Posted by g_g_g_unit on March 12, 2012, at 10:05:44
In reply to Re: any namenda/memantine experiences?, posted by SLS on March 11, 2012, at 5:35:06
Hi Scott,
Thanks for the information. I was trying to have Memantine prescribed for OCD, rather than depression. It seems like there's more than enough evidence to justify its use in that regard - and I did receive the blessing of a neurologist I was seeing at the time, who wrote to my psychiatrist explaining that it was completely benign in his view.
To be fair, my psychiatrist did consider my proposal before deciding against it. He said he wasn't comfortable using an agent he'd never prescribed before, but that he would consider referral to an anxiety specialist in the future if more conventional treatment options failed.
That just seems like too much hassle in my opinion. I'm not sure whether I'd disclose I was taking it or not, but if it could have me anywhere near a state where I could read or concentrate to my satisfaction again, then it would be worth the betrayal :)
> I would endeavor to try memantine while you are still taking Parnate.
>
> I don't want to see you trigger compulsive self-medication. Perhaps you could bring in something written to give to your doctor to review. If it were me, I would try memantine anyway. If it works, I would walk into my doctor's office with a smile on my face and tell him that I am responding to treatment. Let him say, "That's great!". I would then say, "But, you probably won't be very happy with me. I am responding to memantine. I was desperate." This has worked with me in the past. :-)
>
> I still have some memantine laying around. It would be the very first thing I would add to my treatment if my current antidepressant response plateaus as being only a partial improvement. I did like the way I felt on memantine when I added it to Parnate a few years ago. As I mentioned, I discontinued memantine when I began to deteriorate. The deterioration turned out to be the result of a switch from Lamictal to an inferior generic lamotrigine. I'm not sure why I didn't return to memantine afterwards.
>
> You do know that memantine has been used occasionally in Germany to treat depression? This is in addition to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Perhaps the reason memantine hasn't been used more often for depression in Germany is because it might not have been used as an adjunct to other antidepressants. Results with monotherapy have been disappointing.
>
> The following are the results of a study looking at memantine for treating depression as monotherapy. I happen to like Zarate and his NIH research team.
>
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16390905
>
> If your doctor is depending on monotherapeutic studies of memantine, he might be neglecting its possible use as an adjunct.
>
> We might not see the results of the following study for awhile yet:
>
> http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00344682
>
> Here is one for anxiety disorders:
>
> http://www.hindawi.com/crim/psychiatry/2012/749796/
>
>
> - Scott
poster:g_g_g_unit
thread:1012702
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120302/msgs/1012879.html