Posted by softheprairie on November 25, 2009, at 2:25:08
In reply to Tablet Selegiline..any experiences?, posted by Monica L on November 24, 2009, at 10:12:54
I went to the 12 mg patch of Emsam, and felt some benefit from the active ingredient, but had problems with the patch as the delivery system. I asked my pdoc about alternative ways of getting that ingredient, and he investigated online a little. I then tried it (selegiline) in the form of Zelapar, which is an orally disintigrating tablet (melts on top of your tongue). It is the same active ingredient as in Emsam, but the Zelapar tablet is in a low dose and its FDA approval is for Parkinson's disease. I gradually upped the dose to something like 12 tablets a day. The MAOI diet is required when on that high of a dose. I gave it some months, I think. I got some benefit, but not enough. I decided to taper off of it and try something different. I am currently quite pleased with my desipramine at 300 mg a day, 2.5 mg a day of Bystolic (a beta blocker) to calm down the heart palpitations, anxiety, and tachycardia the desipramine causes, 50 mcg Cytomel (T3) a day as an adjunct, and 6 mg perphenazine a day (plus PRN use of more perphenazine and permission to take 1 more Bystolic a week PRN).
A downside of Zelapar is that it's very expensive at those high doses, at least in the US. I was lucky that my insurance paid for the vast majority of it and didn't hassle me over it.
poster:softheprairie
thread:926807
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20091117/msgs/926918.html