joseph noonan wrote:
>
> On Fri, 18 Jan 2008, John Thornton wrote:
>
She took two different TCA's, Elavil
> (amitriptyline) in the morning and Tofranil and night.
Amitriptyline as I said before was the anti-depressant that pulled me out of my worse depression in the mid-80s. It stopped working and I switched to SSRIs which never worked very well on the aspects of depression that I suffered most from. I have always had trouble with sleep, and long ago I began taking 50mg of amitriptyline (way below levels need as an AD) every night, not so much to help me get to sleep but to prevent waking up around 2-3am and not being able to get back to sleep. I still take it for that purpose. Like ambien, and unlike all other sedatives, amitriptyline does not interfere with REM sleep. I take a half a tab of Ambien every 10 days or so. But mostly just having it on hand acts as a sedative without taking it -- as long as there is ambien around I don't keep myself awake by worrying about not going to sleep.
Carrol