Generic Name: Tranylcypromine
Brand Name: Parnate
Parnate Drug and Medication User Reviews
I have more questions then a rating. I've been on Parnate about a month. Started slow at 10 mg now up to 20mg after about 3 1/2 weeks. It has helped my depression but the side effects are absolutely crazy. Dizziness, short of breath, anxiety and muscle pain plus neck pain. Has anyone have this happen to them?? If anyone has even some of these side effects can you please respond??? Ty
I use to take Parvati when in living in California years ago. Miss the stability so much. Upon moving to east coast I was not able to get through local pharmacy and switched to Nardil (Not as effective)which then became hard to acquire. Through many different providers I never found any who were well versed on MAO use and alot of them refused to prescribe due to potential hypertensive crisis. I w as pretty much left with the ssri and snri which have been ho-hum. Effexors been the closest to Parvati but it still was the best for me.
Parnate has been a wonder drug for me. After eighteen admissions to a psychiatric hospital over seventeen years, I had tried many drugs in combinations without ongoing success until I tried Parnate. Currently 160 mg/day as it appears I'm a fast metaboliser of the drugs. Food restrictions are a minor issue.
Have been taking Parnate for over four years and it has been a great drug for controlling my severe depression and anxiety. And I have tried over twenty different drug and drug combinations. I find the food restrictions in practice to be a tiny problem. Highly, highly recommended drug.
You are "treatment resistant" as long as you haven't tried a classical MAOI for depression. This drug has a very powerful antidepressant, anxiolytic and also anti-OCD effect. Much more effective than everything else what is legally available as "antidepressants". Side effects (especially insomnia and afternoon fatigue) can be very annoying but are overall not worse than what you get from SSRIs and all the other crap. The recommendations regarding diet restrictions are outdated (!!!)
As with so many other reviewers, I tried multiple meds of multiple types, singly and in combination, to treat 50 years of depression. Some were effective for awhile and then lost their effectiveness. Some were ineffective from the beginning. I also had two ECT series (12 treatments in each series) with Ketamine as the anesthetic. Almost seven years ago my psychiatrist suggested Parnate. At that point I would have agreed to rat poison if she told me it might work. We did a standard slow increase in dosage. The primary side effects were insomnia and a sudden complete loss of energy in the late afternoon. I began to feel positive effect at 50 mg. 60 mg was better, but with only partial recovery. After searching the Internet I came up with a few old articles about mega-dosing Parnate. My psychiatrist agreed to increase the dose if I would take my blood pressure two hours after every dose. I'm now on 120 mg. Most of the time I feel quite good. I no longer have the "freight train smacked me" feeling in the afternoon. I continue to have insomnia and have learned to live with it. I'm very careful about the food I eat, especially when we eat out, and about over the counter meds. I've have never had a food reaction. Parnate helped me get back to a life worth living.
Parnate has worked 10x better than any other anti-depressant I've ever taken (and I've tried loads of them). Diet is easy if you have the latest guidelines. I see a couple reviewers here have had the 1-2 hour high BP episodes, but these are pretty easy to avoid. If you get one, a benzodiazepine med will reverse it. Like I said though, just a couple dietary things to look out for - I have never had any problems, just overall blood pressure decrease (my BP was high anyway) and almost complete disappearance of my horrible depression and anxiety. I have my life back now.
I've dealt with major depressive disorder for 22 years and have always had to be on several anti-depressants at one time. They only lessened my symptoms in the best of cases, but did nothing most of the time. I've been on every antidepressant in addition to things like risperdal as an adjunct. I was on 450mg welbutrin, 60mg remeron and 120mg cymbalta concurrently with no effect when I decided to take the maoi plunge. That was 18 months ago. It's truly amazing to feel normal. I'd forgotten what that felt like. I have my life back. I do have to say the first couple of months were the most brutal med adjustment I've ever been through. I think most people would have given in and quit. I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat and generally felt like I was going out of my mind. Glad I stuck it out. After the first few months I've had no side effects besides a little afternoon fatigue. I've had no trouble with diet and slowly tested items to see what I could get away with. Now I eat pretty much what I want with the exception of "real" cheese (no problem with bland supermarket colbys, mild cheddars, jack etc.) I've never had a hypertensive reaction.
I have taken parnate for 25 years. It saved my life and is the only medication (I tried many) that has worked for me. I have had insomnia since I started with it in 1990. This has been ameliorated, but not resolved, by addition of ambien, neurontin and trazedone. I take a very high dose of parnate (170 mg/day-110 mg in the morning, 60 mg seven hours later). In 2001, I went off parnate to try to find a safer medication and became very ill. Although going back on parnate did not work at first, the addition of zyprexa to the parnate miraculously brought me immediately out of profound depression. I have had two hypertensive crises. I am very careful about diet and rarely eat out. I am not clear what caused my crises, but both occurred after eating at restaurants. I have to be careful about stress, exposure to too much sun or to high heat (e.g., saunas) and physical exertion, as these can cause dangerous side effects. With it all, I can be nothing but thankful for this life-saving drug.
I had tried a lot of different medications that did not work and was doing ECT treatments when my doctor suggested Parnate. Within a week it was like someone had flipped a switch and I could actually smile and mean it. I had four suicide attempts and was continually cutting. I have not had that feeling since going on the Parnate and am extremely happy. I will say the diet restrictions are a challenge until you get used to them but definitely worth it.
