amitriptyline withdrawal

Hi Dee, i have tried twice to come of but getting down to 5mg from 10mg  was always awful. I have been lucky that my Gp prescribed amitriptyline in liquid form as it makes  the 1mg drop  so easy. As you have been on this drug for so many years it will probably take a few years to come off it. You will have to do it slowly x. I also take omega 3 capsules to help my brain and, a daily Yakult drink to help my good bowel bacteria as they have something to do with seretonin levels in my brain. xx 

Hello, it possible to experience all those withdrawal sympt even tho I took elavil 25mg for only 2 months?

Hi Venzortez, yes i have seen other people have lots of withdrawal symptons when only been on this drug a very sort time like yourself. If you want to come off cut down by 5mg at a time you may not be too bad. You have to let your brain reset itself so do it slow and you may have no symptoms at all. your body will tell you TRUST ME, it will tell you if you do it too fast x

Hi Dee

I'm just seeing your post now. I'm travelling at the moment

and don't always get wifi. My biggest problem coming off ami is

not sleeping so I know just what you mean. I've down to15mg for

9 weeks now & the sleep is starting to get messy (l've written

about it in a post l sent to Amanda a few mins ago). So, l won't

be coming down further for a while yet. It's a bit hard while I'm

travelling, sharing rooms, sharing houses and different beds all

the time (I'm currently sleeping in my 15th different bed in 2

months and still have quite a few to go over the next 2.5 months.)

All the best, Dee. Please let us know how you are going every

now and then. I'd be especially interested as we have the same

sleep problems. I slept so well on 50mg for all those years but

I'm determined to get off ami once and for all.

My biggest help with the sleep - at least right now - has been taking 1/3 of a 5 mg ambien.  If I can sleep, I can usually endure the other side effects - which I haven't had too many lately.  I have been at just a little over 15 (I bought a scale so I could cut them and be accurate) for about 2-3 weeks.  Will stay here for at least another week.  I totally agree that when you are traveling is no time to try anything different!  I am afraid, too, that my IBS will kick in when I go much lower - but will wait and see.  Right now, my goal is to get to 10 - then if I can't get any lower, then so be it.  I have noticed that my hoarseness when I talk has been better and not quite as bloated, although haven't lost any weight - but that isn't my main goal.  My main concern was the dementia report - I don't and haven't taken any other meds with the anticholorenic ingredients, and never been over 25mg of the amit.  so hopefully it won't have that effect.  Thinking that as long as I have been on it, surely I would have already seen those effects if it is going to happen, but that is my wishful thinking perhaps.  Any chance your doctor could prescibe you a small amount of a sleeping aid - at least temporarily until you can reestablish a good sleep pattern.  

Thanks so much for your reply - look forward to hearing progress!!

Best to you.

Hi

Yes, they are coated but ok to cut. I have a pill cutter and have been cutting 10s into halves and 1/4s for months now.

Good luck

Yes they are fine to cut x 

Hi Sammy, i have decided to wait re jumping from 2.5 mg to 0. I am currently feeling rubbish anxiety levels high my throat feels tight, neck pain  even a bit tingly in my left fingers, this i believe is anxiety related. TBH i feel like going back to 5 mg to try and see if this feeling goes away but, dont want to really. I do not like this dizzy feeling in my head i feel that i am loosing control and want to cry all the time, is this normal????   

Hey Amanda I feel ya. I have tried to updose before and waited 24 weeks at the same dose and the same dizzy feeling is still there in the past 18 months I have gone from 15 mg to 12.5 mg which caused an ocular migraine which at A&E they diagnosed as TIA gave me 300 mg Aspirin and sent me home then had to go through MRI etc to find out, so because I then had the dizzy/spacey feeling I thought maybe if I go back to 15mg it would take it away but no such luck, so after waiting 6 months with no explanation from Drs thought what the heck down I am going until off. I have found that along the way every time I decrease the dose I eventually end up with symptoms like depression (which I have never had) headaches again never had those either, sadness, nervy achy it almost seems like everything that they treat with ami you end up with side effects to that nature even though you were never diagnosed with those problems. 

