Amiltryptyline day 6 help...

[Bisto]

Hi All
I have been lurking around these boards for a while and anyone that has read my one and only post will know that I suffered an adoption breakdown a month or so ago, and for some reason it has shattered my entire world. Went to doctor a month ago and got put on citalopram, after 2 weeks I couldn't bear the side effects so went on Mirtazapine, which I felt like I had been hit by a bus, no luck either with Trazodone.

I managed to get an appointment with the senior GP at my practice and he listened to me for 45 minutes, rather than fobbing be off with more pills that won't work but will help me sleep.

The nice GP put me on 25mg of Amiltriptyline and apart from feeling a bit grotty for 2 days and a dry mouth so far so good. Doc has said for me to up my dose tonight to 50mg, but I am scared, will I sleep tonight and will I feel really shit tomorrow?

[CharlieM]

Hi. I've been on 25mg of Amit for 6 weeks. No side effects at all. Mine is for neuropathic pain relief. It was brilliant until last week although still much better than before I took it. I am upping to 50mg next week. You should be fine - may take a few days to adjust.

As it is an old school anti depressant, now primarily prescribed for pain relief, there doesnt seem to be as many issues as with ssri's.

Good luck. Hope it goes well.

[Bisto]

Thanks CharlieM I should stop being such a wimp, in for a penny, in for a pound... I'll report back in a couple of days

[BobbyDog]

The side effects will wear off and compared to some other antidepressants Amitriptyline is a pussycat.x

[Bisto]

It was fine, no noticeable side effects. Didn't make me sleepy though, still on Zopiclose. I want to stop using thse asap. Seeing doc on Tuesday so he may up my dose again?

[yenool]

I was on Amitriptyline for pain relief originally but built up to a dosage that would be used for depression/anxiety too - 100mg a night. The main side effects will be dry mouth, constipation and feeling slightly drugged up / doped up really. The side effects do increase with each dose increase but I found they settled down after a while.

As for sleep - well Amitriptyline isn't really a sleeping pill like zopiclone and it wont necessarily make you feel instantly sleepy and knock you out in the same way. However, I found instead of waking up frequently during the night it really helped me stay asleep. I also found what drowsy/sleep inducing effects it did have took a good couple of hours to come on, so taking them at say 8pm meant I was feeling ready for bed by 10pm. So you may need to play around with the time you take them to get best effect.

50mg is a low dose, I think officially they can be used right upto 200mg, but if you aren't having any benefit by 100 - 125mg they probably wont go any further.

I used Zopiclone for a while and it worked great to start off with but after using it 2-3 times a week for a few weeks the effect started to wear off pretty fast to be honest. The good thing about Amitriptyline is I found the effect was consistent every night for the 6-7 months I was on it.

erm... yeah one last thing.... they are also available in 10mg pills, so if you didn't want to jump straight from 50mg to 75mg you could ask your doctor to increase more slowly without any problems.