I was prescribed 10mg Amitriptyline per night for very bad headaches related to a neck injury. That has now healed and I stopped taking the drug about 10 days ago. I've experienced bruising and diarrhea which I believe are know side effects of the drug but also some lower GI bleeding which I written about elsewhere. These things are under investigation - doctors saying suspected diverticular inflammation - but wondering of the Amitriptyline could have had something to do with it as bleeding is also listed as a sided effect. Any thoughts?
How long were u on Amitriptyline and did you gradually wean off this drug? Curious, as I have been prescribed this recently as well, 10 mg at bedtime.
Only about six weeks while the neck injury healed. The doc had said this was a low dose to work as a painkiller (rather than the higher doses when used as an anti-depressant) I didn't think to wean. At first, concerned as it made me feel dozy in the morning, I was cutting the 10mg tab in half but 5mg wasn't enough to deal with the pain whereas 10mg was.
Yes, it does make you drowsy. I'm battling that now. No bleeding though and yes, bruising and bleeding are some of the serious side effects but I am glad that you are off it and hopefully the bleeding will resolve itself now. I was on another type of pill which bleeding was listed as a side effect. I did experience the bleeding, not significant, but still worrisome as you can imagine. I stopped the drug and the bleeding stopped as well. Pretty scary stuff but I am glad your dr is ruling out anything serious. I hope you feel better soon. I, too, suffer from neck pain due to a previous injury, so I feel for you. Take care
My doc said to take the amitriptyline two hours before bedtime to counteract the morning drowsiness. As I don't have a particular time for going to bed or if I had been out for the evening, that wasn't always possible. Even if I did take it two hours before, I still felt zombie-like come morning. But that did wear off after a couple of weeks. Sadly, my bleeding is significant and so it may have another cause. Diagnostics scheduled for Saturday so fingers crossed.