I was put on 10mg amitriptyline due to sciatica. I was roughly on them for 4.5 months.
In the beginning they were great. I felt they worked really quickly and took away pretty much all pain. I was suffering a lot before.
I started to develop dry mouth and they were knocking me out at night. I would sleep for hours and not be able to be woken. This then started to affect me throughout the day. I noticed I wasn't focused in the day and unable to concentrate and felt I wasn't really here/present. I then started to develop bad anxiety/low mood/OCD symptoms where when driving I was worried I had done something wrong or hit someone/something.
I started to taper off the amitriptyline by taking half a dose (5mg) by cutting the tablet in half for 2 weeks then stopped all together.
I am on day 22 of taking no amitriptyline and I still feel not present/bad anxiety and really frustratingly has left me unable to drive currently due to the fear of not being present.
So my question is, how long has it taken other people on amitriptyline to fully get it out of your system?
Thank you.
(Edit - I should also say that only the last few days have I started to get a little uncomfortable with my back. This makes me think the medication is still in my system as I'm not in pain. Although amitriptyline is only meant to have a half life of roughly 6 days?)
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Thanks for replying to my post. It really is a useful drug but sadly the side effects for me are not worth it. You're right I did do this on my own as getting a GP appointment is really very difficult but I have one soon so hopefully will get more answers.
I'm trying to not become increasingly frustrated as I just want to feel like 'me' again and be able to drive my car like I have done for 10+ years!
But as they say, "times a healer". Praying this is the case!
hi, my name is Bev. I am currently taking 5 mg of amitriptyline. I was taking 7.5 for over a year and it really wasn’t doing much . So I Decided to come off it in three weeks. A quarter of a pill a week.
It was absolutely horrible so I went back up to 7.5 and I’ve been coming down an eighth of a pill and staying at each level for about a month. I never had tremendous anxiety on it but certainly trying to get off of it it was horrendous. So hard to believe for such a tiny amount of this particular drug. Because it’s such a tiny little pill it serves you to get a scale so you can weigh it. Otherwise be very careful with your cutting the pill up.
And I’m Really sorry you’re going through such a hard time with this. Medication’s are so different for so many people and you and I just have a similar constitution I guess where it’s not so easy.
I have a friend who takes 150 mg of this stuff.! Lol.
I have recently come off from 100mg amitripyline which I had taken over 13 years for nerve pain.
It was great for nerve pain and was amazing for IBS and insomnia but I was worried about dementia risk.
It’s taken 18 months and I’m now at 5mg. It took so long as the impact on my sleep has been awful and I had to stop reducing the dose when the nerve pain popped up again.
Good thing is that the nerve pain has not returned but the sleep issues after long term use have been substantial. I’m 54 so thinking of going on HRT for a while just so I get some sleep.
It will take at least another month to get off the last 5mg. I’m an expert at at fractionally reducing dose by 2mg at a time but I cannot tell you how difficult it is to come off long term use of this drug.
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