A question to all who took amitryptiline
 

I'm taking amitryptiline now for almost 5 weeks. My sleep was very good in the first 2 weeks, but since then I only sleep about 7 hours a night.

What happened is that I am still very tired during the day, without beeing able to sleep. The tiredness is somehow sublinimal, meaning that I do not yawn all the time or my eyes keep shutting down, however I feel like a zombie.

Overall my mental condition is better than a few weeks before(less thinking fatiguing) but physically it started to develop into the opposie direction.
And what worries me the most is that, in some situations my speech becomes even slurred,because of the tiredness.

The point is I didn't have these feeling when I slept well in the first 2 weeks. Is it maybe the cumulative deprivation of sleep or a sudden intolerance of amitryptiline? My doctors couldn't tell excactly where it comes from.

Did anyone experience something similar?

Didn't do a thing for me except gave me hangover feeling in the morning, but I was only on 10mg. Anyway, I thought 7 hours sleep is a decent average for most folk?

Well I saw more people sleeping 12 hours a night than 7 hours on amitryptiline. I did that too, but only in the first 2 weeks.

And yes, I had also that feeling to be a bit drunk(when I had to get up without sleeping late).

You may be over-thinking this. Anxiety will cause fatigue. The amitrptyline is to help with head aches and getting to sleep. It is not to help you continue to sleep. As said, 7 hours is not bad. Many would love to get 7 hours sleep.

Taking a short nap during the day would be good.

Drugs like amytritaline are not meant to be taken for extended/regular lengths of time. I had similar to what you have described, and noticed that it made my mood more negative too. So I stopped taking it and felt better. My understanding is that this is a common reaction. Hopefully you are ready to forge your own sleeping/energy pattern, but if not your Dr will be able to discuss/prescribe an alternative.

(Those symptoms/advice should be printed on the inner label thingy)

Amitriptyline CAN be taken every day for extended lengths of time. It is an older tricyclic antidepressant that also works for nerve pain. I've been on 50 mg. at night for almost 5 yrs. I have had good results helping me fall asleep, and it helps my headaches and facial numbness feeling. That dopey daytime feeling went away with time.

Yes, in fact I was just reading something about Amitriptyline
that mrsD posted in PN forum earlier today and thought it very interesting.

The information concerned was in reference to this older post.

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/post529063-1.html

As you can read in my first post, the dopey daytime feeling just started after 3 weeks. This appears to be unusual. Maybe it's because of my sleeping behaviour, I can feel that 7 hours are definately not enough for me.

Another question: Since 2 weeks I didn't have headaches and the common debilitating fatigueness got reduced. I'm sure amitryptiline is also responsible for that, but it makes me feel like I could probably miss the point when I'm recovered, because the drug supresses the symptoms, meaning I start to stimulate again, without beeing fully recovered.

I was not able to get a high enough dose of amitriptyline to fully eradicate my headaches because of the side effects. It made me very dizzy, to the point that I was falling. I had to switch to Topamax. If you are having unwanted side effects, you might ask if there is another drug you could try.

My experience
 

I was prescribed 25mg tablets (one at bedtime) of Amitriptyline after my concussion as a sleep aid and to prevent headaches. It definitely knocked me out about 2 hours after taking one and seemed to help with the headaches over time. I took it daily for about a week but started getting unwanted side effects including sleepy during the day, a feeling of too much adrenaline (excess norepinephrine I would suspect) and muscle twitches and hand tremors. I discontinued use after that. I can see how it could be beneficial for some people but it really depends on the person's brain chemistry at the time of dosing induction. It has many different mechanisms of actions resulting in many side effects, some may be helpful, some may cause issues.

Also, it should be noted that amitriptyline is a tri-cyclic antidepressant that affects serotonin levels and SHOULD NOT be taken with any other serotonergic agents; Don't take amitriptyline with anti-depressant meds like SSRI, MAOI, drugs such as adderall, ritalin, or any stimulants, DXM (found in cough syrup), and definitely not with supplements like L-Tryptophan or 5-HTP. Mixing these substances can result in a life-threatening medical condition known as serotonin syndrome. This information is freely available on the internet and if you take any of these medications it would be wise to use the medication checker sticky located at the top of this forum. I have heard of some physicians mixing drugs in very irresponsible ways and in the end you should be the one who makes sure there are no interactions between medications.