I still get the neck ache and the tight throat is defo anxiety related I have had that too, and only about a week ago crying all the time for no reason, but it eventually passed. 

How long have you held that dose? Maybe wait a bit longer and see if it passes. 

I still have roaring tinnitus and the spacey dizzy feeling that I don't think will go until my brains rewires itself, apparently the ami stops the brain from making acetylcholine which I think is a neurotransmitter there is I think 8 neurotransmitters which the brain has to start producing which the ami has interfered with and this is what causes all these horrible side effects. 

Hope everything settles a bit for you in the next few days. If not have you ever tried titrating the ami so you can get smaller doses than 1mg. I have done it with Valium and it made it so much more doable, just a thought!

lun n 🤗 hugs 

 

Hey Amanda do you take any supplements to help? I take magnesium and fish oil which I find helps. Just a thought some people can't take supps.

Hi Sammy i take fish oil , how does magnesium help? x

 

Hi Sammy thankyou so much, you are a wealth of knowledge. Im sorry to say this and dont take it personally but im glad you have some off the same symptoms as i feel so alone, i am worried im going mad. i am staying at 2.5 mg i think although, i feel like increasing. I too keep crying one of my friends thinks i am depressed and said i should go to the DR for tablets to help. I went on ami for pelvic nerve pain and coming off i agree with you it makes you have loads more  conditions like depression and anxiety, i never suffered with these before.xx

Hi Amanda I had to laugh I don't take it personally, I think when we all find these forums we are all hoping to find someone who has the same horrible symptoms as us. It reassures us that we are not going crazy and that it is definitely the medication although it sound horrible we all like that validation.

You can certainly try going back up in your dose there is nothing wrong with doing that I used to do it before unfortunately it just doesn't work for me anymore.

Magnesium I take a magneasium chelate there are others but such as glycinate etc but I find the other types excite the system and rev it up which is not pleasant when trying to withdraw we need more calm. It is good for restless legs, muscles fatigue, helps liver function, helps with anxiety, helps neurotransmitters it does so much, in this day and age our foods are so deplete of magnesium due to over farming. I also try and keep my diet as clean as possible more fruit vegetables real food not something out of a packet or a can, this helps enormously. 

I have never suffered from depression or headaches but withdrawing all sorts of symptoms are appearing.

Thanks for the compliment "wealth of knowledge" been doing this for along time now, while Drs are good and have their place they don't have the time to research what they give patients and they are so controlled by pharmaceutical company's  sadly it is up to us to do our own research. 

Hope you feel better over the next few days if not up the dose a little and stabilise that is the most important thing to do for now. Xxxx

Hey Amanda just a thought but if you are on the liquid solution you can slow your taper so much easier, I know we are all in a hurry to get off this medication but in my experience it is better to do it extremely slowly, the goal is to do it in such a way that you can function like normal and not feel the horrid side effects, the last thing you want to keep doing is to shock the body, you want to do it so that you are going down a ramp slowly and evenly rather than steps that's are taxing on the system. Don't forget that the lower we go down in mg the percentage of the drop is bigger than last time.

i learnt to titrate my pills in water, I would crush pill and get a graduated cylinder 100 mls and swirl it round together to suspend it then take a syringe and take out say 1ml  discard that 1ml and drink the 99 mls the next day do the same but take out 2mls so then you are drinking 98 mls etc so then it takes you 100 days to go down by 1mg but so much easier on the body and the brain. With Valium I titrated in milk as Valium needed the fat in milk to bind too. Funny the things we learn along this journey so many people out there in cyber land have taught me so much, I am so grateful for the inet as without it I hate to think where we would all be, at the mercy of Drs and pharmaceutical companies. We can do this and we will xxxx

Hi Amanda, 

i feel exactly the same as you! It's nice to have support on here. I was on amitriptyline for 2 years also pelvic nerve pain (vulvodynia) it's 6 weeks off them and I'm getting awful withdrawal symptoms. The worst for me at the  moment is restless legs, driving me crazy. I just hope they will go eventually and I can feel back to normal. Wishing you a speedy recovery to good health x

