Amitriptyline/Elavil? Long time no talk :)

Hey all... it has been a while since I've been on. Life has been a bit whacky, and I've not been active on any of my forums. Sorry about that!

Anyway, had an appt with my rheumatologist yesterday, she says everything is the same as it has been and all my recent bloodwork is still good and normal and I still "just" have Fibro, LOL (as opposed to lupus which is in my family). But now that I am off the Wellbutrin (it started giving me bad anxiety instead of taking it away!) she recommended that I try a low dose of amitriptyline (aka Elavil) for pain and potentially to help sleep as I've just kicked off my insomnia cycle again.

Talked to my pharmacist, he said that the hangover from sleep would potentially be quite bad, to give the 10 mg dose a few days and then up it to 20. He said I would probably not find much pain relief until 30 mg. My pharmacist is the bomb, by the way.

Knowing me is knowing that I often get the side effects advertised with medications, especially when they cause drowsiness. Gravol, Benadryl, muscle relaxers all knock me right out. So I was expecting the worse with this stuff. Add to it all the massive headcold I've caught, I figured I would sleep for 12 hours last night. Shows what I know! Took my pill at 8, expected it to kick in around 9, but didn't feel any more drowsy than usual. Hit the sack, and finally had to take a melatonin around 11! Still woke up a number of times over the evening and just felt crummy when morning came. Don't know how much was pill hangover and how much was just head cold, or just poor sleep in general. Also to make things even better, pain was really bad this morning. I know I wont feel any pain relief from this for a few weeks anyway - if at all. But today was crummy all around. Probably not the best conditions to be testing out a new med though.

Read one person's experience online where they said the Elavil gave them significant pain for the first couple of weeks but then improvement came. Seems like a very funny little drug. I am willing to wait out the trial period, but most reviews about it I am reading are only about sleep or depression, not pain management. So I was wondering who here had tried it and what their experiences were. Also I am reading that for many people it caused weight gain but I think this is mostly for higher doses. It is incredibly cheap in comparison to everything else being recommended to me so I am hoping this turns out to be a good solution. Really hoping people will share their experiences though, I'd like to know more of what to expect.

I will have to do a proper catch up post later. I am getting down to the bottom of my sleepy time tea and should start taking the appropriate steps to wind down. Cross your fingers for me that tomorrow is better than today was.

I took Elavil for several years for chronic diarrhea, as it is constipating and dries out the system. I had to take 50 mg per night, and it made me extremely sleepy--even through the next day. It may have been because of the higher dosage, of course, but that's my experience.