Elavil

[Marty]

I have developed a condition they call polymyalgia rheumatica- aching weak muscles. They are thinking about giving me Elavil an anti-depressent in low doses like 10 mgm at night. Severely depressed patients get 100 t0 150 mgms per day. The PDR says Elavil ( amitryptyline hydrochloride) interacts with warfarin but doesn't say how. Does any one lurking here have any personal information about this drug? Thanks Marty

 

[LUVMyBirman]

Hello Marty,

Hope you are feeling ok...despite the DX. Don't have anything to offer as far as the interaction. Though...I have heard though someone who has taken this drug that it induces sleep. If you decide to take it....try bedtime if you can.

Take care.

 

[Nancy]

http://www.whatmeds.com/meds/elavil.html

Check the above out. It says that Elavil may increase the effect of Coumadin.

Keep a good eye on any new symptoms with this med. Joe ran into some difficult reactions related to an anti-depressant, tremors, confusion, hypertension, slowed body movements. It was due to his age, and his impaired kidney function mostly. The dosage had to be cut way back. I believe that his was a different class of drug than Elavil though.

 

[Ross]

I've been on it before, but not while on Coumadin. It's supposed to elevate your INR as Nancy has posted.

 

[Marty]

Thanks, Gina, Nancy, and Ross. If I go on it I will test more often and see what happens. I'm thinking I may not take it- its got a list of terrifying side effects and I don't do well with drugs. I may simply stay with Tylenol and perhaps take low dose Prednisone, which also has some bad side effects.I get best relief from Percoset but all the doc's say narcotics are a no no in this condition.

 

[Ross]

Just be careful with that Prednisone, it cost me my left hip, but I was on 60mg a day for about 4 years.

 

[bvdr]

Marty, I am on Nortriptyline for neuropathy and the dose is also much much lower than when it is prescribed for depression. I did not have to change my warfarin dosage at all. I am on 25mg at night and was upped to 50mg but that just made me too sleepy. It has helped the pain in my feet and legs. I hope you soon get some relief.

 

[LUVMyBirman]

Marty -

Do you take a Statin? If so....sure you are aware of the many side effects. Would ditch that fast with the new DX. In fact...trying to get a relative off his, mid 70's with PD. His complaints are all muscular with rapid deteration. Do agree with Ross on the Pred...though, for temporary releif on a very limited basis, dose pack. Would not hesitate. I recall doing so a number of years back after suffering three months with a pulled trapedious (sp) muscle. Did the three day and was able to function like a human for awhile!

Wish you all the best. See if you can get in to a water therapy or exercise water class. May help.

Take care.

 

[Marty]

Thanks, Betty, this is interesting. I have read one doctors opinion that this tricyclic antidepressant has fewer side effects than the Elavil. I may give it a go if the only ill effect you had was sleepiness.

 

[Marty]

Marty

Do you take a Statin? If so....sure you are aware of the many side effects. Would ditch that fast with the new DX. In fact...trying to get a relative off his, mid 70's with PD. His complaints are all muscular with rapid deteration. Do agree with Ross on the Pred...though, for temporary releif on a very limited basis, dose pack. Would not hesitate. I recall doing so a number of years back after suffering three months with a pulled trapedious muscle. Did the three day and was able to function like a human for awhile!

Wish you all the best. See if you can get in to a water therapy or exercise water class. May help.

Take care.

Gina, Fortunately my cholesterals have aways been OK so I've never needed statins. I've heard that water therapy is helpful and that one of the physiotherapists here has a nice warm pool with a stepper and a bicycle in it. I would like to try it. I will definitely go easy on steroids. One of my old teachers said steroids "let you dance at your own wake!"

 

[Susan BAV]

I don't know if these experiences will help...

I don't know if these experiences will help...

Hi Marty -

My husband's relative has had polymyalgia for many years and prednisone made her bloat and get fat and she didn't think it helped overall and regretted taking it. She said the best relief she's received is from occasional acupuncture treatments. She has to eat a balanced diet and get her rest too. Stress really wipes her out for weeks at a time.

Another relative was diagnosed with fybromyalgia several years ago and she was put on an antidepressant and an RX of Advil--a fairly typical RX combo for that diagnosis at that time. She eventually tired of the routine and caused herself some kind of stroke-like event by going off the antidepressant too quickly but she's on various vitamins and supplements now. She thinks she's better now overall.

Neither relatives were or are on anticoagulants.

Hope you feel better soon.

 

[Marty]

Thanks Rachel and Susan. This is useful information for me.I guess I'm lucky I never got "polymalgia" till late in life. I remember when fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome began to show up on the medical horizon a few years ago. Many of the internists thought the conditions psychosomatic because all the blood tests like sed rate, rheumatoid factor, etc. were negative. Some patients were flat out told they were crazy and to see a psychiatrist.I remember the touching story about Laura Hillebrand who wrote Seabiscuit. She had horribly disabling CFS.

