Amitryptiline! It's not just for breakfast anymore

So.

As many if not every single one of you knows, I have back problems that appear to be at the Tomb Raider Three Level of unsolvable. After being prescribed seven different anti-inflammatories, I was prescribed a very low dose of Amitryptiline, and was informed that yes, it was an antidepressant and a mood elevator, but that it would also increase my pain threshold and help my back feel better by aiding a concurrent dose of Cyclobenziprene. (These are quite possibly the biggest words I’ve ever used on this board)

As many if not every single one of you knows, I have been having a moderate to horrible month of…unspecific bad feelings, sleeplessness, no appetite and general non-typical-jarbaby moods, so much so that my husband implored me to do something about it before he goes bonkers with worry since I DID burst into tears at Giordanos when he asked me if I wanted a cannoli.

Doctor says to wait one more month and see if I feel even worse, THEN he’ll see me.

So, I say, why not take the amitryptiline in my medicine chest to elevate my mood in the meantime? Perfect! Right?

No.

It knocked me out like fifty shots of nyquil. THIS is an antidepressant? THIS is a mood ELEVATOR? I was a zombie. And when I say ‘knocked me out’, I mean, I went to bed at 8:00 pm and was so tired at work the next day that I sat in a stall in the bathroom for a ten minute nap.

So then I did further research and discovered that it’s also A SLEEP AID prescribed for insomnia!

My question is, how many things can one pill do and how in the world can a drug that puts you to sleep help elevate your mood and/or pain threshold?

jarbaby

Well, you were non-depressed and relatively pain-free for 10 hours or so, right? Granted you were asleep…

I remember reading once that Aspirin does about 9 different things, four of which are bad for you, and as a result, wouldn’t be passed as an OTC drug if it came on the market today.

Amytriptylene hypersensitivity is pretty rare according to the info on your page, you’re not taking any other drugs that would interact, would you? You really shouldn’t have such a severe reaction just to amytrip in such a short time, it’s a slow acting drug and takes a considerable amount of time to build up to theraputic levels, it takes about a week to build up to a level in your body where you’d get any pain relief. The lowest dosages don’t really have any psychoactive effect. You are supposed to take it before going to sleep since it can make you drowsy. I never had any drowsiness problems myself.
I used to take 10mg/day of amytrip for severe muscle and nerve-related pain after a surgery, and I found it very effective. But it took me about 2 weeks before I got much relief. The most objectionable side effect I encountered is that you tend to gain weight while taking it over the long term. The biggest problem I had with amytrip was deciding when to stop taking it, since it was so effective in reducing the pain. I was afraid that when I stop taking it, the pain would return, but fortunately I had healed by the time I stopped. Then I wondered if I could have stopped taking it earlier!

In my experience, quite a few of the twenty or so antidepressants I’ve been on cause severe drowsiness when you first take them, but it usually improves pretty fast. Sometimes, though, it never improves and you have to quit taking the stuff. I’d give it at least a week.

I have taken Elavil (Amitriptiline) for insomnia since 1985. 2 other relatives have had it prescribed for them for the same reason. (one has migraines and the doctor thought getting a deep restful sleep might help)

16 years later the potency of the drug is as ever effective for me and if I take it late in the evening and get up early I will be groggy.

I can see exactly why you felt the way you described. I almost feel asleep at the wheel with it and have to be very careful using the medication.

But I do know it is known to be helpful with pain and is given for that purpose.

sja

sorry you had a bad experience

Frick. Netscape crashed in the middle of my first reply. Try #2.

Elavil is an old drug that IIRC was not designed – it was found to have certain properties more or less by trial and error. It is one of a class of drugs called tricyclic antidepressants, which dick with a whole bunch of neurotransmitter systems throughout the body – histaminergic, dopaminergic, serotinergic, cholinergic. These neurotransmitters are quite chemically related (decarboxylated amino acids but don’t quote me on that). Elavil, depending on dosage, causes widespread effects which may be perceived as mood elevation, somnolescence, and pain relief. It also can have nasty side effects (for the same reasons) – namely an increased QT interval on EKG which can lead to a fatal torsades des pointes ventricular arrhythmia.

Newer drugs have a narrow range of targets, and therefore are more specialized. The broad range of action is still somewhat true, however, as the drug targets are still a range of proteins in the body. Bupropion is used for depression, smoking cessation, and weight loss. SSRIs are used for mood alteration, obsessive compulsive disorders, sexual dysfunction (premature ejaculation IIRC), panic disorder, and social anxiety disorders (to name a few).

I think amitryptiline is over prescribed. It seems to be prescibed at the drop of a hat especially for people who have trouble sleeping. I know of 4 acquaintenances, all with different doctors, that were prescibed this drug not because they were depressed, but obstensibly because of sleeping irregularities.

It, like many tricyclics, limits REM sleep. This can have awful effects. Doctors seem not to care about this. They care that the quanity and regularity of sleep increases. They don’t seem to care that it robs you of your dreams and can make coping more difficult because of this. If you do have depression it may help, if you don’t it can really hurt. Oh, and BTW it has significant bad effects on the heart and circulatory system. It makes me wonder if the doctors are getting kickbacks for prescibning this nasty little drug. If you have depression, there are newer better drugs; if you have sleep issues, there are better ways to cope and even better medications.

DO NOT STOP TAKING THIS COLD TURKEY. You may experience psychosis and seizures. FUN! FUN! FUN!

I’ve occasionally used doxepin (brand name Sinequan), another similar old-fashioned tricyclic anti-depressant, for severe insomnia. This drug so incredibly “zombifies” me that I can only tolerate a dose of less than five milligrams, which requires me to open the capsule and dump out ninety-five percent of the contents!

Even so, it has a bad “hangover” effect on me, leaving me feeling very sleepy the next day and if I was surrounded by thick foam rubber.

The first time I took it, I innocently swallowed the entire 50 mg capsule (that’s what the prescription was for, after all). I woke up about 22 hours later! Like most drugs, dosage is very important. It’s all about individual differences.

But you must understand that anti-depressants aren’t really “mood elevators”. Once you’ve been on one for 6-8 weeks, most people simply return to their “normal” selves. Yes, it really does usually take that long!

But if you were never a happy, smiling person, an anti-depressant won’t make you one.

I was prescribed amytriptiline as an anti-depressant and it sent me utterly loopy-loo. Hallucinations galore -my dressing gown turned into a chicken. Seriously.

Of course, this only means that it’s not for me, and I went on and was happy with with other drugs (and am now drug-free! Yay!). IANAD, but I do know that it takes a little time for your body to adjust to new medication, particularly if you’ve been given a strong dose. I say give it a little more time and if you remain unhappy, straight back to your doctor to discuss the difficulties.

Best of luck.

Fran

That’s the problem ambushed, I used to be a smiley happy person and I’m not anymore :frowning:

I don’t WANT to take amytriptiline, but it was all I had in the house and the doctor said he couldn’t see me until September. I’m not suppose to take it as an antidepressant, I’m supposed to take it for back pain. I thought ‘elevating my mood’ would just be a nice side effect.

I took it again last night because I was so agitated and anxious that I couldn’t sleep.

jarbaby