lofepramine

[LegzRmine]

Hi, I have been taking Lofepramine 70mg x twice daily for 4 weeks now and I feel worse now than before I started treatment...should I persevere with them? I have an appointment booked with a psychiatrist to discuss my meds November 11th...

[Antares__]

hi, im sorry to hear your meds aren't working. If you feel like things got worse because of your meds, id stop taking them and discuss an alternative with your psychiatrist when you get to see them. You need to trust your own body with this. Your gut usually knows better than some doctor, don't force yourself to take something which makes you feel worse.

[LegzRmine in reply to Antares__]

Thankyou for your reply... I was taking Imipramine for many years which was perfect for me but it began to lose its effectiveness so I was taken off it two years ago....I’ve been to hell and back on different meds since and have asked to go back on the Imipramine, but while I was on new meds, I became suicidal and took a significant overdose of Imipramine tablets that I had accrued over the years.....hence the reason my GP will not put me back on Imipramine...I was NEVER suicidal whilst I was actually taking imipramine...They’re the only antidepressant that has worked for me in the past...and my logic is now that I’ve been off them for over two years, they may be effective for me if I start taking them again... I’ve also recently learned that Lofepramine is actually GAMANIL... which they tried me on back in the 80s and didn’t suit me back then...

[_Alex_ in reply to LegzRmine]

Difficult situation for everyone I guess. Yeah, you never know, imipramine might work for you again. But also, I would suggest trying other tricyclics so e.g. either Amitriptyline or Nortriptyline if you haven't already tried them in the past.

You could try a different GP, and it's certainly possible that a different GP could think it's reasonable to try you on imipramine again. But honestly, they may not want to get blamed or take that risk. I have been refused a particular antidepressant before and I was told by my doctor at the time, "It's my licence on the line if anything happened". I tried to argue that it wasn't even a dangerous one, but doctors don't necessarily listen to patients. It's slightly insulting however, being told by a GP that I couldn't even be trusted with a freaking SSRI.

But I sympathise with your situation, where the meds that might help you, your doctor doesn't want to give you.

Have you tried Moclobemide? If not, then maybe give that one a try if your psychiatrist is willing to. It's a newer generation MAOI; hits the same neurotransmitters as tricyclics but works via a different mechanism. There were UK supply issues but it's back in stock now.

[LegzRmine in reply to _Alex_]

Hi, thanks for your reply..my psychiatrist thought Lofepramine were the closest to imipramine for me to take...but I feel awful on them...it’s now four weeks and there should’ve been some improvement by now I would’ve thought..,I usually started to feel better after about 10days on imipramine...the other option was escitalopram but I’ve been on SSRis for the last two and a half years without much success...so I still think tricyclics are better for me..I haven’t tried the other two options that you suggested..I will see what the psychiatrist has to say in a couple of weeks time.. in the mean time I’m not sure if I should slowly decrease the Lofepramine or just stop them....x

[_Alex_ in reply to LegzRmine]

That's a difficult one, as sometimes people don't get a response, or full response, until after maybe 8 weeks. Or sometimes it takes a while for side effects to go down and your body adjusts to the med.

I tend to think you know what an antidepressant is doing after 2 or 3 weeks, but you never know if maybe it will kick in later.

If you have already been on 2 or 3 different SSRIs, and they haven't worked, then I'm fairly sure it's against guidelines to keep giving more of them to you. Especially if you have already tried Citalopram maybe? Because that's very similar to Escitalopram.