Amitryptaline side effects?

This is kind of related to the questions/answers on the nortryptaline side effects, but not sure how different they are so I'm starting a new thread.

It took me about 3 1/2 weeks or so for the sleepiness to lessen, but now I'm having huge spikes in heart rate and energy, both ends of the spectrum. I've also started getting painful headaches on the left side of my head, where my migraines attack mostly on the right or behind the eyes. Not only that, but I've been having a lot of muscle twitching the past week when I lie down - never happens when I am standing or sitting. Has anyone else had this issues?

My doctor mentioned it would be 4-6 weeks for it to take effect, so I'm wondering if that's why these latest side effects haven't hit me until now, but worried it is a sign of something else...

Thanks all,
Patrick

Patrick,

Sounds familiar. I was on Ami for a year and never did get over the sleepiness. I would sleep 12 hours a day. What a waste. I had the muscle twitching also, but never recognized it as a side effect. I started having bad migraine again and upped the dose of Ami and the headaches got worse. Finally quit taking the Ami and the headaches stopped.....for awhile. Now I am back to the regular migraine routine, but no more Amitriptyline.

Hal

Hmm, yeah thanks Hal. I was worried about that, but I guess it's better then it being something else. I hate the net some times. when you google simple things like migraines and muscle twitching, it loves to find a website that says you probably have a tumor and are about to die, or contracted some strange disease that causes you to melt in seven days might not see my neurologist for another week so it's good to know that is probably the culprit.

Hi there i am on Ami, and have been for over a year now, side effects for me have been,

tiredness,sleepyness, a big prob still, so much so i have had to change my work pattern around so i start later on in day and finish later. just couldnt function in mornings,

weight gain, still a prob,

twitchy legs at bedtime, this does go after a while,

loss of hair,

loss of taste,

not complete hair or taste loss but def some,

thinking i have saw something out of corner of my eye, but nothing is there, still makes me jump at times,

increased pulse/heart rate, increase in blood pressure,

i am also now taking a beta blocker called propranolol, and this has helped bring my pain levels down considerably, so will stick with them both for a while, also the beta blocker brought pulse and blood pressure back down to an acceptable level, but out of all of it i have to say weight gain and tiredness are the main issues for me, but i was caught in a cycle of continous migraines and i mean every day for weeks on end last year, hence i am staying on theres preventatives despite the side effects,

hope this can be of some help to you,

Thanks for the reply Theresae,

That's very interesting, because I'm also on propanalol since before the ami, and I didn't link some of those symptoms with the medicine. My sense of taste has been strange the past couple weeks, and I thought I was seeing things out of the corners of my eye because I've left the window open recently and thought it was just little gnats flying in from outside. Then everytime I would go to smack it, I couldn't find it. So annoying, especially to realize I might of just been seeing things the whole time haha

I'll have to remember to link those symptoms when I go to my neuro next. That really helps, thank you again all.

Hi,

I have been on this too. The worst side effect I had was the exhaustion. I've never felt so weak and tired in my life. Other side effects I had were palpitations and feeling really REALLY hot, I guess like hot flushes.

Amitryp has pulled me out of some really tight spots when nothing else would work and I wouldn't rule out using it again if I had to. I hope the results for you are worth the side effects.

Keep us posted

I think I had practically every side effect they list the 2 times I tried it. 6 months was the longest I made it. Out of the horrible side effects I had, I think the weight gain was the most disturbing. I have been about 145 lbs since I was 16. I actually have to try to gain weight if I want to. On Ami though I gained almost 20 lbs within 2 months. My food cravings were so bad that I couldn't get to sleep at night. I'd work out twice as hard as normal to try to (a) lose the weight and (b) try to force myself to stop thinking of the side effects, but it wouldn't help.

I could have possibly dealt with all of this if it were for the fact that I had some of the worst migraines I ever had while on it. It just didn't work for me in any way unfortunately.

I was on it for a mig preventive and had weight gain and bad sweating.

I think one of the hardest things for me over the past year has been admitting when a medication isn't working. I've tried so many different drugs, therapys, and theories in the past 26 years, that I think I just hate hearing yet another doctor run out of ideas with me, causing me to go to someone new because I can't just have a doctor giving up on it. I don't pay them to be told they know as much or less then I do.

Especially with the amitryptaline, I've never had such horrible side effects from any drug as I've seen over the past couple weeks. The twitches or muscle spasms have gotten a lot worse. Every time I lie down, I have to deal with my hands, arms, legs, and now my stomach muscles contracting and twitching before going to sleep. I felt like some invisible creature punched me in the gut earlier yesterday from the muscle contraction. If that wasn't enough to keep me up at night, my heart rate pounds like I just ran a mile even when I'm lying down and plenty exhausted enough to go to bed.

