[GemmaTeller]

Anyone have experience with nortriptyline?

I have not had the best experiences with anti-depressants. My latest one was Wellbutrin, which seems to have helped mess me up the last couple months with hypomanic and/or mixed states. I have been very irritable, raging, suicidal at times. I stopped using the Wellbutrin about a month ago. Well I also deal with migraine headaches and the neurologist started me on nortryptyline about 3-4 weeks ago. It is a small dose, I am building up to maybe 50 mg a day. It hasn't helped yet with the occurrence of headaches and has caused my eyes to be somewhat blurry at times. It hasn't, for better or worse, affected my mood from what I can tell. The one benefit is that it is helping make me sleep for part of the night, which I wasn't before with issues with the Wellbutrin. I just don't know if should be taking it right now given my history with ADs

[BeyondtheRainbow]

I don't know about the noritriptyline. I think I tried it once maybe but don't know a lot about it.

Just in case and because this helped me incredibly (I changed diagnosis from Chronic migraine to classic migraines and went from 25/month to just a few that rarely require more than advil or my triptan if I'm home), have you tried magnesium? Nice and bipolar safe and it really helps. I take 500 mg daily and the migraines decreased almost immediately. At this point (nearly 2 years later) I can count on 1 per month when I drive home from my pdoc in the dark or with shadowy flickering light from trees and sometimes that's my only one. That's a huge difference than 2 years ago when I spent almost all my time fighting one.

They gave me a few other natural suggestions I can't try because they could interact with my MAOI. I don't remember all but definitely CoQ10 (which caused some hypomania for me so be careful if you try it), butter balm, feverfew, melatonin. The magnesium, CoQ10 and melatonin was the recommended combination to start off. There are other natural things but I don't remember them.

[GemmaTeller]

Originally Posted by BeyondtheRainbow

I don't know about the noritriptyline. I think I tried it once maybe but don't know a lot about it.

Just in case and because this helped me incredibly (I changed diagnosis from Chronic migraine to classic migraines and went from 25/month to just a few that rarely require more than advil or my triptan if I'm home), have you tried magnesium? Nice and bipolar safe and it really helps. I take 500 mg daily and the migraines decreased almost immediately. At this point (nearly 2 years later) I can count on 1 per month when I drive home from my pdoc in the dark or with shadowy flickering light from trees and sometimes that's my only one. That's a huge difference than 2 years ago when I spent almost all my time fighting one.

They gave me a few other natural suggestions I can't try because they could interact with my MAOI. I don't remember all but definitely CoQ10 (which caused some hypomania for me so be careful if you try it), butter balm, feverfew, melatonin. The magnesium, CoQ10 and melatonin was the recommended combination to start off. There are other natural things but I don't remember them.

Yes, the neurologist has me taking magnesium and riboflavin supplements. I had already been taking the magnesium. The frequency of the headaches reduced a little, but not substantively yet. I am just unsure about nortriptyline. I don't know if the pdoc is going to have a concern about it. However, if it continues to mess with my eyes, it is all a moot point, I will need to stop anyway.