Posted by King Vultan on November 13, 2004, at 11:51:52
In reply to Re: High Parnate dosages, posted by SLS on November 13, 2004, at 7:58:29
>
>
> Hi Todd.
>
> I was up to 150mg of Parnate for a few months, and never experienced a tendency to abuse it. Of course, I'm just one person. I'm still undecided as to whether or not Parnate is metabolized into amphetamine. The older literature says yes; the newer literature says no. When I discontinued the high-dosage Parnate treatment using a rapid taper, I experienced a profound fatigue that lasted at least one week. From what I can see, though, the potential benefits of using the high-dosage strategy in TRD outweighs the risk of abuse.
>
>
> - Scott
>
From what I've read, I don't think Parnate is metabolized to amphetamine. I think its stimulant ability is due to its similarity to amphetamine, but that the cyclopropane ring in Parnate restricts and changes the orientation of the NH2 group compared to the propane chain in amphetamine such that Parnate winds up not not being able to bind as effectively to whatever sites are involved. It's also clear that Parnate has a much lower abuse potential than amphetamine, which is to be expected, as it's my understanding that tranylcypromine came about because of a desire to develop a stimulant with less abuse potential than amphetamine. In this case, the stuff also turned out to be a very potent MAO inhibitor.
My pdoc says he encountered a Parnate abuser while at Michigan State. This was a fellow who always seemed unusually eager and excited to get his prescription and then would go off to study in the library for a kazillion hours at a stretch without sleep. I don't know how much Parnate the guy was taking to take this kind of effect, but what he was doing would seem to clearly fall into the abuse category. I will frankly admit to some paranoia, or at least excessive caution, on the issue of drugs and their abuse/dependency potential, as I have never even tried either tobacco or marijuana, and it took me years just to accept the notion of using something to help me sleep from the insomnia caused by various antidepressants I have tried. So my views might be considered those of someone who tends to be overly cautious.
Todd
poster:King Vultan
thread:414053
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041113/msgs/415431.html