by wilko » Tue May 22, 2007 11:40 am
Hi Jaybird,
I have just joined this forum and this is my first post.
I must thank you for posting about Nardil.
I have suffered from social phobia since my late teens.
I am now 42 years old and feel that I have wasted half of my life.
I often think about how different my life could have been and still could be without social phobia.
In my early twenties I saw a psychiatrist who diagnosed SP (I already knew I had this and needed help) and prescribed the antidepressant Dosulepin (Dothiepin then) and Melleril for anxiety I took one dose of each and realised this was not going to help.
Now, 20 years later I still have SP. I have two young children (one with autism), and although my children are very well cared for, I know I cannot give them the benefits of childhood experiences I could were it not for my social phobia.
I am deeply depressed and now taking the original antidepressant recommended by the psychiatrist twenty years ago just to help me stop crying every morning. I cannot tolerate SSRI's which don't help anyway. I also take beta blockers and have to make 60, 2mg diazepam last me four months to prove to my doctor that I'm not addicted to them.
I have researched medications for social phobia and was so optimistic to come across Nardil and Klonopin, and studies showing a 50 to 85 % improvement rate.
It has taken me a year to pluck up the courage to see my doctor about these meds, but after discovering this sight and reading your posts, yesterday I went with all of my research, references, studies and highlighted passages showing efficacy etc, only to be flatly told that "we no longer prescribe those old style antidepressants" and that Klonopin is too "addictive" to prescribe.
I handed him all my paperwork (research) and left. He has been my doctor for over twenty years, and I felt like yelling, "I have a serious problem that is ruining my life that you have failed to address for twenty years. I feel like I'm serving a prison sentence, you are the one that can let me out of this prison but won't because you don't have the financial incentive to prescribe "old style" antidepressants. I wanted to thump him.
I don't know where to go from here, but please keep posting about Nardil. Someone may be reading who has a more understanding doctor than mine.
Wilko.
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