Muscle cramp with Amlodipine

Hi. These personal stories time and again make such painful reading ( no pun intended. ) There are literally PAGES of personal accounts on this forum, reporting on painful, debilitating, unacceptable side effects and conditions which people are reporting only since they have been taking Amlodipine, one of the cheapest if not THE cheapest prescription BP drug, yet most commonly prescribed. ( I have commented on my views regarding that fact several times previously. )

I will reiterate, once again, that there is the Yellow Card procedure available for all patients in the UK to report perceived or proven side effects after taking prescription drugs. Check the insert in your medication,. regarding side effects. I think you will find muscle cramp mentioned!

Your GP's surgery should ( a legal requirement ) have the cards clearly displayed for you to complete and send to the NHS dept. supposedly monitoring prescription drugs. My local surgery does NOT have them displayed - I have reported this several times to the local health authority I ended up having to do my Yellow Card reporting via the net. Disgraceful !

If you have mentioned these horrendous and totally unacceptable side effects to your GP, tell him / her that you want to implement the Yellow Card procedure. Watch the difference in his / her attitude to you then, and also the haste with which a different drug will be prescribed for you! ( Or perhaps I am just too cynical after being on the receiving end of appalling, inappropriate treatment in the NHS for the past two years or so ? )

If you scroll back through this forum, you will be as appalled as I was to read so many accounts of painful, unacceptable side effects experienced whilst using this drug. Muscle pain, cramps, fluctuation in temperature, blotching of skin, hives which bleed when knocked and so on and so on.

If it helps ( it did for me ) write down what you need to say to your GP regarding what you are experiencing since taking this drug or combination of drugs. Take along someone as support, if that may be useful. Tell him / her that you cannot, WILL NOT / tolerate these appalling side effects and pain which is causing such discomfort and which have only occurred since this drug or combination of drugs have been prescribed.

The GP is there to serve you, not the other way around, nor to make the powerful pharma companies even richer than they are already!

To be diagnosed with a potentially serious or life-changing physical condition is worrying enough for anyone, without being prescribed medication which has dreadful, painful or toxic side effects. There are plenty of other solutions available and there will be one ( or more ) which suit your body and your condition. Keep on at your GP until the most appropriate remedy is found for you which will make your condition tolerable and free of side effects.

Good luck with it - it's taken me almost two years of virtually storming the barricades at my GP's surgery before he has agreed to prescribe the medication which controls my ( genetically predisposed ) high BP but has removed the horrendous, totally debilitating side effects!

I hope that you can get yours sorted successfully, too,

Laura

I'm interested in which BP medicine you have found that has removed the side effects, please?

Matron

I have been suffering with night cramps in my legs and feet for a couple of years since being treated with steroids for an auto immune condition. However, when I started Amlodipine the cramps immediately worsened. I was switched to Diltiazem which didn't control the blood pressure sufficiently so Ramipril was added to the mix. I didn't feel at all well on that so it was stopped and I now take Diltiazem and Losartan Potassium. My leg cramps aren't any worse on Losartan but I do still have swollen ankles and a rash on my lower legs as with Amlodipine - I'm guessing that is caused by the Diltiazem as it is from the same family as Amlodipine. However, I feel quite well on the Losartan, apart from having a slightly reduced sodium reading last week. Will know more when I see the consultant on Thursday.

Perhaps if your GP prescribes another pill other than Amlodipine alongside the Losartan your cramps will ease.

hi matron, the same old story amlodipine just about every one I have spoken to have got or had awfull muscle cramps taking amlodipine it do not seem to matter if its 5mg or 10 mg when are gp s going to see what misery they are giving to patients, I think its time they had a full inquiry in to this drug, sorry matron I get so annoyed because they just bury there head in the sand. hope you feel better soon.... len 7

Thanks MrsO for your reply. You are absolutely right I do need to discuss this with my GP because on top of this I am now certain I have Raynaud's. My finger tips become white and numb even in fairly mild weather. I also suffer from chilblains every winter. So all in all it's a nightmare!!

Sorry but forgot to thank everyone for replying. You have all given me ammunition to go back to my GP and insist this is sorted out once and for all!!

i have now been off amlodipine for a couple of wks and i feel almost normal B/P is ok i do take ramipril 1.25 and other heart meds , but all my problems started when i was on amlodipine . i now have more energy, dont ache all over and the dizzy spells are getting alot better,

Dear Matron,

I have taken 10 mg Amlodopine and 20 mg Atorvastatin for at least 5 years. I cannot recall if the muscle cramps started at the same time, but am encouraged by what I have read here that Amlodopine may be the culprit, since have drawn a blank on everything else, despite numerous investigations.

The cramps have made my life a misery.

I am otherwise healthy and do a lot of sport. The cramps are not correlated with workouts however. But they have some strange signatures and so I would be interested to know if you or the readers here have noticed anything similar that could be attributed to Amlodopine:

The cramp is most likely to arise when I am relaxed, eg if sitting or lying for a while. (Sleep is a nightmare therefore.)

It occurs exclusively in the arms and legs.

It can be alleviated temporarily (5 minutes max) if I can get someone to do very vigorous karate chops on these muscles.

I should add that the diagnosis presently favoured by my Dr based entirely on my description is 'Parkinson's-like symptoms', though the other classic signs are missing from an examination.

Thank you in advance.

I was prescibed amlodipine 5mg 2 years ago for slightly high bp. About 18 months ago i started getting stiff legs mainly in the quads and this progessively got worse. It then developed into lower back pain and i had to give up playing golf which was my favourite sport. i tried massage, physio, chiripractor but nothing helped. At no time did anyone of the practitioners consider that the problem might be amlodipine. Last week i came across this thread wile surfing for an answer. I suggesred to my GP that I stop the amlodipine for a while just to see if this was the problem. Within 2 days the leg pain and back pain dissapeared. Amlodipite lists muscle pain as a rare side effect but I believe that either i am very unlucky or they are playing down this side effect.

Thank you for bringing this problem to light.

Have just discovered the possible cause of my horrendous muscle cramps .

A solid night of sleep seems impossible.

Complicated by diagnosis of R.A. and Sjorgen disorder,a necessity to change doctors and the death of a rheumatologist I have been left on my own.

Through a process of elimination amlodiipine must now be given consideration as possible cause.

I will post my progress as I try to work this out.

I've been taking Ramipril for bp for years, never had any side effects from it. I was prescribed indapamide as the Ramipril had stopped working. The indapamide gave me terrible cramps and the doctor who was very sympathetic moved me onto amlodipine. Having moved up from 5mg to 10mg of amlodipine I have noticed the cramps reappearing. They're definitely not natural cramps either, I get them in weird places. For instance I chronic tongue cramps today. I can honestly say I've never had cramps in my tongue before. I've also had cramps in lots of places I've never had cramps before other than with the indapamide, such as stomach muscles, lats and groin. It has to be the indapamide, whilst it's listed as a very rare side effect and is probably benign it's very unpleasant and I'll be paying the doctor a visit to see if she can prescribe me something different in the next few days, just lucky I have a nice and accommodating doctor. Hope you sorted your issue.

I have been taking it and I’ve noticed muscle spasms cramping pretty bad so I’m gonna see my doctor and get off the medication. I’m having major side effects and it’s pretty painful so I know what you’re going through.