soon as I don't want to get even more depressed because of insomnia. I have unipolar depression from chronic back pain and have been on ADs for over 13 years. Thanks.
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> FST
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There is one school of thought on Nardil that you need 1 mg/kg body weight/day for an effective dosage (this was based on the old formulation--a person might need more on the one Pfizer/Parke Davis is currently selling). I am about 65 kg--this has been my experience so far:45 mg/day for three weeks: no therapeutic or adverse effects.
60 mg/day for two weeks: insomnia after about a week, decrease in heart rate from about 75 to 65, barely noticeable therapeutic effects.
75 mg/day for two weeks: continuing insomnia, further decrease in heart rate to about 60, decrease in blood pressure, moderate decrease in my chronic headaches, much more noticeable therapeutic effects after about a week.
I would suggest Ambien or trazodone for your insomnia. Trazodone is inexpensive and safe for MAOI users. I've dealt with insomnia myself for years on ADs and have decided it was a mistake to not make more extensive use of sleep aids. The net result was that I wound up limiting the dose of the AD to a lower one that allowed at least some sleep, but even that was not necessarily of that great a quality. I think it would have been far wiser to take a sleep aid so that a higher and more therapeutic dose of the AD could have been tolerated, as well as provide higher quality sleep.
Todd
poster:King Vultan
thread:336279
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040412/msgs/336567.html