Posted by King Vultan on July 9, 2004, at 19:49:55
In reply to Re: tachycardia vs. bradycardia, posted by KaraS on July 9, 2004, at 17:50:13
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> Todd,
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> I am considering taking Parnate down the road (if what I'm trying now doesn't work out). I also got tachycardia from desipramine and nortryptiline. Even on small doses I was getting heart rates of 100 BPM in a resting state. Plus I had terrible insomnia from them. Sadly I gave them up because they were the only things that had given me energy and motivation. Was your tachycardia worse on Parnate than on the tricyclics? If so, I'm thinking I probably won't be able to tolerate it. Also, did you have insomnia from the TCAs as well as Parnate? If so, what did you take?
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> Thanks,
> Kara
I was responding to someone who is on Parnate; actually, I have only taken Nardil so far in the MAOI class. I don't think tachycardia is necessarily all that big a deal in itself; when I was on the tricyclics, my resting heart rate was over 100 bpm on several occasions, the three highest being 107, 109, and 114 bpm as I look back through my records. Generally, though, mine was very close to 90 bpm, which is nothing for someone in good condition. My pdoc expressed concern if my heart rate was constantly over 100 bpm, which mine didn't happen to be. I don't know if this is the standard cautionary threshold for tachycardia or not.I found nortriptyline to be so sedating that it was problematic and had no real trouble sleeping on it. Desipramine was activating for me and the 2nd best med I have tried behind Nardil. I did suffer a fair amount of insomnia on it and used Ambien at the time but would probably now employ the combination I am using for Nardil--alternating every other night between 50 mg Benadryl and 0.125 mg Halcion, along with using a sleep/relaxation CD. However, I recall the insomnia on desipramine easing after a month or two such that it really was not a problem anymore.
I can tell you that after trying about 10 drugs, more than half of which gave me insomnia, that it makes sense to employ whatever safe and effective sleep aids are available. The insomnia I have suffered on the Nardil is the worst of any of the drugs I've taken, but I have put much more effort into trying different sleep aids than I have with any drugs in the past. The net result is that I am sleeping better than on any other drug that has given me insomnia, and if I can successfully combat the brutal (for me, anyway) insomnia of this stuff, my thought is that other people should generally be able to do likewise on the particular drugs they are on.
Todd
poster:King Vultan
thread:13117
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040704/msgs/364534.html