Posted by ZeitGuest on June 27, 2006, at 15:08:45
In reply to Re: Who's Still Going Strong with EMSAM?, posted by nickguy on June 26, 2006, at 22:07:53
> I don't understand why people want emsam (selegiline) when there are already proven effective maoi's out there. The whole point was that it would avoid food interactions, but that's only on the lowest dosage. Theres very little info out there about the effectiveness and saftey of emsam.
Emsam is appealing to AD seekers because, for most people, it has a very low side effects profile (much lower than the other MAOIs, much lower than SSRIs). This partly due selegiline's selective boosting of dopamine, and partly due to the patch delivery system. The patch zaps the drug directly into your bloodstream, bypassing the gut and therefore reducing the infamous hypertensive "cheese effect" that plagues oral-delivery MAOI users.
I've been on Emsam for nearly 8 weeks and although I've never tried any other MAOIs, I can attest to the fact that for me, Emsam has fewer side effects than the all the SSRIs I've tried. No sexual dysfunction; no weight gain; no drowsiness or "drugged feeling." The only side effect that I have experienced on Emsam is increased irritabiltiy/anxiety. Boosting my dosage from the 6mg patch to the 9mg patch did help reduce the irritability somewhat (perhaps because higher doses of selegiline boost serotonin levels), but not completely.
Whether Emsam works as well (for me) as SSRIs is another question. So far I haven't gotten the great antidepressant, anti-social anxiety effect from Emsam that I got from Prozac (before it pooped out on me). So for me, Emsam hasn't been the magic bullet/holy grail that I've been seeking. I'll probably continue using the patch until I hit the 10-week mark, just to give it a completely fair trial. Barring some miraculous eleventh-hour "kick in" effect, I'll then switch back to Prozac and hope that it works like it did the first time I tried it.
At this point, I don't think I want to deal with the more extreme side effects/diet-and-drug restrictions of oral MAOIs like Nardil and Parnate.
poster:ZeitGuest
thread:661128
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060623/msgs/661876.html