Elavil/amytriptyline questions | Arthritis Information

 

My nurse called today and said my rheum wants to double my prednisone and for me to consider starting elavil as I am having a lot of pain problems and ESR was up.  So I looked it up and am not sure what to do. the elavil sounds like would help with nerve pain, fibro, sleeping, interstitial cystitis etc etc.so could help with many of my issues, but I see it can cause "extreme weight gain" - just what I need - and that it is an anti-depressant. I already take nortriptyline for nerve pain and it is an anti-depressant as well.

Back when I was having unexplained fatigue (dx chronic fatigue--but probably early ra) as well as other stressful life events, a psych that I liked prescribed elavil hoping it would reduce my fatigue by making me sleep better.  It made my fatigue much worse.  But I don't know that I was really having quality of sleep issues because I wasn't all that depressed, just tired.  So I can't add much except that I didn't really give it a chance to work, because it made me super sleepy (and--at that time--I didn't think I was depressed and objected to being on an antidepressant.  I really wasn't that depressed and I could tell this time that I was.) I'm on it for Fibro and it is very effective for me. I can't say it's better than nortryptaline but it's definitely better just for sleeping--really a night time medicine. As to the weight gain, I haven't noticed any added weight. You shouldn't be taking it with the nortryptaline--you probably would roll down the nortryptaline and then work up the dose of amitryptaline.  It can help you sleep with as little as 10mg and work up to maybe 50mg. No reason to take more unless you need it for depression but everyone is different. Long ago a doctor prescribed it to me for fibro. I started packing on the pounds within 2 weeks. I soon stopped it because it did nothing for my pain just made it more obvious that it was joint pain and not muscle pain. He did have me move up to a high dose, so maybe the weight wouldn't be so much at a lower dose.

Hi Laker,

I was given elevil for fibro.  It is an antidepressant but given in a low dose it has a different function.  I stopped taking it after about a year or so because although it helped me get right to sleep, I still would wake up during the night with pain and I was groggy the next day until about noon from it.  Some people do really well with it though. So maybe it is worth a try.