# MAOI (Parnate, Nardil, Etc) and caffeine



## Caedmon (Dec 14, 2003)

Just wondering how others do when combining caffeine and an MAOI. I take Parnate, and I drink coffee like a fish - often 6 or more cups per day on a busy weekday. I experience an increase in heart rate just the way anyone would, but nothing unusual, and my BP remains only slightly elevated. I think the biggest health risk in doing all of this is that it exacerbates my reflux [heartburn].

How do you do with caffeine? Sensitive/not sensitive?


----------



## korey (Apr 25, 2006)

I've recently started taking OTC Excedrin (acetaminophen, aspirin, and caffeine) to aid in quashing my seemingly ever-present migraine/cluster headache/impending burst aneurysm/etc, but I haven't noticed any significant heart rate or BP changes. Being as I tend to take two tablets twice a day (which equals 260mg of caffeine, I think), I have realized caffeine's stimulating effects. They're pretty dissimilar to those I feel from amphetamines. With caffeine, it's like a mental drudgery of wakefulness that hangs around longer than it's welcome :b but with amphetamines, there are the "happy feelings" and relatively fast metabolism that allow me to actually appreciate and utilize the stimulation without having to guzzle half a dozen cups throughout the day  

In the fall in organic chem lab, we extracted and purified caffeine from brewed tea. Once you've smelled pure caffeine, you will never be able to forget it uke you'll almost immediately recognize the scent in anything that has caffeine as an ingredient (whether you choose to or not :b). I can't take that Excedrin I mentioned without my nose picking up the unpleasant scent of caffeine. I've even switched to naturally caffeine-free herbal tea recently, though not entirely because of the caffeine issue.

I don't take an actual MAOI, but I've read that amphetamines have some minimal MAOI effects during their metabolism, so my post isn't entirely invalid. :troll


----------



## aries (May 2, 2008)

Same thing here. Coffee doesn't do much (never has) but 2 cans of coke (I pour a cup but its tall and probably like 20-24 oz) gets my heart beat up and my BP around 130/90... that's why it says - not excessive amounts. It's great because caffeine never woke me up much before now it does.


----------



## dns (Apr 30, 2008)

for some reason coffee doesn't work on me at all and this didn't change after I started taking parnate. I can drink 3 cups and go to sleep in 10 minutes. But I like the taste


----------



## No Limit (Dec 6, 2005)

I will not drink coffee because of the crash and headache I get after the initial rush of it. I recently tried a bottle of cold Japanese green tea (not sure of the brand, but I get it at 7-11) and that had me wired at work. Like more energy to do more multi-tasking if I wanted to. And it didn't have the awful feeling of crashing once the feeling wore off.


----------



## nenad (Jan 3, 2008)

Since i started taking parnate i am far more sensitive to the stimulant effects of caffeine. Most days i have one coffee and one or two cans of coke.


----------

