how sleepy does amitriptyline make you?

[suzannah16]

I am on fluoxetine and have now been prescribed amitriptyline for pain relief, the fluoxetine is already helping me sleep better but as I have a stoma i'm worried the amitriptyline will make me too sleepy to wake if my stoma bag needs emptying. It's ok for the doctors to say try it but they are not the ones who will have to fork out for a new mattress, duvet and carpet if my bag leaks.

[EOLHPC]

Since 2011 I’ve been on amitrip 20mg daily before bed to take the edge off chronic multisystem neuropathic pain. It definitely also helps me to a more stable sleep pattern in that i can get back to sleep more easily after waking....but i still wake a lot during each night due to chronic joint & muscle pain, need for the loo, cause of flaring whatever eg MPTSD....but i credit amitrip for helping me avoid tending to spend each night feeling sleepless the way i have night after night during the decades before amitrip.

AND, despite amitrip, i definitely do wake up promptly when something is up, eg need to vomit, incontinence etc...and, haha, last night i woke with a START cause i thought i’d heard a hornet over my head - turned out it was ME snoring! And during nights when erythromelalgia is flaring most severely amitrip isn’t any help at all

Hope something in there is useful...none of my ostomy friends/relatives are on amitrip, so i can’t pass any intel on from them....XOXO Coco

[suzannah16 in reply to EOLHPC]

I've only got 10mg and it's for pain, arthritic and fibro etc. I'm also on fluoxetine for fibro which has helped my sleep but still lets me wake if I need to. just worried the two together may knock me out. hornets lol

[EOLHPC in reply to suzannah16]

I understand...would worry me too...easier for me: when i’m in a phase of accidents during the night i sleep on several layers of thick towels....of course a stoma is trickier (and i also wear those “pants”). Am sure you have your own “tricks” for coping...anyway, i’d hope 10mg is such a low dose it won’t stop you waking even ontop of fluox...am glad you’re starting with only 10mg amitrip! Good Luck...

[whisperit]

I found the real sleepiness didn't kick in until I got to 30mg. I dropped to 20 for a bit, which wasn't so sedating, but settled on 10mg, which seems to have no effect on sleepiness, but does take the edge of my chronic neuro pain. x

[suzannah16 in reply to whisperit]

thanks that really helps.

[whisperit in reply to suzannah16]

Some others have made helpful points below, but my other thought is in line with them: your body does tend to get accustomed to ami, so the drowsy effect will tend to wear off after some weeks, but you will also tend to get unpleasant withdrawal effects when reducing the dose after several months. It took me about a month to get down to 10 after being on 30 x

[suzannah16 in reply to whisperit]

what sort of withdrawal effects? doctors haven't mentioned that.

[whisperit in reply to suzannah16]

Some people don't seem to get any, especially on low doses. I had a temporary period of feeling jittery and finding it hard to sleep. But you know, that's kind of par for the course! It's not something that would make me decide against starting ami x

[suzannah16 in reply to whisperit]

been feeling jittery anyway, no idea why. could be the fluoxetine, which has improved my sleep anyway. I think I will wait to let that stabilise first I don't like starting two drugs at once.

[Lisalou19]

This drug to me is my life saver. It took me over a year to realise I had a sleep problem. I was constantly awake from

1.30 - 3am every morning. I could fall asleep but never stay asleep.

I never before woke up feeling refreshed. I now take 25mg nightly and can manage a good sleep without feeling groggy.

Only problem is just before an onset of a flare I can not sleep even when taking them . My sleep pattern now allows me to establish when I must up my steroids. X

[Lupiknits]

I take 10 mg amitriptiline to take the edge off the pain and help me sleep better, but I don’t take it every night.

I have urinary urge incontinence which is being helped most recently by some NHS prescribed Tenas. I seldom have this happen at night though.

From time to time I have faecal incontinence which is always about 3am. The Tenas aren’t much help with this. I had some bed sheets I could lie on, with the paper on top and some plastic underneath. Not hugely useful unless I can get out of bed and managed to wrap spoilage up in them.

It is possible to buy washable undersheets and they are quite good. I’m working on what is causing the diarrhoea. So far, nuts are a culprit but I’m begging to wonder if fatty foods are too.

[Mks9558]

I found I started having night time incontinence while on Amitriptyline. It did not start immediately but after about 3 weeks. I am not 100% sure that the Amitriptyline is responsible but when I stopped taking it the incontinence stopped. It has only been a few days so not a large sample.

[katidid]

Used to make me super sleepy about 2-3 hours after taking it. Now it doesn’t seem to do much. I’ve been on it for about 8 months. Effects wore off slowly but I still take it for my nerve pain in my back and legs. Not sure if it really works anymore. Whatever the standard MG is, I take three pills at night.

Warning: omg I didn’t know not to take it with allergy medicine, specifically Benadryl. I was a hot mess. Almost drooling but could keep my eyes open even when I was walking. So perhaps avoid that 😂

[katidid in reply to katidid]

Oh! One more thing. Even tho it doesn’t make me sleepy anymore, I sleep like the dead on it. Dunno why, but I have never slept like this in my life. I did a record 14 hours once. Crazy

[panda2]

I took 10mg for several years and it really did help to stabilise sleep (to get me there, to keep me in it and to get me back to sleep quicker after waking), but it in no way inhibited the waking mechanism, to anything from nature calls to nightmares. It was a very good drug for me through a particularly tough time. It's non-addictive too (at 10 mg dose anyway). I would not take it some nights and then just stopped it cold turkey after 5 years due to trialling what meds were causing me nausea. No side-effects. Hope that's some help in addition to all the other excellent comments. Panda x

[suzannah16 in reply to panda2]

thanks panda

[katidid]

So ... I took mind three hours ago and nothing. Not sleepy and sadly no help with nerve pain I’m starting to think maybe it has to be increased due to tolerance? I swear it was the total opposite just a couple months back. I almost feel like it wakes me up, but then it also makes me sleep in too long once I’ve finally zonked our. Very weird. 🤔

[suzannah16 in reply to katidid]

sounds like they are trying to get us hooked by having to up the dose. something to consider if I try it, how reliant on it do I want to be? merry Christmas