A little over a month ago I made the decision to stop taking the antidepressant Nardil for the reason being I needed dental work done. Nardil is an MAOI which is a powerful med but it is also picky …….. very picky. Along with the benefits of this wonderful med you get to follow a fairly strict diet where basically everything has to be fresh or your asking for trouble. The diet was not too bad after the wonderful people over at crazyboards explained the in and outs of it until it actually made sense. The other side to Nardil is it does not get along with other drugs you know the little ones like pain killers, flu medicines and a variety of mental health drugs. So what happens when you combine Nardil with the wrong food or drug? Good question! Your blood pressure may spike and in some cases causing strokes and possibly death. Needless to say a lot of people do not go near this antidepressant class.

Anyway back to the story. A month ago my teeth hurt and I knew a lot of work was on the horizon. So I made an appointment with a new dentist who advertised cutting edge technology and pain free dentistry. Went for the initial meeting and they were not happy with the Nardil interactions so I left the dental office and a moment later decided that Nardil needed to go and I have not taken it since. I called my mental doc and told the secretary to pass on a message that I had stopped this med. Went out for a while and when I returned home there was a message waiting from the doctor to call them immediately. I returned their call and was told to immediately come in for an appointment. So I went there and told the doctor the situation and he just nodded his head. Then I asked him about any withdrawal problems associated with this drug to which he replied you may feel a little ill for a couple of days. Two weeks later I was still fighting the withdrawal process when I went back in for another appointment to which he tried to act surprise that my brain was pissed that the antidepressant was gone so he reacted by increasing my Seroquel and that we would readdress the antidepressant issue after the dental work was completed.

Well I went through the basic checkup at the dentist a couple of weeks ago where the plan was created to do the real work early March as this way the Nardil was completely out of my system and no longer an issue. Today is the day. A month of sore teeth, Nardil withdrawal that seemed to go on forever and the day that I have been waiting for is finally here except for one little problem an anxiety rate that has been climbing since the moment I woke up.

The main problem is I do not like people touching me and I am really not that crazy when it involves pain or at least potential pain. Someone out there is thinking you have a twenty year self harm history so I would think pain is not an issue. See when I am in the process of self harm I control when it starts and more importantly when it stops that and three quarters of the time I don’t feel it anyway. Back to the story. I am putting my plan into motion that I am hoping will get me through the appointment.

1. Delaying my Seroquel dosage till right before the appointment which is a good plan except for right now my brain is racing and making mountains out of mole hills. Plus it seems to be showing through on this post as my typing is struggling to keep up with the racing thoughts.

2. Getting my other reality story ready for when I am in the dentist chair. Remember those stories you created when your a kid about living as someone else. Well I still do it to distract my brain from other areas. I told my doctor once about this imaginary world and he told me to write a book. Complete biography of a person who does not exist including interviews with magazines and other media outlets because he happens to be famous. Not really sure whether or not this is healthy but I figure as long as I remember that I am me and not the fantasy character I really do not see the harm plus it tends to keep my anxiety level down. How that for justifying.

3. Trying to focus on the positive which is a little bit of pain will hopefully mean that the day in and day out pain will finally disappear. This one is not going so well.

Ready for a completely irrational thought. When I was three or so I went to the dentist for the first time. This nice man stuck his finger in my mouth and I bit down as hard as I could. So now I have this “thought” that this story has followed me around since, jumping from dentist to dentist, province to province and every dental professional is out to get revenge for their colleague. Just a little bit irrational but what can you do.

Two hours to the appointment so I better get to work.

Incoming search terms:

• dentistry and untreatable teeth
• nardil and food after dental work

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