This drug was just approved for use in Canada to treat insomnia. It works by inhibiting Omega 1 receptors and is therefore more precise than benzodiazapines which may have more side effects.
If Aricept, Exilon and Reminyl are used to treat mild to moderate Alzheimer’s, this NMDA antagonist is used to treat moderate to severe.
In the moderate stages, you may see patients exhibiting an inability to recognize friends and family, tremors, and confusion with person, place or time.
Severe stages, may show you: loss of ability to communicate; loss of verbal skills; and extreme problems with mood, behavior, hallucinations, and delirium. This requires intensive support and care.
This NMDA antagonist helps prevent the concurrent clinical worsening of cognitive, global and functional domains. This medication is also being studied with brachial plexus anesthesia’s for traumatic amputations in the effort to prevent phantom limb pain.
This is a drug which works against irregularly irregular heart rhythms by increasing positive inotropic and negative chronotropic effects.
This drug if mixed with Amiodarone may cause toxicity which can result in ventricular tachy-arrhythmias. Should this drug be mixed with Amiodarone, typically the dosage needs to be reduced by 50% to observe the interaction.
This drug relies on normal serum potassium levels in order to function normally. With lowered levels of potassium, signs of toxicity increases. This makes potassium sparing diuretics such as spironolactone the drug of choice when it comes to patients with heart failure. Excess of this drug, may result in AV blocks, SA Blocks and dangerous rhythms such as ventricular tachycardia and fibrillation.
This drug is commonly used to treat schitzophrenia, and bipolar disorder. Other drugs you may see go hand in hand with this may be lithium and divalproex.
Unlabeled uses may include OCD, Alcohol Dependence and Tourette’s Syndrome.
This drug is commonly prescribed for patients experiencing low levels of monoamines in the brain. While this drug is still effective, it has been replaced by another drug class which has less side effects. The mechanism of action inhibits presynaptic reuptake of norepinephrine and serotonin in CNS which as a result, relieves depression.
One side effect that is more pronounced in this drug is weight gain.
In combination with an MAOI, this drug may result in hyperpyretic crises, severe convulsions, and death.
With an overdose of this drug, you should be thinking:
Mad Hatter