Re: Update-Mary
From: Christine M. Smith (smithy@maine.rr.com)
Thu Jul 1 23:40:46 1999
At Thu, 1 Jul 1999, MaryWade wrote:
>
>Chris--Have you tried the antidepressants for the pain? It's a tough
>thing to take something called "anti-depressants" when you *know* that
>if you didn't hurt, you'd be exhibiting that normal happy self that
>lurks in all of us. I kept telling people "I am stressed because I hurt
>and not vice versa!" I hate taking meds but I have really been helped by
>taking Elavil. Since I have been on it, I can sleep...even soundly
>enough to dream...something that I had not done for years. And I don't
>hurt as much. The first doc that put me on it only gave me 25 mg a
>day...that was not enough. For me, it takes 50-75 mg a day to make me
>fairly functional.
>
>A footnote re: constipation...try flax seed from the health food store.
>I even like how it tastes. Good to see the board up and
running again.
Hi Mary:
At the stage I'm at I don't want to take antidepressants, not the TCA's
(i.e. elavil) or the SSRI's (Zoloft etc.) It would be trading one set
of problems for another. I took imipramine for 4 years for leg pain and
the pain was gone after 3 months treatment with Lupron. ( I continued
for a total of 6 Months) It was supposed to be for endo but I'm not sure
why the treatment was successful, but I do know it definitely was.
Anyway, the imipramine had side effects I didn't like. I tried Elavil
first and I couldn't stand it. It is extremely sedating. Zoloft isn't
as bad, but there are other side effects I don't care for. Won't go
into them since our messages appear all over the Internet!
Chris S.