Re: Allergies

[Anonymous]

I’m really quite pissed off about having to take allergy pills. When I went for a sleep study 20 years ago, the doc talked me out of a narcolepsy diagnosis and when I pleaded with him for something to take because I was having sleep problems, he prescribed amitryptyline, a low-dose antidepressant, to help me “unwire” before bed. It helped a bit, but I stopped taking it about 4 years ago or so. I was doing a lot of meditation at the time, and my teacher at that time thought I didn’t need it, so I stopped it.

I stopped cold turkey, apparently not a good thing to do. Within a few days I was at the walk-in clinic because I could not stop scratching/itching. I was actually drawing blood it was so bad. I didn’t think it was related to stopping the meds. The doc there said “don’t use soap except on the parts that are really necessary, it’s just winter itchies” and prescribed some cortisol cream. Thankfully I got an appointment to see my GP, who wasn’t in, and I saw a locum (think that’s right), who said, you need an anti-histamine, and that’s what was in the amitryptyline (elavil). I believe that years of taking that drug caused the dependence on anti-histamine, since I don’t have allergies (other than asthma, which has worsened in the past few years). My ADD psych said amitryp has a lot of side effects and he would not have prescribed it.

So I have been on a prescription version of Reactine since then. I test it every once in awhile by taking a drug holiday, but somewhere between 48 and 72 hours I will start to itch, sometimes severely, again. So I am now dependent on this drug and quite pissed off about that, along with the misdiagnosis about narcolepsy years ago.

I was almost diagnosed with textbook ADHD this year but the ADD specialist asked me to have a sleep study, since the sleep problems had come back with a vengeance. Diagnosis this time: narcolepsy. Treatment? psychostimulant drugs. Effectiveness? Pretty darned good, not perfect, but good enough to get my life back to what is now the new normal. If ADD is still part of the picture, apparently it’s further down the list.

I did do a 3 month self-directed trial of Ritalin prior to the sleep study, and it had no effect on the itchiness, I still have to take the cetrazine prescription meds.

I am learning, from listening to people with narcolepsy and ADHD, that different drugs will work for different people. I’m just wondering if anyone else has had the same problem with amitryptyline (elavil).

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