It's just unbelievably frustrating how much I've tried and how little any of it had a positive effect. Every time I go without a migraine for a day (even half a day), I start thinking 'wow, this medicine is really working!', then I conveniently forget that every other day I am still getting bad migraines. I really want to believe something will work, but how many years will be gone by the time I figure that out? Really just an unbelievable pain in the ass that this pain in the head is

Really Chairish, I sure hope you know which end is up. You had me worried for a moment. I think if the pain is in the butt, it is Hemeroids and if it is between the ears, it is a Migraine. I hear that they can fix Hemeroids, but Migraines are still a mistery. I also hear that they both can hurt like a Banshie.

Just jerking your chain, hoping to get a smile out of you.

Hal

Chairish1976 wrote:I think one of the hardest things for me over the past year has been admitting when a medication isn't working. I've tried so many different drugs, therapys, and theories in the past 26 years, that I think I just hate hearing yet another doctor run out of ideas with me, causing me to go to someone new because I can't just have a doctor giving up on it. I don't pay them to be told they know as much or less then I do.

Especially with the amitryptaline, I've never had such horrible side effects from any drug as I've seen over the past couple weeks. The twitches or muscle spasms have gotten a lot worse. Every time I lie down, I have to deal with my hands, arms, legs, and now my stomach muscles contracting and twitching before going to sleep. I felt like some invisible creature punched me in the gut earlier yesterday from the muscle contraction. If that wasn't enough to keep me up at night, my heart rate pounds like I just ran a mile even when I'm lying down and plenty exhausted enough to go to bed.

It's just unbelievably frustrating how much I've tried and how little any of it had a positive effect. Every time I go without a migraine for a day (even half a day), I start thinking 'wow, this medicine is really working!', then I conveniently forget that every other day I am still getting bad migraines. I really want to believe something will work, but how many years will be gone by the time I figure that out? Really just an unbelievable pain in the ass that this pain in the head is

What really sucks is that if I went back to the specialist now, it would likely be the first thing he would prescribe. It's been 2 years since my last horrible experience at giving it another shot (tried it previously about 12 years ago) and it would still likely be the best thing he could offer me. Or, what he would make me try before giving me anything else.

I was prescribed amitryptaline as a preventative for 4 years until December last year. I think it says something about me that I kept on with the stuff all that time despite what it was like and it's lack of effectiveness.

Prior to this I had tried various other preventatives none of which had worked. I started the amitryptaline and this coincided with a slight improvement in my chronic migraine in the summer of 2005. This meant a general consensus that this must have caused the improvement. However, within 3 months things were back to how they were before so the dose was increased. This went up and up to 150mg per day but there was never any real improvement in migraines. All the same I stuck with it on the basis that I was being assured that this was the drug with the best track record and it had shown an improvement initially for me and, if I stopped, things would surely get worse! When things did get really worse in December 2009 despite the amitryptaline, I called the medic's bluff and insisted in coming off the stuff and gradually did so. There was no worsening in my migraines and I had spent 4 years using a preventative that just didn't work but had some of the side effects already described plus some you haven't.

Initially I had nightmares. These usually involved serious mutilation or the death of family members or friends. These nightmares returned during the time I was reducing the dose last year.

General listlessness. I would say that my "get up and go" had "got up and went".

It slowed me down. I could not climb the stairs quickly etc. It became physically impossible.

I was always hot. Shirtsleeves in the winter. I needed to constantly drink water for this reason and due to the sweating.

Sweating. The slightest physical activity would cause me to sweat. Sawing a piece of wood outdoors would cause the sweat to drip off my nose. Coming from the street into a shop or a cafe would cause me to break out into a sweat and I would have to go outside as I would become soaked. I was also soaked at night with sweat.

I put on 2 stone in weight very quickly. I am 6' 4" and went from 14 to 16 stone within 6 weeks. I'm back to 14 now with the help of topiramate!

Despite all this the pressure from doctors, family and the fear of things getting worse kept me on the stuff.

John,

I gained 40 lbs while on Amitriptyline. I don't know what the conversion rate is, but I'll bet that is a whole wheel barrow full of stones. What does the Topiramate do? My doc just says I need to exercise more. Most of the time, I don't think these guys have a clue as to all of the side effects these drugs cause, especially when they put you on two or three at the same time.

