10mg Amitriptyline

[mombasa74]

Since I was refused zopiclone and prescribed 10mg Amitriptyline I have been sleeping like a baby. I am so so so glad that I didn’t take zopiclone as it is very addictive and does affect one’s health. Amitriptyline is, I am told, non addictive and has no side effects. It works for me.

[JimmyJackson]

Hi I am glad you refused Zopiclone it is not a drug to use longterm. I took Amiltiptryline for many years & it worked well, however long term it caused me severe problems, in that it 'dried out' my throat /voicebox causing damage from which I have only partly recovered. So take it but beware that like most drugs it can have severe side effects

[mombasa74 in reply to JimmyJackson]

Thanks for the info. I am going to continue with my med for just 3 months. I will then try every other day and if that works I will stop completely.

[kaliska0 in reply to mombasa74]

Even non prescription antihistamines have side effects. Actually the same thing that causes dry mouth from some antihistamines is what causes the possibility with amitriptyline but amitriptyline has a much lower effect that is far less likely to cause very noticeable dry mouth and especially severe dry mouth. You are more likely to suffer that side effect and to a more extreme degree when taking over the counter benadryl.

I can name all these weird reactions I've had to things that most people don't react to (currently dealing with an allergy to adhesives used during surgery) but I took amitriptyline for 5 years with no side effects or negatives at all. Unless you also avoid all over the counter meds, all herbals, and most supplements you will risk side effects from even the mildest seeming thing. I once spent over 12hrs in the emergency room because of a metabolic related reaction to miralax stool softener...... Mostly because they'd never seen anyone react to it, especially like that, so they didn't realize what was going on at first and gave me other meds I had negative reactions to in their guessing at what might help reduce symptoms.

There are numerous meds I would say are not worth taking no matter how bad something like insomnia is because they are nearly guaranteed to cause more problems in the long term than what relief you get from it but amitriptyline is amongst the safest medication options you can use for sleep problems. I only stopped amitriptyline because my psychiatrist finally decided on a diagnoses that fit and it was not a good idea to take amitriptyline with the meds that could actually treat some of my problems instead of treating individual symptoms with a pile of different meds. Insomnia is a symptom of another problem. We just so rarely find the true cause.

The common health risks of amitriptyline are also less than the typical health problems found in studies to result from chronic sleep deprivation. Occasionally non emergency blood pressure or heart rate changes and issues of dizziness do keep people from being able to take amitriptyline but that's usually the most severe thing you'll run into with it and it stops when you stop the med. Long term risks are practically unheard of and most likely result from combining amitriptyline with meds you shouldn't, including on occasion mild over the counter meds like antihistamines, or a health issue that may not have been severe enough to be diagnosed as anything previously.

I'm not sure what is up with this skip a day approach to stopping a med mentioned a few times on here. It's a horrid idea with all but very long half life meds or very very short ones of only a few hours. Most medications have a half life close to 24hrs or less and at least lower than 48hrs. Skipping these is just going to throw you into severe withdrawal and stress your body. Then you load it down with a full dose of medication that will completely undo the entire attempt to lower the blood plasma concentration because meds with a half life that short will completely or very nearly so recover the concentration you had before skipping a dose. Any little drop in concentration on those days is not noteworthy but the withdrawal most certainly will be. Alternating days will not reduce your withdrawal or the strain on your body enough to make it easier or safer to stop the med for longer in the future. It's a miserable way to get off a medication, far less likely to work, and has a very high risk of triggering side effects and potentially even severe reactions that could do long term harm even if you experienced no problems while on the med. There are actually a couple meds that work great for short periods of time and I only need to take a few day break before I can use them again but my doctor didn't want to prescribe them because of the increased risk of more severe side effects from skipping them and starting them again.

The standard way to stop a medication is to lower the dose, wait for any withdrawal symptoms to go away or at least 48hrs so the concentration on the lower dose levels off and your body adjust to it, and then lower the dose again until you are on the lowest dose manufactured. If you can cut the pill smaller then you can continue to go to an even lower daily dose before fully stopping it if you want to reduce any final withdrawal symptoms. Otherwise from the lowest capsule or pill prescribed it is nearly always safe unless a doctor tells you otherwise to merely stop taking it completely. You'll potentially feel bad for a few days before you recover but it will be a lot less days with no back and forth and increased risks to your health.

The exception to this are a handful of medications such as strong blood pressure impacting meds that also have a semi long half life. Out of the dozens of meds I've taken the only one that approach has ever been recommended for was stopping extended release clonidine. I only went to skipping it every other day after I had dropped to the lowest dose pill available. Cutting an extended release med often makes it not work the same and while generally you can take the immediate release version in it's place while reducing dosage there are some like clonidine that are too different between the slow release and immediate release to do that. Aside from rare exceptions like that I probably have accumulated 5 pill cutters by now from not being able to find where I put one after deciding to lower a dosage or stop a med.

I've tried and stopped so many meds or tweaked dosages so often I finally just started asking to stay on lower dose pills but take multiple each night whenever the dose was raised instead of getting the next size of pill. That way I could more easily change the dose or stop it if it turned out not to work well enough without needing a new script, at least not immediately when raising rather than lowering, or having to cut very high dose pills into very tiny pieces to get the lowest typical dose before stopping it completely.

[mombasa74 in reply to kaliska0]

Thanks kaliska0.

That is amazing information. Obviously you talk from years’ of experience. It is really very difficult which path to take. First it works then you suffer. On the other hand you address the present crisis today, irrespective of what May happen in future. Catch 22 indeed.

[mombasa74 in reply to JimmyJackson]

Many thanks Jimmy, good advice.