Posted by ed_uk2010 on March 1, 2018, at 13:53:19
In reply to Switch from amitrip to noritrip due to poop out?, posted by Jaxter99 on February 28, 2018, at 21:50:50
Hi,
Glad to hear that a low dose of risperidone is helping so much for anxiety/panic.
Nortriptyline is one of the metabolites of amitriptyline. This means that nortriptyline is produced in the liver when people take amitriptyline. Overall, amitriptyline has been studied more widely for pain than its derivative nortriptyline... but nortriptyline remains an alternative option.
The usual reason for switching from amitriptyline to nortriptyline in chronic pain is because amitriptyline is causing too much drowsiness or certain other side effects. In many cases, people find nortriptyline less sedating. The effectiveness of the two meds for pain is probably fairly similar overall, but some people prefer one to the other.
In your case, you've tried a higher dose of amitriptyline and it doesn't sound like it helped. This suggests that it might be worth asking for a different type of treatment/medication from your urologist, rather than switching from amitriptyline to a similar drug. What do you think?
If you do switch from amitriptyline to something else, bear in mind that after long-term treatment, gradual withdrawal of amitriptyline is recommended to avoid causing symptoms eg. difficulty sleeping etc.
poster:ed_uk2010
thread:1097097
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20180212/msgs/1097107.html