Anyone taking Amitriptyline?
 

Anyone here taking Amitriptyline having any problems with insomnia or frequent urination??? I'm actually taking for insomnia, but I think it's quit working for me.

I'm supposed to be up around 9am...(hah! like that's gonna happen now!) I took the amitriptyline about an hour and a half ago. You'd think I'd be asleep right now..

I've been in the bathroom for most of the evening, because I think this is causing some pretty serious frequent (extremely frequent) urination. So, not only am I not sleeping, I'm uncomfortable. Other than the constant peeing, I dont feel like I have a UTI (and I've had a lot of those)

I've already figured out that it's causing me some water retention and weird cravings for sweet foods. (I'm starving right now!)

Why is it that every medication my doctors give me cause more problems than they solve?????


I just wish that I could sleep. I think I'm going to be asking for some Ambien.

Oh boy. You opened a can of worms with this one LOL!

I just quit Amitriptyline, after being on it for longer than my MS diagnosis.

I'll pull this from my Blog. These are the side effects I had on this drug, which did NOTHING to help my condition, and certainly didn't help my sleep what so ever:

I thought I'd share my list of side effects that I had on this drug (I have since stopped it, buh bye). Based on the information found at http://bipolar.about.com/cs/sfx/a/sfx_elavil.htm

(I'm not bipolar, lol. I was taking this for burning mouth syndrome, and it's often prescribed off label for migraine prevention).

And http://depression.emedtv.com/amitrip...e-effects.html

My side effects:

Lightheadedness (add low blood pressure as well to this)
Dryness of mouth
Headache
Unpleasant taste
Diarrhea (although, this could have been MS as well, so I'll skip that one)

Those above are the common or less common side effects. Now the scary part, the continued less common or rare:

Blurred vision (could be MS)
Decreased sexual ability, this refers to libido and ability to have an orgasm (and I only wish I was joking here)
Nervousness or restlessness
Anxiety (funny, I take an anti anxiety med that helps now)
Hair loss
Muscle twitching (I was on this one a while, since spring 2007, maybe this kicked off my facial spasm and stomach muscle twitching?)
Red or brownish spots on skin
Ringing, buzzing or other unexplained sounds in ears (why do you think I saw an ENT?)
Trouble with teeth and gums (my bottom row of gums is receding horribly now)

(by the way, those brownish spots are now fading since I quit this drug. I wish my gums COULD repair themselves, but sadly I think this would be a dentist stepping in to do graffing or whatever it is they do, provided they don't recede any further!).

Edit: I now take ONLY Clonazepam to help with burning pain. Small amounts at that, before bedtime. IT helps me sleep.

and she gargles with tabasco:yikes: lol hello Laura Hello Erin, i was on it for some time i did not like it, gained weight and my gums went kerplucky too, not sure about urgency, might want to double check you dont have an UTI, just to be safe, I didnt like it, which really bites cause I liked the fact it did help my insomnia, i didnt care for the other stuff, hope this helps some, be careful about the UTI

Erin I stopped all 5 of my pills for two reasons tired of all these drugs and all the side effects, me thinks you will find a lot of folks who agree with your comment about why these meds cause more problems. it can be a real drag at times, give doc call talk to him or her and maybe something else can be used and or done to help alleviate your troubles, I have been finding if i play a game or two online for a while it helps me calm down and get to sleep, and trust me I have insomnia big time ask anyone on here, they are always getting up in the morn and telling me to go to bed lol

hopes you get some sleep and feeling better:hug:

I think I fell asleep around 5am, or 530. I'm up now so that I can take a shower before the boyfriend gets here to take me and my parents somewhere for the day.

I'd be calling him and canceling if it wasnt for promising my mom that we were going to the apple harvest. If I cancel, she's going to be irrationally angry at me. (she had a traumatic brain injury when she was 17, and is now starting to have some problems with memory and her ability to control her anger) I knew that I shouldnt have let my dad tell her about it till this morning.