Hi Sammy had a BAD few days went to see my Gp  as anxiety  getting out of control he said, he had never heard of amitriptyline causing such problems and sugested i try some other medication to help! He even said just stop the amitriptyline if your becoming this anxious coming off it. i explained  im  not worrying about coming off it , i want to come off it, the withrawal is symptoms are what i am struggling with. He added im taking too long to come off it and need another approach like  reduce for 1 week only!!!!! I cried and came away with a help line i dont want more meds. I have gone back up to 5mg for the past 2 days and hope i start to feel my head get better soon. I will try magnesium xxx

Hi Kelly me too re volvodynia, read what my post to kelly says when i went to the GP yesterday. Keep in touch please on here re your symptoms x thanks for your reply xx

Amanda you poor thing I feel where you are at. How irresponsible can Drs be a simple google search gives you a huge list of bloody side effects that makes me so angry that they give us these drugs and when we have a problem with them they are not sympathetic or understanding just wan to throw more drugs at us. I hope with the updose that it will all soon settle down again, I think with this drug we have to go extremely slow in tapering off especially when you get to the lower doses.

i am still having all the head feelings spacey/dizzy as well tinnitus I have 24/7 and my last hold was 24 weeks, so it is crucial that we slow right down.

When you went from 5mg to 2.5 that is a 50 % reduction which is MASSIVE when you get to smaller doses.

Exercise really helps, I know it is hard to do when you are feeling all these effects but I found getting on a bike and riding would really help me it is the only time I feel relatively normal which is weird.

You need to give yourself a break you started this taper in March which is not very long ago, I started my taper 2 years ago that is how slow I am going I stayed at 15 mg for over a year and then it took me 18 months to get to 10 mg just to give you an idea of how slow I am going. I know we are all in a hurry to get off this medication and when you feel relatively ok we tend to fasten the taper up which clearly is a mistake that we are all making the side effects are really hard when we do this.

i hope the up dose kicks in quick and your anxiety ebbs off I too have had the anxiety which is horrible and I don't think people that have never suffered from it can really appreciate how we feel.

i hope you feel better soon keep writing I check it every day, know you are definitely not alone in this journey.xxxxxx

 

Hi Kelly

sorry to hear that you too are going through this horrid withdrawal, I too had severe restless legs I had it years ago so bad that I had to keep walking in the backyard constantly until I was so exhausted I literally fell asleep as soon as I sat down that was the worst, I have had it again with the last cut in dose it's weird I feel it more in my ankles than my feet but is is slowly starting to subside. I find that magnesium really helps I take a chelate as I do know that some magnesium can irritate the nervous system. I never go off magnesium our foods these days are sadly lacking in lots of vitamins and minerals due to over farming pesticides etc. I try and eat fresh fruit and veg all the time and drink plenty of water to help flush everything out of the body. and exercise every little bit helps whether it is just a short walk or a bike ride but moving on a regular basis helps so much.

wishing you all the best in your journey, hope you stick around there are not many of us on this medication at one time. most forums are years old and people have moved on. Xxxxx

Hi Sammy feeling really low my symptoms are worse , i dont know if i have a sinus thing or if it is ami, i have headache, area around eyes hurt when i bend forward ears muffled , neck and shoulders so painful, dizzy, slight nausea. paracetamol and ibruprofen do not stop it x

Amanda sorry to hear you are having such a hard time, I know all the symptoms you mention especially the shoulders aching which could be anxiety, but it is still wise to make sure there is no other underlying problem. 

My ears have continually roared with tinnitus since cutting to 10 mg and they have not stopped since . I find it is better when there is a little back ground noise I don't notice as much.

