Indications
- Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- Major depression
- Panic disorder with or without agoraphobia
- Narcolepsy
- Premature ejaculation
- Depersonalization disorder
- Chronic pain with or without organic disease, particular headache of the tension type
- Enuresis (involuntary nightly urinating in sleep) in children and adolescents
- Cataplexy
- Trichotillomania if education and cognitive behaviour therapy is unsuccessful
Clomipramine had been used experimentally to reduce relapses in cocaine addicts, and to repair neurotransmitter damage caused by cocaine; however, further studies are needed in this area. Clomipramine has also been used experimentally to treat dogs with severe anxiety disorders (separation anxiety, etc.), OCD, or cognitive dysfunction syndrome.
It may take two to three weeks before the full effects of this medication are noticed in most indications and two months or more in OCD.
In a trial involving four SSRIs to test their relative efficacies in treating OCD, clomipramine proved to be the most effective.
Along with SSRIs, clomipramine is a frequently prescribed drug for the treatment of OCD. As is typical with the older tricyclic antidepressants (the tertiary amines), it has more side effects than SSRIs, so some authorities regard it as a second-line treatment to be used if treatment with SSRIs fails. However, disregarding side effects, it may be slightly more effective in combating the symptoms of OCD. It is not commonly used for treating depression, and usually another tricyclic (or drug from a different class) would be used. Clomipramine and the SSRIs (specifically paroxetine) have also been used to treat premature ejaculation.
Read more about this topic: Clomipramine
Famous quotes containing the word indications:
“It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse. It is obviously much easier to find inhabitants for an inferno or even a purgatorio.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“You must labour to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good breeding, and loving with prudence; to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger; and no friendship dangerous, in care it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and unreserved confidence.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The indications are that swearing preceded the development of cursing. That is, expletives, maledictions, exclamations, and imprecations of the immediately explosive or vituperative kind preceded the speechmaking and later rituals involved in the deliberate apportioning of the fate of an enemy. Swearing of the former variety is from the lips only, but the latter is from the heart. Damn it! is not that same as Damn you!”
—Ashley Montagu (b. 1905)