I looked up Amitriptyline on the internet last night. I think I know why I had to go to the bathroom so much that I'm chafing now. The ami dries you out. I think it dehydrated me and I was drinking water because I was so thirsty. The side effects say something about causing kidney problems too, so I think I'll be asking my doctor to check my kidneys when I go to get a new sleeping pill.

I just dont feel like I have a UTI, I've had enough of them, and for some reason, I just dont feel like that's the problem.

It just seems like the amitriptyline just up and quit working on me...and out of the side effects that Dmplaura listed in her post, I think I experienced just about all of them. Maybe not all of them, but probably about 85% of them.

I read on the list of side effects I found on the internet, that sensitivity to sunlight and photophobia could be a side effect, which would make a lot of sense to me now, since even with sunglasses, I have problems outside.

Oh, and numbness in the extremities! My feet went numb about a week ago.

Maybe I dont have MS, maybe all the drugs that the doctors keep throwing at me are causing me all the weird numbness because it seems like every one of them have "numbness in the extremities" as a side effect.

I better go wash my hair, I think the boyfriend will be here in about an hour and a half. Hopefully I wont fall asleep in the shower.

I would wake up with cotton mouth. I'm sure this also affected my gums terribly. Lack of saliva, thriving bacteria around the gums. No matter how diligent I am about brushing and flossing.

Plus burning mouth syndrome on it's own causes dry mouth. Why do they suggest Amitriptyline with such a common side effect (dry mouth) to deal with BMS? Unreal. :rolleyes:

LOL Frank! I have not gargled with tabasco *yet*. Clonazepam junkie maaaaaaaybe ;) ... since this helps the pain and helps me to sleep. (I'm kidding about the Clonaz junkie. I only take a very small amount for mouth pain relief).

Oh, just to add...

I laugh that it's called "Elavil". More like, "La Evil" ;)

I originally started taking the ami for a burning/freezing/numb foot, and for insomnia.

Now I want to throw the bottle into the Missouri River (I wont, because I dont want to make the fish sleepy or dehydrated or totally wired)

My mouth is REALLY dry this morning. I'm sucking down water, and for some reason, it's not making me run to the potty every 5 minutes.

My eyes are really dry. That's been a problem for a few days now.

I guess I cant take the ami any more.

If it's a tricyclic antidepressant, is it safe to quit it suddenly, or do I have to do some weird tapering down of it?

I think I'll just start using my baclofen more often (oh yeah, I think the ami has been the cause of my spasticity for the past few days) The baclofen makes me feel sleepy, so maybe I'll just take that before I sleep so that my feet dont try to kick me in the butt with my heels any more.

I didnt realize it was Elavil until last night when I was Googling it. I thought it was just a sleeping pill and not an antidepressant.

Why do they keep giving me antidepressants to sleep (trazodone, amitriptyline) I'm not depressed!!


edited to add so I dont have a bunch of messages one after the other here:

I just called the pharmacist. He told me I need to taper off on this stuff. Dang! I was just going to quit, but then I thought that since it's an antidepressant, that I might not be able to just up and quit it.

I hope my doctor has something that will help the insomnia that's not going to make me nuts!

I took amitriptyline for a couple years. I was on 50 mgs for burning and shock like nerve pain.

The only side effects I noticed were constipation (never had trouble with that before) and it knocked me right out.

I have always had insomnia, so when that started up again I did not link it to that med - or any of the others I was on at the time. But still, I weaned off all but the topamax to see if I could sleep.

I found that the symptoms I'd been taking amitriptyline for had subsided enough I could get by without it, so I have not gone back on. That's been a couple years now.

I'd bet your instincts on this are good, and if it feels like the med is causing your problems, try going without and see if you do better.

I was glad my doc explained up front that it was an AD, but that those do help with pain and other odd things, so I knew he didn't think I was just depressed. This one though is not like most, which are SSRIs, this one is a tricyclic. It was the only one I could use.