Always ere on the side of caution and get checked out. Let me know how you get on, wishing you all the best. Xxxxx

 

Hi Sammy , today im feeling  a lot better not 100% but lots better. This is day 6 of 5 mg . My ears no longer feel full and my head feels lots better although, i am still taking paracetamol and ibruprofen but, previously these hardly touched my neck head and shoulder pain   I think my shoulder and neck pain was tension related due to the awful feelings i was experiencing. Yesterday i had lots of belching and abdominal  cramps. I am going away tomorrow and hope the symptoms continue to  fade. Thanks for your support. I am going to buy  a jewlers scale and reduce even slower i think xxx 

So glad you are feeling better!  Guess it just took a few days for the amit to get back into your system.  I am going to hold at 12.5 for quite awhile until hopefully I start feeling good all the time.  Right now, I feel good for a couple or three days, then have a bad day, so I'm trying to learn to really appreciate the good!  The jewelry scale has really helped me keep my dosage steady.  Be sure to get one that measures in mllligrams - it took alittle figuring as my 25mg pill actually weighs 108 mg - I guess beause of fillers, coating, etc.  It was interesting b/c what I thought was half a pill was sometimes a good bit less or more.  At least I feel like I am getting a more exact dosage.  I actually cut down very slowly - I would go about 68 mg (of the 108) which end up being about 16mg of the 25 - then in about a week, I would go to 66 or 67 mg.  A very very slow cut, but could go down a little more frequently.  Sure hope it works for you and that you continue to feel better.  I have discovered that when I have an off day - and it is usually my IBS causing it - that then I start to get all kinds of anxiety.  Trying to control my thought processes that "this too will pass and get better".  Lots of prayers for you as you travel.  

Hi Sammy, 

thanks so much for your email, I haven't tried magnesium yet so will definitely take up your suggestion. At the moment I'm taking iron with vit c, and omega 3, I never know if there's a limit on how many supplements you should take but I will definitely be picking up some magnesium

its still driving me crazy, my gp never understands and everything I find online says after your last dose withdrawal shouldn't last long. But here I am seven weeks after my last dose and I have restless legs, itching and some tingling in face. Feel like I'm going mad. I'm off work with a sick note as I can't face sitting at my desk all day with my legs tingling like this 

Im definitely here to stick around and I think it's so great this forum means we are not in this alone and we will get through this together!!  Xxx

Hey Kelly what you are going through seven weeks after jumping is quite normal from what I have read, my naturopath has patients that have all the symptoms that we are all going through. They usually call it protracted withdrawal and it can go on for quite some time. I find apart from the supplements fresh food ie lots of vegetable and fruit, bananas are great apparently the potassium helps I know I started eating them about 3 weeks ago and the vibrating brain that I have had for the last 18 months is getting gappy little gaps of feeling normal yay finally a little speck of light.

i haven't tried vitamin c for quite a while as it can be excitatory to your system but if you can take it go for it vitamin c is so important. 

I try and ride every day weather permitting as it really helps exercise if only for a short time does help.

thank goodness we have this little group here sometimes just having that support makes all the difference xxxx

 

Hi Amanda so glad that you are finally feeling a little relief and that it didn't take too long even though it feels like a lifetime when we are going through it. The abdominal cramps I have had not nice at all, I agree with slowing your taper down jewellers scales is a good way i find writing a chart of what you do (as in reduction of pills) is important as some days we get brain fog I put all my doses in notes on iPad and also symptoms of what I am feeling so that when s**t hits the fan and it gets tough you can go back and compare so you know if it's the norm for you or something new that be unrelated.

have a nice time away and hope you continue to improve. Don't be in such a hurry the smoother the decent the better xxxxxx

hi sammy

i know this thread is so old now but from reading your old comments i know how we feel when get withdrawal from amitryptilline i have been on it on different dosages since august 2017 12.5 mg to 25 mg fir a couple of months and then 10 mgs for another couple of months ...then since january 2019 instarted tapering because of weight gain 26 pounds.......i reached 2.5 mg and problems started burning feet soles and palms like painted with acid severe insomnia palpitations anxiety feeling of doom since i stopped taking it in may 10 nas it became relentless i tried to reinstate at 25 mgs om the advise of neurologist and suffered a lot but only i reinstated that night and never did it again since that night ....a psychoatrist gave me pristiq and latuda but went crazy after takingf them for 2 days sonstopped still suffering what do you think i shall do ?

reinstate at which dose i wish i would get a feedbak from you it would be so grateful

armiden how are you doing at this time. hope you're hangin in there