After I have tried many other antidepressants that did not help, my doc gave me this. First my condition got better and I thought "Yeah, finally I found something that helps me", but after a few months my mood began to drop again. I still felt better than before, but far away from good. So I took a higher dose and I felt better again, but with the side effect that my blood pressure was too low. So I changed back to the lower dose. I don't get a high blood pressure when eating high thyramine food, so I eat what I want.
After 11 years and countless doctors my current psychiatrist FINALLY put me on an MAOI. I had tried every SSRI, SSNI, and anti-psychotic medication out there. At first she put me on Nardil which I was allergic to (bad hives everywhere) then we tried the Emsam patch which didn't work at all and honestly who wants to have to wear a patch all the time. About 3 months ago we hit the nail on the head with Parnate (only 40mg in the morning). LIFE SAVER!!! I am a completely different person: positive attitude, lost 25 lbs. in 3 months, can do everything on my own now instead of constantly relying on my parents for help. Yes, some of the side effects, drug interactions, food/drink interactions suck but it is absolutely worth it. I will admit that it took about 6 weeks to really kick in and I have pretty bad insomnia but I'm managing. Oh, by the way, I have Bipolar I Disorder. I feel slightly manic because I cannot take anything for that (all meds give me bad akathesia) but I use my energy for good now :-) not doing any destructive to myself or others. I highly recommend this medication if you've tried everything else with no success like I had!
Hi. I have been on Parnate for two weeks at 30mg. I have certainly seen an uptick in my mood and ability to get out of bed. Side effects so far are insomnia (waking often throughout the night), afternoon fatigue that can hit you like a truck. I am now beginning to see some of the beneficial effects start to wane and was curious to hear how others have done two weeks into therapy. What dose did you find to be the right amount and when did you need to titrate higher? Were the effects much more enhanced at a higher dose. I'm just confused on how to proceed at this point and you comments would be very much aooreciated.
been on parnate 1 yr. Had intense daytime sleepiness when first started which lasted about 2 wks. And every time I went up in doseage, same thing. After 2 wks daytime sleepiness abated. Also had at first low blood pressure. That has normalized after the first 2 months My depression started to lift about week 2 or 3. And I feel like I got my normal interest and good mood back. My anxiety got much better. Down side for me has been ongoing insomnia. I have to take sleeping med to help me stay on a normal up in the day schedule. I have a sex drive again that I haven't had for years. If it weren't for the insomnia this would be the perfect antidepressant. I have backed off on dose to see if insomnia improved, which it has not, but I am afraid to stop this med because it has given me my life back. Wish more psychiatrists weren't so reluctant to prescribe this med. I've been on SSRIs and tricyclics and had given up on ever feeling better until I took this med. (Give it 2 or 3 wks to feel any improvement and then another 2 months or so before I really felt much better
I've taken Parnate for over 25 years after trying many other antidepressants. No negative side effects. Other than the food and drug restrictions this drug has been perfect for me. Never tried the newer drugs for depression because of the length of time it would take to get off the Parnate and try others. The worst thing about taking Parnate is the cost. If you have no insurance it is VERY expensive. As a long time patient I'd recommend other newer drugs before this one as the drug and diet restrictions are to be taken very seriously and will greatly affect your life. But Parnate still has been a God-send for me. Also, to my fellow sufferers of depression, please see a psychiatrist for medical advice if at all possible. General Practitioners are not qualified to treat your cancer or other serious disease, so don't let them treat your serious depression, also a real disease.
Since starting on Parnate years ago, I have gained over 100 lbs (and counting) that I cannot lose. I read that one of the common side effects of Parnate is weight gain. It's a shame, because it works so well on my depression. But I will not prop up my mental health at the expense of my physical health. I only hope I can get this through my doctor's head, who is of the school "if it works, don't mess with it."
Parnate has been a miracle drug for me. I tried literally every other antidepressant and it took a long time before I found parnate and got my life back. I no longer am depressed and don't really have any bad days anymore. I don't have any problems with food and can eat anything I want. I have been on this medication for about 5 years and I take a very high dose of 80mg's a day. I would strongly recommend looking into Parnate if you suffer from depression and nothing else has worked. The only side effect is increased thirst so I drink a lot of water.
I have taken this medicine for over 35 years and it is the only thing that has ever helped me and I have tried many others. I haven't had any bad reactions at all.
used for 30 years. Always helps.
I started Parnate in 1990. I had been deeply depressed (with almost constant suicidal thoughts) for three years, and I had tried various other medications already. I was hopeless. Parnate was my last chance. It saved my life. However, I have acute, totally disabling insomnia since I began taking Parnate. Because Parnate also conflicts with general anesthesia, in 2001, my doctor and I tried to find a "safer" alternative. When I tapered off Parnate, as necessary to try the new medication, I returned to a deeply depressed state. This time, however, when the Parnate was restored after a failed trial on the other medication, my depression did not budge. We even tried a megadose level. This also failed. And since Parnate was the only medication that had ever worked for me, I believed that my life was truly over. However, a last chance long shot involving the combination of the megadose of Parnate with Zyprexa (an atypical antipsychotic) brought another miracle. The black sky parted to sunshine almost immediately. I would continue to live! Since starting Zyprexa, I have gained 135 pounds. But I accept this, my insomnia (I now take 170 mg/day of Parnate) and other lesser "side effects," being grateful that I have another day to live.