Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sober2000june
Ian, i aslo believe lofep has a very short half life. kinda when i take it at night i start to feel better. thinkng about starting to take half in the morning as well??
The half-life of the parent compound is only about 5 hours, with that of its active metabolite, desipramine around 12-24 hours, however, there seems to be some doubt as to how much is metabolized to desipramine. Split dosing is the preferred option with the recommended starting dose being 70mg morning and evening. You could try splitting your current 70mg/day to 35mg morning and evening for a few days and then adding another 35mg in mid afternoon to see if that works for you. You'll need to switch back to 70mg morning and evening after increasing the dose to 140mg.
I find I do better even with longish half-life TCAs when they are split 2-3 ways, but doctors and psychiatrists don't like prescribing split doses as the more times a day meds need to be taken the less likely people are to stay on them.
*there is, imho, also an argument for taking the shorter half-life SSRIs paroxetine & sertraline and even the slow-release SNRI formulations in 2-3 split doses
Quote:
seem to be getting more and more depressed every day
Is that constant throughout the day, or does it vary, and if so when is it at its worst?