Because some of those kind of meds give me bad reactions, I did not want to try ambien. I'd rather not sleep than risk it.

I avoid meds that might make me depressed and try to use ones that'll make me drowsy at night, ones that won't during the day. It's no cure for insomnia but it helps.

Good luck with all this.

Sigh Erin, I don't know (re: sleeping pill and why they gave you this stuff). Maybe it's an 'off label' use? :rolleyes:

I'd talk with your doctor about weaning off. I was only up to 20mg and having those side effects. :eek: I took 1 10mg dose the following night, then nothing. I haven't had withdrawal myself, but as I say, very low amount.

yeah your right I had not thought of that Laura, god when I was on La Evil`, I could not get enough water and that did cause me to go more often I forgot about that, may not be uti Erin i forgot totally about going so much, cause that med makes you so dang thirsty

Brain i have talked to a few that had no troubles either, and liked it, another one of those meds might or might not help, you are right trust your insides they know

I looked it up again, and yeah, using it for insomnia is an off-label use.

No more for me. Now that I think it's wearing off, I'm not running to the potty every two minutes, and my eyes dont feel so dry, and I dont feel quite as weird as I did last night.

I'm tired as heck tho! I hope we're not at the apple festival too long today.

I also read about another side effect the ami has. Weight gain. THAT explains a LOT!

I thought that the Copaxone I was taking was causing my problems. (the potty stuff, and the gaining weight) Now, I'm wondering if I was wrongly blaming the C. Maybe both the C and the ami were doing it together?

I'd taken a nice vacation (for a month) from the C to see if it was causing my problems with some of the weird side effects that I've been feeling. Things didnt change too much during the break. I started back up with the C last week, and noticed that there was an increase in problems.

I wasnt noticing all the weirdness until I started taking the ami, so maybe that was causing most of it. I guess I'll find out if some of the weirdness quits bugging me in a few days since I'm stopping the ami.

I'm just going to take 1/4 of a pill to wean off instead of a half pill. Most of the time that I've been taking this stuff it's been at half strength anyways. I'd only upped it to a full pill (10mg) because the insomnia was worse.

After reading the list of side effects, things are making a lot more sense. There's a lot of things I've been noticing this summer. I wonder if I'm one of those people who are strangely sensitive to this stuff.

I looked at the pile of pop bottles and water bottles in my room, and now I realize that I've been sucking down liquids for quite awhile now.

That might explain the CONSTANT potty breaks.

What worries me more, other than the possibility of impending kidney failure, is the vision changes. Blurred vision, some extra special double vision, and a serious sensitivity to the sun. (I go outside and the light is so bright that I cant open my eyes sometimes) I hope that's not a permanent symptom.

Hopefully this wasnt what was causing the numb right foot the other day. Read that numbness in the extremities is a symptom.

Oh boy does that sound familiar. I HATED Elavil. Hated it. It was given to me for nerve pain and the doc said right up front it was an AD. No w/drawal effects, but I had almost all the above side-effects in addition to:
dizziness
loss of balance

And I have low blood pressure too. I'm usually 90/60, so a drop isn't good. Sets me right up to feeling like I'm going to faint, which is also another side effect of the Elavil. I didn't, but boy felt like it a lot!

I had cotton mouth so badly with Elavil it wasn't funny. And I always had mints around because of the weird taste in my mouth. Blech. Drank tons of water but I also gained weight. Ick. Yuck. Grrr. And all those good descriptive type words.


And that's what happened to me. It stopped. I just stopped getting anything beneficial for it. So they put me on Pamelor then, which took the pain away almost instantly after it was in my system. And none of the side effects either.

Right? ;) Same here! I thought Copaxone was the reason my hair continuously fell out. Guess what? It's not falling out like that now!

