New medication - 10mg Amitriptyline

[mombasa74]

Bad news.

For one week I was taking 3.75mg Zopiclone and I had wonder sleep each night. When I didn’t take one it was hell at night and the next day.

My doctor will now not prescribe me this medication anymore. Instead I have to take 10mg Amitriptyline from tonight and I am very concerned and angry. This new medication is for pain and depression and has very little to do with insomnia. I have no pain nor do I suffer from any depression. Many doctors are doing the same.

My doctor means well but my concern is now, not what will happen to me in ten years’ time if I keep taking zopiclone. I am 73.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any comment will be useful.

Thanks guys.

[LisaSnow]

Amitriptyline is actually very helpful for sleep. Why do you think it is only being used for pain or depression? When a medication is given at different doses the effect and targeted benefit change. Maybe you can give it a try without bias first and see how you do on it. You may just be pleasantly surprised.

[mombasa74 in reply to LisaSnow]

Thanks Lisa. I took my first pill last night and I did sleep but it was not like a natural sleep. I was relaxed, not anxious.This morning I feel a bit groggy but relaxed as if I want to sleep more. I was told to take this pill at 9pm but a friend was told to take at 7pm. What time do you take yours?

I hope my situation will improve with time and I will feel less groggy in the mornings.

[LisaSnow in reply to mombasa74]

I take a sister drug nortriptyline 10mg before bedtime. My bedtime varies and I don't feel any side effect at all. I do sleep better and wake up less because of it. It will take at least two weeks to see how a new med affects you. Try to be patient during the "get to know it" period.

[mombasa74 in reply to LisaSnow]

Thanks again.Did you take Amitriptyline before and later changed to nortriptyline? If so, why?

[littlethyroid1]

The reason your doctor won’t prescribe is because of your body getting used to zopiclone then not able to sleep without it

Maybe you can take alternate nights one night zopiclone one night amitriptyline

Explain to your doctor that you are now suffering sleep anxiety and can you have cognitive behavioural therapy CBT which can help with insomnia because it’s mostly our thought patterns and fear of not sleeping that causes the no sleeping

Also an absolute wonder thing is magnesium citrate because it relaxes you and does the same as the prescribed drugs you can buy magnesium citrate in boots or a health food shop or on Amazon

google what people say about how magnesium citrate helps sleep it is amazing and harmless and what it does is relaxes the muscles and calms you so you sleep

Please try this you can take it along with your amitriptyline or anything else it is wonderful

I now take just the magnesium and I’ve gone from terrible insomnia to restful sleep

[littlethyroid1]

Natural Magnesium Glycinate 500mg Premium Quality Ideal Strength 100 Vegan Capsules Highest Bioavailability amzn.eu/d/5psIhBb

These are really good Mombasa try these I take these

[mombasa74 in reply to littlethyroid1]

Hi littlethyroid

Thank you so much for the info.

My doc will not give me zopiclone anymore so this is now out of the question.

I have just started 10mg Amitriptyline so I will wait and see how it works for me. Last night I took it for the first time and I did fall asleep but it was not a natural sleep. I just felt relaxed. I got up feeling a bit groggy but otherwise OK.

Thank you so much about the alternative, magnesium citrate. I will certainly look into it.

[Joeyskin]

I have been on amitriptyline for 26 years and it is very affective for sleep problems, zopiclone can make you sleep walk or it does to me . I agree with your GP it's only a small dose so I don't think you should have any concerns I'm on 200mg, and was initially diagnosed for depression but doesn't work on my depression. But by gum do I sleep. I also started off on 10mg. Give it a go

[Stilltrying2]

I have been taking amitriptyline for years now. It does help you sleep. The lower dosages are not at a therapeutic levels for depression or anxiety. They just help you sleep.

[mombasa74 in reply to Stilltrying2]

Yes you are right. I started taking this med about a week ago and they do help me to sleep. I will try for two months and then gradually try to come off it and try to sleep without any tablet. I don’t know if that would work. How long have you been taking this med and have you tried to sleep without it?

[Stilltrying2 in reply to mombasa74]

I have been taking it for a long time, about 15 years. I get migraines and it actually helps prevent them. I did take myself off of it a few years back. But wound up going back on it when the insomnia and migraines came back. For me remaining on it just makes life better. .

[kaliska0]

Amitriptyline is a very effective sleep aid for many and less likely to quit working than zopiclone and other z-drugs. I've had severe insomnia since I was 11-12years old and was unable to sleep beyond 4hrs a night the entire time I was a teenager. Amitriptyline was one of the most useful ones I used for many years. I have been trying out meds and supplements for more like 20 years now and with the most helpful psychiatrist a new med or dose change nearly every monthly appointment for several years before finding what works. It was not loading myself down with strong sedatives. That is a dead end road. Maybe in a few months or maybe years from now but eventually you find all the sedatives you've attempted and raised the dose of repeatedly have led to a worse situation than the lack of sleep caused.

When you are looking for sedative to rely on most of the best long term sleep aids that have the least negative impacts on sleep, health, and are easier to stop are actually not the ones specifically labelled for sleep. Several antiseizure meds also used for pain are great for sleep as well. Gabapentin is a mild one that doesn't cause such immediate declines in sleep quality when missed. A few mood stabilizers or bipolar meds like lamotrigine can be much more helpful was well. There are also a few prescription first generation antihistamines like hydroxyzine that can be useful and combined with other things easily. It's also quite likely these meds help treat the underlying cause for some people.