 

[Marty]

TCM will be considered if all else fails! Thanks Rachel

 

[Susan BAV]

A little more detail...

A little more detail...

(in case more detail is helpful to anyone) - The relative of mine with fibromyalgia had Lyme disease a few years before the fibromyalgia was diagnosed; and at this time she's had Lyme disease at least four separately diagnosed times and more recently developed rheumatoid arthiritis, diagnosed by conventional blood testing.

Regarding TCM, like any kind of medicine and as Rachel indicated, there are some practitioners who are evidently more successful in treating their patients than others. You may have to flap your ears for a good word of mouth recommendation of someone near you, should you eventually consider that route.

 

[hensylee]

my brother had and nurse cousin has 'lightning strikes' in their feet - called peripheral something. Nurse cousin was rxed Elavil - one of the first antidepressants that came out back in the 60s/early 70s. She doesn't take it every day; only when it strikes during the night hours so that she is able to sleep. She is not on coumadin.

 

[catwoman]

Elavil for muscle pain??

Elavil for muscle pain??

I'm puzzled as to why amitryptyline would be Rxed for a physical problem.

I took it in 1981 for depression. It's used for behavioral problems in cats (for aggression due to testosterone and for OCD).

I looked up amitryptyline at costco.com, and didn't see an indication for any physical problem.

Just wondering...........

 

[PJmomrunner]

Marty:

I'm just gonna throw this out there for what it's worth:

Avoid MSG like the plague.

It happens that one of my husband's co-workers, who was alarmed by his regular ingestion of hydrolyzed vegetable protein (which is very high in MSG), sent home an article with my husband last night that addressed the dangers of the stuff. Well, not one to jump on a boycotting bandwagon or believe just any author's "research," I searched pubMed for bonafide studies of MSG and "excitotoxins". In short, I found a lot of studies to support the idea that MSG is a neurotoxin that can at least exascerbate (if not cause) all sorts of neurological problems from MS to Parkinson's Disease.

Alas, this means no more veggie crumbles for me!

 

[hensylee]

I'm puzzled as to why amitryptyline would be Rxed for a physical problem.

I took it in 1981 for depression. It's used for behavioral problems in cats (for aggression due to testosterone and for OCD).

I looked up amitryptyline at costco.com, and didn't see an indication for any physical problem.

Just wondering...........

lots of meds have uses for problems other than the prescribed one. yesterday I had a dental appt and the dentist prescribed Chlorhexidine Gluconate oral rinse. Label says it's for gingivitis, but I don't have gingivitus - just a sore spot on my gum where a bridge connector rubbed and it got infected. I read the prescribing info from my pharmacist. It says "this drug may also be used to help prevent tooth decay in those with suppressed immune systems to decrease the formation of mouth sores (mucositis), used with other meds in severe types of gum disease, and used to help prevent pneumonia in intensive care patients on a ventilator.

My ex, when having to give a speech, was very fearful - stage fright to the nth degree. He was told that taking an inderal tab about a half hour before the speech would perhaps help - and that others did it. He was in the medical field so it was a doctor secret that the rest of us didn't know. Lots of meds are prescribed for uses other than what the original was intended. Remember the hair growing pill? It was for something else when it came out.

Amytryptiline works on the nerve system, I suppose, and these peripheral strikes my cousin has are nerves in her extremeties. She says it works.

 

[Marty]

I'm puzzled as to why amitryptyline would be Rxed for a physical problem.

I took it in 1981 for depression. It's used for behavioral problems in cats (for aggression due to testosterone and for OCD).

I looked up amitryptyline at costco.com, and didn't see an indication for any physical problem.

Just wondering...........

Marsha and Ann, the best I can find out is that Elavil is prescribed for PMR(polymyalgia rheumatica) to help establish better deeper sleep. For a long time the rheumatologists have noted an association between poor sleepers and "fibrositis", etc. Patients apparently can stay on the low 10mgm dose indefinitely without ill effect. Ambien, Percoset, etc. are not good for the long haul. I'm going on Elavil first time tonite. I'll report results, side effects, and changes in INR if any in a timely fashion. Thanks for your interest.Marty

 

[catwoman]

lots of meds have uses for problems other than the prescribed one. yesterday I had a dental appt and the dentist prescribed Chlorhexidine Gluconate oral rinse. Label says it's for gingivitis, but I don't have gingivitus - just a sore spot on my gum where a bridge connector rubbed and it got infected.

Ann:

We use it on our kitchen floor. We've managed to keep our floor from getting gingivitis.
It's a disinfectant used by veterinary practices & at cat shows to clean judging cages between cats & tops of judging tables. $27.95/gallon for 2% chlorhexadine gluconate solution.

Marty:

Elavil SHOULD make you sleep like a baby!
That's the main side effect I remember with it. I was a Camp Fire leader and we took a group to the Camp Fire camp for the weekend. Two of the girls snuck out on Friday night -- walked right past my cot -- and I never heard them.
But it seems that most of the other leaders did hear them. I got an earful about it the next day.