Mirtazapine and stomach pain

I have been on Mirt for 3 months now, and it was going relatively ok.

But about a month ago I had severe abdominal pain for about 10hrs, but I put it down to having gone for a run on an empty stomach. Then last night I had really brutal pain, all around my abdomen - very sharp stabbing pain - lasted all night and was getting worse, so went to the hospital at about 6am. They did blood tests and urine tests that came back fine, and the Dr said he could not feel anything wrong etc. They gave me codine but even that only dulled the pain. It is now 12pm and the pain is still there, but dulled a lot, which may be the codine or it may be going away.

I have never had pain like this in my stomach before. I have IBS issues, but this felt nothing like that. It was not bloating or anything else. If felt like my whole intestines were being stabbed repeatedly.

Has anyone had something like this on Mirt? Stomach pain can be one of the side effects, but I also know this could be something else entirely...

Any advice? If it is the Mirt, then the longer I stay on, the worse the damage will be, so need to decide what to do...

Hi guys,

I have been a user of Mirt for 13 years - never had this

I have been looking at this board for 4 years, and I don't recall ever hearing of this from anyone - it's possible it's been mentioned, but never by many people as I recall.

Listed side effects for all meds tend to list virtually every condition known to man - someone mentioned the one for Aspirin is quite lengthy, as regulations dictate they have to list everything experienced even by very few people during trials.

Pain - if you've just started, it's possible it's the meds.

Anxious - you've been on it a while, so your body should be fairly used to it by now, and SEs tend to decrease over time. If you've had tests, then at least hopefully they reassure you of fact they're no major problems. I suspect it's a stress reaction of some sort - you have mentioned work etc. stress in your diary. Stress can and does cause pain, like it or not. And I recall that IBS often has a stress cause too.

As ever, keep an eye on it and contact your doctor if it continues, but my suspicion is that it's not the Mirt.

Albert

Thanks Albert - much appreciated. The insomnia and stress are certainly causing me some difficulties, and it may well all be connected to that. I will just keep on truckin on and hope things improve.

Just started 15mgs of mirtzapam last night slept well but woke up with stomachache and loose stools. I also went up to 75mgs of sertraline so I don’t know which is causing it. Maybe go back to 50 sertraline tonight which I have been on for 3 weeks. Any ideas.

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Taking it for anxiety? Hope it works.

Hi Will,

The first few weeks of taking any new med can make your body do all sorts of odd things, and are not really a good reflection of how the med will treat you long term. As the gut/serotonin relationship is a complex one, any medication that affects this chemical can do odd things to your stomach from time to time.

However, I have not had any repeat of the stomach pain so far, and think it is unlikely it was the med. However, I have now gone up to 30mg of Mirt so, if it was the med, I would expect to get pain again. If not, then it was not the med.

Mirt is one of the better tolerated meds, with easier side effects to deal with than the others, but like all of these meds will take a good few weeks to really help with things like anxiety and depression.

Give it some time, and try and relax (hard I know!)

Good luck

Does the extreme tiredness fade after awhile on it for anxiety. Thinking of going of zoloft

It should do - but everyone is different unfortunately! There are a few diaries on here (mine included) that show how the start up went. For me the daytime tiredness went pretty quickly (in about a week) but then the help with sleep went as well after a couple of months, so I am clearly not someone for whom this med really does the sleep stuff!

But in general, the sleepiness is from the histamine effect (just like taking antihistamines for sleep) and you will develop a tolerance to it over time. How long that process takes is different for everyone