[BeyondtheRainbow]

I'm on an MAOI which is an AD that isn't commonly used anymore because they interact with foods and more seriously with a number of drugs. I've been on it nearly 6 years and aside from learning that the patch must come off when I am dehydrated from being sick or I get a really fancy rash I've never had problems. The one I'm on has less food restrictions and my dr is pretty lenient about occasionally slipping a restricted food in because the person who came up with the drug and tested it told her that the restrictions are only on my dose because the FDA was afraid to not put them there. However I do follow the diet 99% of the time, mostly because it's safer to do it, partly because it was habit before she knew that and partly because the diet is good for migraines.

My dose has been lowered for months while I was agitated because it is a pretty stimulating med. Yesterday I bumped it up to the real dose. I knew I needed to do that soon but hadn't yet cleared doing it with my pdoc. But yesterday I forgot to cut my patch into 2/3rds as I've been doing and I thought when I realized that I might as well get the increase over with.

Tonight eating dinner my face started getting really red. At first I thought hot flash but never got that hot. So I took my blood pressure and it was high for me, not far above normal for most people. The only other thing I had was a slight headache.

So I pulled the patch and emailed my pdoc and just heard back that I need to stick to the lower dose of MAOI for now and that I may have to alternate doses of the loxapine (typical AP). Which isn't good because it doesn't have a long half-life and my levels would be bouncing around. I don't know if I'm supposed to lower the loxapine or not, her email wasn't clear, so I'm hoping that my response catches her again on a Tuesday night.

I'm scared this means it won't work and this drug has been working for me. The muscle rigidity sucks but could be dealt with with meds. I feel good on this the way it was and I need the extra AD.

So basically it all sucks and may continue to suck until I can get off some Seroquel and then try things again with less AP in my blood, which I can't do until I'm stable which I need the full dose of AD to handle. It's a catch 22 and I am so tired of those with my meds. I don't have a lot of good choices left. Losing one b/c it interacts with the MAOI in a non-expected manner would just suck even more than all the rest of it.

Sometimes I want to just bury my head in the sand......this is one of them.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

Well, I don't have to lower the dose but I do have to accept that I may be sore until we can lower my Seroquel. I suggested the trade-off because I would rather be in pain but psychologically feeling better than in psychological and physical pain together. She said we'll reduce my Seroquel next month. Until then hopefully I'll do better on valium. Which I need to start.

This is so frustrating.

[Crazy Hitch]

Ugghghgh it sucks when meds don't work.

I'm sorry you're going through this!