Any experience with Anafranil (clomipramine)?

I am suppose to start Anafranil 25mg. now! I am so scared to start new meds cause I have had such bad side effects from so many anti-depressants especially the ones that need to be in your system for weeks. This is one of them. I know some respond in a week but some takes more then 4 weeks. Upsets me cause you may have to wait for it to work and then you cant take it because of side effects. Then you have to get weaned off of them. Is there any ending to this madness?

I have known some people who had success with Anafranil. I feel for you on the cycles needed to find the right med.

What have you tried?

moogs

I was on 100 mg for a couple of months. I had no side effects.

My pdoc says clomipramine is his all-around favourite drug.

Do you mean what haven't I tried? lol Prozac,Lexapro,Lamictal,Geodon,Lithium,Wellbutrin,Seroquel,Buspar,Klonopin,Fluvoxamine,Paxil,Effexor,Atarax. I am sure there are more. I have been going through this for 40 years! The ones that worked the very best were te Prozac and the Lexapro but they fizzled out (stopped working) on me. I remember how good I felt on them. In a matter of weeks my depression was gone and I felt on top of the world. Those were the first ones I ever took. Prozac was the first when I was 18 years old. It lasted 8 years. The Lexapro lasted about 5 years. They were terrific! I wish I could find some like that now. Oh well. I think am going to start the Anafranil soon.

I just started Anafranil 2 days ago, so far just feel tired all of the time. But I need it for insomnia, and it hasn't helped yet. I take Klonopin for sleep.

I started 2 weeks ago. It has helped with anxiety but my doctor said it can make your anxiety WORSE before it helps (which is what happened to be) so far I have dry mouth

I had a rare side effect from it, urinary incontinence. Rare enough it didn't even make the list of common side effects. So slim chance of it happening, just my experience. I took it for OCD and didn't see any improvement.

Anafranil or clomipramine has a relatively long half life. It has similar side effects to SSRIs. I took 50 mg of clomipramine at 7 pm and around 10 pm I rode my bike to the emergency room with severe nausea and anxiety. They gave me zofran and ativan by injection. I never took clomipramine again. In my opinion from my personal experience I would give up on SSRIs and trycyclics entirely. Maybe you have been mislead. a lack of serotonin might not be the cause of your depression. Go to college part time, eat right and exercise regularly. take a multivitamin, it has no side effects.

Make a list of all the drugs you have taken. Beside each drug put the side effects. Show the list to your psychiatrist.

I'm on this and have been for a few months now. So far it's going well. I am on 8 tablets so 200mg. I've found that it's helped a bit with my anxiety and a bit with sleep. Like others it's given me a really dry mouth but I use biotene which is a mouth spray and that's helped a lot. I too was a bit scared about going on this one and especially as my pdoc increased me to 6 tabs really fast.

I think this has been one of the better AD's I've been on my only pet hate about it is that it only comes in the one dosage