Insomnia is a symptom, not a disorder. There is an underlying cause or minor health issue that may not even have noticeable symptoms causing it. When doctors first told me that i thought great we'll just find the cause and fix it. I was a very naive teenager. Sleep research has not advanced enough that you are likely to ever find the exact cause and even if you find a specific problem there are no meds for specific sleep issues rather than trying all the usual meds, some unusual ones, and hoping something works for your specific issue. Doctors have a very limited list of causes they rule out like anxiety or stress, breathing disorders, restless leg syndrome, pain disorders, etc... and then they just start tossing meds at you that they really have no idea if it will work for you or not. Expect to go through dozens of meds if you have life long insomnia. It's far better to try to find a way to fix the insomnia and target possible underlying causes instead of obsessing over which med your doctor has given you right now. You'll probably need a different one relatively soon anyway.

Also belsomra got tossed in with the stuff like zopiclone but it's ENTIRELY different. Doctors do not realize that it has absolutely no overlap in effect and zero similarity in how it feels or what it does to any of the rest of the "sedative hypnotic" meds(benzos and z-drugs) it got shoved in with. It has no tolerance build, no withdrawal if you miss a pill or stop taking it, and was extremely effective in studies. However, many people can't manage to follow a good sleep schedule if they don't get that sedative feeling that forces them to bed like stronger sedatives do. Belsomra is not even a sedative at all. It blocks alerting substances instead of increasing sedating ones.

Despite the fact meds that don't give a strong need for sleep shortly after taking them are often more effective for both quantity and even more so quality of sleep most people cannot make effective use of them. They quickly give up, complain to their doctor, and demand the quick solutions that unfortunately rarely lasts and risks some major problems if you try to use them long term. If your issue is short term then it's best to simply stop the zopiclone, suffer the withdrawal, and go back to how you slept before whatever triggered the insomnia.

Meds like zopiclone are generally short lived and work for somewhere between weeks to a few months for the majority. Only a few can use them for years. After swapping around on those meds in the past I now get maybe 2-3 days of increased sleep and then they appear to do nothing while leaving me more tired the next day than if I don't take them. The longer you take a med like that the worse the effects are when you stop as well. You may reach the point you don't sleep at all for several days when you try to stop zopiclone and it may not even be helping you sleep more at that point. It's effects quit and you are still stuck with the withdrawal period of not sleeping and feeling like crap when you don't take it despite the fact it's no longer making any difference compared to before you started meds when you do take it. These meds are only for short term sleep problems and then if you have long term sleep issues instead of a short term problem you move on to something else like various antidepressants or mood stabilizers.

Basically every med specifically labelled for sleep has a negative effect on sleep quality except belsomra. They reduce deep or rem sleep depending on the person resulting in more hours of shallow stage 2 sleep. While you need stage 2 sleep you also need enough rem and stage 3-4 sleep to function normally. Zopiclone can reduce my rem from ~60mins to 10mins and stronger sedatives result in maybe 5mins a night of rem. Studies show you need about 90mins to function normally and not have reduced cognitive abilities. Reduced rem or deep sleep causes people to make a greater number of mistakes, have more concentration problems, reduced problem solving abilities, and more problems with afternoon fatigue even when they get more than 8hrs of sleep.

I keep trying to point out to people that quantity does not make up for quality. Amitriptyline has better odds of not costing you quality while still getting you more sleep and not developing tolerance or dependence as quickly and easily. Also what you do in the morning and during the day is just as important as what you do at night. Many of the substances that keep you awake and give you energy turn into relaxing or sleep triggering substances throughout the day. ATP is known as "cellular energy". It fuels your muscles during activity but as you use it up it leaves behind adenosine. Adenosine is one of the strongest sleep inducing substances and what caffeine blocks to make you feel more awake. For some alerting hormones and neurotransmitters it's the drop they have at the end of the day that signals your body to shift into a sleepy state and stop being active. The larger the drop the stronger sleep inducing effects you feel so raising them higher early in the day helps later.

It also often leads to better quality sleep so you feel more rested from less hours when your body perceives a more active day. Even if you aren't all that physically active but merely more alert and awake feeling from doing things that help wake you up quickly and make you feel more alert all day. Things like morning sunlight (or use a light therapy lamp), more daylight let in the room or daylight spectrum lights throughout the entire day are needed for some to get noticeable benefits, making sure to eat breakfast because it triggers the body to release a variety of alerting hormones and suppress sleep inducing ones, a shower or light morning exercise for some more motivated people, or if necessary some caffeine or preferably more health beneficial, energizing supplements like the ones that promote cellular or mitochondrial energy production for those of us that struggle to drag ourselves out of bed and have to do things like showers the evening before. After ~20 years of every class of med any doctor would be willing to prescribe from who knows how many general doctors, 3 neurologists with 1 being a sleep specialist, and about 5 different psychiatrists my ADHD prescription stimulant is the most useful thing I've taken for getting better sleep the night after using it during the day than any sedative ever has been.

The one thing I do not recommend trying are the antipsychotics like seroquel despite their effectiveness even over longer term use unless you take a very, very low dose (a 25mg pill or less once in 24hrs) while working on finding other things that help improve your sleep. They nearly always have some long term or potentially permanent negative health effects. They were quite popular to use as sleep aids for awhile in patients that had become resistant to z-drugs or couldn't take such meds but most doctors that relied on them for their patients have realized the high rate of side effects and lingering problems after stopping them. I started with half a 25mg and over the years found myself on 100s of milligrams. It took me 2 years to taper off it without having to be hospitalized and 5 years later I am still fixing metabolic issues it contributed to. Some people really need these meds but using them for insomnia is not one of those situations you should resort to even using average dosages or continuing them for many years. A large number of people will tell you the same with a handful unable to ever stop the med because withdrawal effects continue even months later until they restart taking it.

[SpeedyH in reply to kaliska0]

I have come across your post a year hence and wanted to say 'thank-you ' for your most interesting and useful information.