ADHESIONS Messages for November, 2001: Amitriptyline - helps to quiet chronic pain... and...promotes restful sleep!!!

Amitriptyline - helps to quiet chronic pain... and...promotes restful sleep!!!

From: Helen Dynda (olddad66@runestone.net)
Thu Nov 8 09:22:41 2001

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[] AMITRIPTYLINE - does help with both pain and sleep!!! I was prescribed Amitriptyline (generic of Elavil) in the fall of 1976. I was prescribed the lowest strength of Amitriptyline - 10mgs to start with. Then my doctor increased the strength of the Amitriptyline gradually every other week until I had reached a level, which was giving me the therapeutic help I needed. He also spent alot of unpaid hours counseling me. He recognized that I was in a lot of pain and also very depressed. Amitriptyline has been recognized as being a medication which is helpful for both depression and pain relief. Depression plays a big part in the sensation of chronic pain. Depression can increase the sensation of pain (so it is important to get help for the depression too). Amitriptyline is not addicting; and best of all, Amitriptyline does not cost "an arm and a leg"!!!!!

A person's Amitriptyline level can be monitored by having periodic blood levels drawn. When I first started seeing a psychiatrist (My pain is/was not all in my head!! She happens to be a psychiatrist, who specializes in the management of pain; and because she is a medical doctor, she is able to write prescriptions for medications of all kinds.) in January 1997, she wrote a prescription for my doctor to draw a blood level of Amitriptyline. At that time I was taking 225mgs of Amitriptyline.

As a result of that blood level test, my blood level of Amitriptyline level was 525mgs!! My Amitriptyline level was at a toxic level!!! So gradually over several weeks my psychiatrist lowered the number of milligrams I was receiving so that I am currently taking only 100mgs at night.

She also started me on Carbemazapine (generic of Tegretol) - starting at a low level and gradually increasing over several weeks. Currently I take 200mgs in the AM and 400mgs before bedtime. As I mentioned before, my psychiatrist specializes in pain management -so she knows what she is doing.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT MY EXPERIENCE WITH AMITRIPTYLINE:

1.) Undiagnosed chronic pain finally diagnosed as adhesions in 1997...27 years later!

http://www.adhesions.org/forums/ADHESIONS.0006/0220.html

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2.) My Adhesions Quilt story

http://www.obgyn.net/cfm/adhesionsdisplay.cfm?SortName=FirstName&ID=22

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