When I got tired of the side effects, I just quit cold turkey. I was up to 75mg.
It was as if the sun came up and the fog lifted.

Hal

Hal wrote:

It was as if the sun came up and the fog lifted.

Hal

Hal, that is exactly how I felt when I came off it!

Hal,

14 lbs to the stone so that was a lot of weight you put on.

The topiramate has killed my appetite so it's been easy to lose weight. Sadly, that's not helping with the migraines either. The latest suggestion has been to add amitryptaline to the topirimate! I'm fighting that one but nothing else is being offered at the moment as I've tried most things.

One thing is for sure and that is that I felt so much better generally off the amitryptaline. Migraine is enough. It has made me feel old before my time and amitryptaline only made things worse.

Hal wrote:Really Chairish, I sure hope you know which end is up. You had me worried for a moment. I think if the pain is in the butt, it is Hemeroids and if it is between the ears, it is a Migraine. I hear that they can fix Hemeroids, but Migraines are still a mistery. I also hear that they both can hurt like a Banshie.

Just jerking your chain, hoping to get a smile out of you.

Hal

It worked! Thanks Hal.

I forgot about the dreams I was having when I first went on amitryptaline. I haven't had nightmares since I was really young because a therapist at the time walked me through 'dream management' - basically ways to conquer dreams going out of control. I was getting really vivid, positive dreams when I first started the amitryptaline though. Made it all that much harder to wake up. After about 3 weeks though, I wasn't remembering my dreams anymore. I heard we always dream, but just don't remember them so I guess that symptom passed or I've become more forgetful! lol

I just recently discontinued ami.

It caused horrendous acid reflux, stomach cramping, indigestion, rumbling/rolling stomach (you name it). It was not pleasant.

In fact, for me, it was not particularly helpful with sleep (the reason why we tried it) because the stomach issues kept me awake at night.

I was on it for three months and gained 5 lbs on it, but I was unable to eat many of the things on my normally healthy diet. At the end of the trial, I was taking pantoprazole in the morning, maalox liquid throughout the day, and prilosec OTC in the evening just to take the edge off the discomfort. It was miserable.

Becky

In regards to Johnfd's post, I completely forgot to mention the sweating. I had that issue as well. It was hard to believe how much weight I was gaining when it seemed like I was sweating out gallons of sweat a day.

theresae wrote:

thinking i have saw something out of corner of my eye, but nothing is there, still makes me jump at times,

That side effect is seriously getting on my nerves today lol One of my weaknesses is I really hate insects. Not really afraid of them per se, but I just wish they would all die and if it has to be by my hand, so be it. The annoying thing is I keep seeing something crawl around just to the right of my desk when nothing is there I swear this medicine is making me crazy.

For all of you that think you are seeing dark shadowy creatures out of the corner of your eye, you are. There is a radio program called George Norrey After Dark (or something like that) and he talks of Shadow Creatures. Those things that you think you have seen, but are not sure. That shadow that you thinkjust moved on the edge of your peripheral vision and when you turn your head it is gone. Those are Shadow Creatures. They live inbetween reality and the sub-concious. They can only appear for a split second in this reality and then slip back into an alternate reality.

Beware all of you that are seeing these Shadow Creatures that you do not slip into their alternate reality. If you can see them, you are on the edge of the precipace and may be dragged in with them, never to be seen again.

Hal

Hal - do we have M in the alternate reality? Because if we don't I may beg the little buggers to take me with them!

Only when things are bad do I see the critters so unless my head is about to explode they hide from me. I have a feeling it's sort of like catching a leprechaun...

Becky

In my alternate reality there is no such thing as a migraine. However, there are monsters and they will get you.

HeelerLady wrote:Hal - do we have M in the alternate reality? Because if we don't I may beg the little buggers to take me with them!

Becky

Funny, I thought the exact same thing when I read that lol!

I think I'd rather take my chances with the monsters. I'm back to consistently getting a migraine every other day or daily like I was a few weeks ago. Don't know if it's the amitryp or you guys (or both), but the good news is at least I can laugh a little now. Between migraines of course Don't know what I'd do right now without this great group of people facing the same issues.

Feel your pain...but misery loves company doesn't it?

I remember how isolated I felt and this forum has been a godsend. Here others actually get IT and even with some of the crazy symptoms I have, well I'm not the only one and they aren't so crazy.

Nice to see how others cope and to share in their struggles and rejoice in their victories.

Now to track one of the monsters down...I'm sure one will be appearing soon - ugh!