Finally!

I finally got my pnurse to agree to give me emsam! She'd been taking forever checking into interactions and diet restrictions and everything. Which I'm thankful for, I'm glad she was so thorough. So she's calling it in today and I'm starting on six mg as soon as my pharmacy can get it. I'm so happy to be able to try something else! Maybe it will work well enough that I can stop ECT. I really hate ECT.

In other news the depression has still abated a little. I felt bad over the weekend but I think it was more grief than anything. My brother is getting married in September and it's been hard on my because I know my husband would be so proud of my brother. And it just kind of highlights my loss. But I've been muddling through. Considering getting sleeve tattoos to cover my scars and mainly to discourage myself from self injuring. If there's a beautiful tattoo there I won't want to cut it up, and even though I can cut other places than my arms it's just not as satisfying for me.

I'm definitely excited to try emsam though. I hope I won't run into any horrible side effects.

I think the tattoo is a wonderful idea. Mine covers major veins to prevent injury. I really hope emsam works for you.

Me too. I want you to be able to stop ECT and feel better.

I am so glad! Be aware that the Emsam takes a while to really kick in. I got a little result from it about 10 days-2 weeks but at 3 weeks I went up to 9 mg (they usually want you on it a full month before increasing but I got my family dr to increase it for me a little earlier since he was covering for my pdoc who had surgery while I was IP starting the Emsam (IP b/c I had to come off imipramine to start).

Time on 6 mg is nice because the diet isn't followed even according to the FDA (who my pdoc says the guy who developed the drug says is way too strict with 9 mg). I'm not really required to follow it much on 9, just to be aware of what I'm eating and not eat huge amounts of anything I'm not allowed. For me I am fine with cheese but have to be aware of soy on 9; no idea why.

Having a home blood pressure thing is a good idea so that if you get flushing or a weird headache you can check easily. Aside from my asthma meds causing surprises I've not had too many times I needed to check but I've been glad to have the ability when I needed to.

I really hope this works as well for you as it has for me. Just remember that it really can take a month or two before you feel much so don't get discouraged. I remember it having an effect early on that was noticeable to others but it was a lot slower to really work than I wanted it to be.

THere are rarely any really bad side effects. The worst things I've had I think were some site reactions that improved a lot when they changed the adhesive. I've also learned that for me the best places to put the patches are on my hips, alternating sides. It's easier to apply there because you can see what you're doing and the skin is tougher. They tend to stick best after a shower so I take a shower (don't lotion the patch area) and stick them on. It may take you a few tries to get them on right. Pull the short tab off, stick that part to your skin and slowly pull the bigger tab off and smooth it down; hold your hand over the patch tightly for 10 sec to help adhere). When I was first on them I didn't use the hips for some reason and had to rotate sites a lot; I kept track in a notebook. Mostly I stuck to the chest and outer upper arms then but the hips work a lot better (I think I used to think they would pull off when I went to the bathroom if they were on my thighs).

Oh, my other trick was that every box comes with a prescriber information sheet. I saved them and gave them to all my providers so that they had the reference easily available.

Feel free to PM me if you have questions.

I'm excited for you!

Is emsam a MAOI? I have never heard of it before.

Yes, it's an MAOI. It's a patch which means it's a little easier than other MAOIs because it does't go through the digestive tract with the foods that can cause issues.

It's been around for about 10 years but a lot of drs seem afraid of it because it is an MAOI. I've been on it for 6 and Wildflower is the first person I've ever encountered on it. (Just realized that ). For me it has been a life changer; the only other AD that ever worked for me over time after my diagnosis was imipramine but the dose had to be so tightly controlled that it was ridiculous and eventually I needed more than I could handle and that left Emsam. Now there are a few ADs that I haven't been on but hopefully Emsam lasts for a lot longer (my pdoc says that she hasn't seen anyone really have it poop out on them; there was concern about that for me for a bit last year but it wasn't that, it was my AP which was what I thought all along; it just was hard to be sure b/c I got more depressed than usual as it started to fail and then as there were a lot of changes as we tried to stop a sinking ship. But Emsam seems to be fine now).

I can't pick it up until after 3 tomorrow because they won't have it in til then. What I didn't know was that there's no generic. So it's going to be $43 a month. But I can handle that for right now. I don't know what I'll do when I lose my insurance at the end of the year (I'm leaving my job so I'll be losing my insurance). But I don't even know if it will work yet so I'm not worried about it now.

Very sorry about your loss. I just want to add that I have a tattoo over a huge long scar on my wrist. Yea I don't need to go into detail about that one! I was so self conscious that I wore a wrist band every single day. People would always wonder why the hell I liked wrist bands so much. I hope your new med works! Let us know how it's working after its kicked in finally.

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I get mine free from the company through patient assistance. I technically don't qualify (I have Medicare and might make too much barely) but I just send a note with the application and they have given it to me without question for years now. They seem to be extra nice about this because of not having a generic out there and no other drug like it either. (Although I've never had trouble getting assistance for any drug). But if you don't have insurance I'm pretty certain they will help you. Applying took about 5 minutes and my dr has to fill out a quick form and then they start sending it to the dr. In fact they have actually sent i so promptly that most years they've sent a batch before 12 months is up and so I have a lot of extra. I dread it going generic because I'll have to stop it then if I can't get it free anymore; it costs about $500/month out of pocket.

Oh, something I just remembered.....when you are learning to apply patches sometimes one will not stick well. For me medical tape will not tape it down. My pharmacy back when I started it gave me tegaderm patches to go over the Emsam to hold it down so I didn't have to throw patches out every time they didn't stick. So you may want to pick up a box of somethig like that (clear bandages that go completely over the patch).

Sorry if this was already stated but it's a patch? What symptom of BP does it treat? Does it work good for you? Is it a old or new med? Sorry about all the questions but I'm hoping for a med change soon so I'm curious.

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It's an MAOI AD. It's been incredibly effective for me (in the context that nothing truly stabilizes me, but this has been the best for depression and I really did get about a year and a half of stability at first and then my AP started to slowly not work until my recent change). Because it is an MAOI if you are on anything but the starting dose there are food, drink and medication restrictions but it's easy to get used to them.

It's been out about 10 years. I've been on it for 6.5 years. I mostly have (and always have had) mixed episodes so I can't say it has alleviated my biggest problem but until the last year I didn't have too many just depressed episodes (if any, I think I was mixed or nothing on it but it's hard to remember) since I started it. It's been an amazing drug for me. You have to be compliant with the restrictions which I've found to be easy. Lots of pdocs avoid it because MAOIs, especially older ones, were more volatile but Emsam is less so. I even had a hospital dr refer to it as "not a true MAOI".

I'm so happy for you! I really hope it works for you. Keep us posted...