Gaztastic, I hear ya girl. Mine was down to 80/60 when I saw my doctor, just after going to 20mg of La Evil, and I wondered why when I had been in the drug store, kneeing down and stood up, I almost fainted. :eek: Not to mention almost fainting a couple times at home.

Yeah, I no longer feel like this when I stand up now!

My neuro prescribed Elavil for me at my last appt. in April for depression. He told me the most common side effect for it was urinary retention. ( Well. after I pressed him on it. At first, he told me it didn't have side effects.) I haven't taken it for that reason ( I have bladder symptomms related to neurogenic bladder already) and because I usually am real sensitive to side effects and the side effects are usually worse than what I'm taking it for.

Erin, do you think you weren't emptying fully thereby causing you to have to urinate more often?

Thanks Laura for listing the side effects. I've been having hair loss too and have been on Copaxone 9 years next month so, I definitely don't want to take any other meds with that as a side effect.

I really think it all depends. Each medication we take has side effects. Some people get lucky and don't experience them. Others do. But you have to weigh the good with the bad in most cases.

Take for example, Clonazepam. It's done what no other drug has done for me, to date. Dulled the pain of my burning mouth. It also dulled the heck out of the burning pain I experience elsewhere with MS, and has actually made me 'headache free' as a result.

Clonazepam carries a list of side effects: http://bipolar.about.com/cs/sfx/a/sfx_klonopin.htm

It can also be habit forming. Thing is, this is the risk versus return for me. It's made me feel as a person "Without MS" (my symptoms are mild, mainly sensory which includes a pain aspect). For me so far at a very small amount, it's honestly a wonder drug. I take a very tiny amount at night, and it also helps me sleep peacefully.

Is it for everyone? Certainly not. It's wonderful in my case. I haven't experienced side effects thus far, thankfully.

Oh we would have been a GREAT pair together if we'd been on it at the same time and out somewhere. Add that to my forgetting to eat, which makes my blood sugar dip, and :thud::thud::thud:


I used to drink about a 2 litre bottle of water during an 8 hour work day because I had cotton mouth so badly from the Elavil. Believe me, I urinated much more often because of all the liquid. You could say my bladder wasn't emptying fully--each time I gave it a little more space, more went INTO it! :) But maybe Erin's experience is different.

YOU TOO?? :eek:

I forgot about this! In fact, there were a couple days I ate once while on La Evil, because I flat out FORGOT to eat! I had no appetite at all, and when you're eating extremely low fat to begin with, missing meals like that is not a good thing!

Actually, I forget to eat routinely but it was worse on the Elavil.

And I get like that on roids too. I'm strange and have a weird experience on IVSM--I get really fatigued and lose my appetite. I think that I lost 10 lbs the last time I was on roids. :D Ok, maybe that's NOT such a great weight loss strategy but.... well....it works for me. :rolleyes:

I'm not going to lie, I eat and eat and EAT on IVSM, or prednisone taper off.

I'm a little piggie, and I can't sleep on steroids either. Oh, and I can clean my house 10 times a day as well LOL!

Too bad you live so far away from me. :D

Yeah Gaztastic. You can sleep for me while I clean your house. Deal? =)

No problem. You got a deal. :highfive:

I dont think this was a case of not completely emptying.

I was starting to wonder if someone had switched my pills for my dad's Lasix (Lasic? It's a diuretic)

I got a really good idea at how my dad feels when he takes his medication.

I was having problems with walking without looking like I was drunk. That started about two weeks ago, which pretty much corresponds to when I'd started upping the dosage from a 1/4 of a pill up to 1/2, and then up to a full pill. It wasnt helping me sleep anymore at the lower dosage. I still feel like that now, and I hope it goes away soon...like yesterday!

I'm still going some tonight, but during the day today down at the apple festival, I felt pretty much normal. It wasnt till after I drank half a bottle of water, an apple cider slushie (Mmmm!!!), and some apple cider (not slushy) and then some pop at the chinese restaurant that I started to have to use the bathroom more often tonight, but not as often as yesterday...ohmygosh, I'd never had to use a bathroom so much in my life!

