Posted by tygereyes on April 13, 2006, at 19:40:57
I'm starting on the 9 mg (middle dose) patch.
I spoke to my insurance company on the phone and they will be covering it, at $50 a month (as it is a "non-preferred" medication).
My psychiatrist was involved in clinical trials for the medication. He said there is no reason to have a two week washout between Emsam and Parnate unless we want to be overly cautious, that one week is sufficient, so I'll be actually starting the medication next Wednesday (one week after my last Parnate dose).
He also said that there is no evidence for dietary restrictions and that his subjects never followed the restrictions and never had a hypertensive crisis (in one study, they encouraged those on the 12 mg patch to eat as much non-allowed cheese as possible, up to 100 grams of cheddar and blue cheese, while monitoring their blood pressure and NO ONE on Emsam could eat enough to produce a hypertensive crisis!) but joked that he doesn't want a lawsuit so told me to be careful anyway.
He didn't seem very enthusiastic about the medication, though, for someone who had been involved in the trials. I had to bring it up to him myself and he was reluctant to take me off of Parnate until I told him that looking in the mirror at my acne-covered face was making me feel suicidal. I hope this drug is all it's cracked up to be ....
poster:tygereyes
thread:632823
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060412/msgs/632823.html