My feet are numb tonight, and I wish that would go away too.

I have a migraine coming on now, seeing as how I went to sleep at 5am this morning, got up at 9am, and it's now almost 330am monday, and I'm still awake! (waited for my boyfriend to get home so he could call me and tell me he made it home) It's not surprising that my head hurts now. (going to bed in a few minutes)

oh, and I just recently noticed the whole "excessive weight gain" side effect. That's NOT cool!

I'm calling my regular doctor and asking him for something that's not an antidepressant, and hope that it's something in tablet form so that I can break it apart and not take it full strength. I may beg him for some LDN and see if that stuff works. (ok, better make sure the sleeping pill is not a narcotic)

I'm about to crash my head onto my keyboard, and that will hurt, so I better go to bed while I can still make it to the bed. I'm sleepy!

I hope you find something that works Erin. :hug: Let us know what the doc says please!

Oh yeah, just wanted to add...

due to my cyst bandaged on my back, I missed a day washing my hair. So yesterday, equipped with waterproof bandage, I was able to wash my hair.

I have a hair net in my tub to catch the hair (don't want to clog the drain!). After 2 days, previously, I'd lose a LOT of hair while washing.

The amount in the net yesterday was like, half of what came out after a daily washing when I was on Amitriptyline! :eek:

So La Evil was making me bald. Cute :(

When I'm combing my hair, I was getting/still get, a lot of hair on my comb, on the front of my shirt...on the floor...my boyfriend says that he finds my hair in his apartment, and I havent been to his apartment since April. (so apparently I'm shedding all over him)

I decided to quit the amitriptyline cold turkey. I'm not having any apparent problems from that so far. I actually feel better...the nasty taste in my mouth and the dry mouth dont feel so bad today. I'm using the potty somewhat normally, and not quite as often as I was saturday night. (nowhere near as often!)

I'm just annoyed that every medication I've taken recently, except for Tylenol and Ibuprofen, has caused me more than one or two problems.

Now I'm afraid to take my Copaxone tonight, for fear that it's going to make my hair fall out and make me sleep in the bathroom.

I feel like I'm better able to concentrate...I was able to sit and read a book for awhile tonight without getting bored and skipping ahead, or putting it down for a few minutes to do something else, only to pick it up again 5 minutes later and have problems getting more than a couple of pages in.

dangit! I just noticed that it's 10 to 4(am!)

I was going to go to bed earlier than this. This is what I get for playing Webkinz games for two hours (or more, cant remember when I started playing)

I guess it's off to bed to see if I can sleep without chemical assistance.

Don't feel bad Erin. I got sucked into Youtube last night and ended up falling asleep at 3am LOL!

I wanted to get up at noon today, but my mom decided to wake me up by ringing the doorbell REPEATEDLY at 1030am. I went upstairs, found out that she was just playing with the doorbell (my mom acts like a kid sometimes...I want to smack the drunk driver that hit my mom when she was 17 that caused her head injury)

So I went back downstairs to bed and reset the alarm to wake me at 1pm.

I'm noticing one side effect of the amitriptyline that I am going to miss. The antihistamine properties! I'm sneezing my nose off today. I swear, that was the best antihistamine ever, except for all the nasty side effects.

Sorry about your mom's accident. That's terrible :(

I didn't know it was an antihistamine or had properties! :eek: I've been sneezing non stop since I stopped it. LOL!

I figured it was the Clonazepam, since that can be a side effect of the drug. :p

Honestly, I think it's the Copaxone ( in my case, at least) that causes hair loss. I haven't been on Elavil, although I had it prescribed, I never took it. I'm pretty sure Copaxone can cause your hormones to go out of whack. I think it's only mentioned to happen in a small amount of patients, but after reading on several other MS boards and sites, I believe it's more likely to happen than Teva is reporting.