How well does the antidepressant Elavil work?

Question

Has anyone had any bad side effects or anything weird happen from taking this medicine.

Answer 1

Amitriptyline hydrochloride ( Elavil as a brand name) is not recommended teens and it is known to cause suicidal thoughts in young people. People have more problems comming off of it then on: abrupt cessation of treatmentcan result in nausea, headache, and malaise. There are many clinically listed side effects.

Look here:http://www.rxlist.com/cgi/generic/amitri...

Answer 2

Elavil, a tricyclic antidepressant is considered "dirty" with respect to receptor affinity.  Prior to the advent of the SSRIs, tricyclics were pretty much all we had to treat depression and related conditions.  Elavil, like other tricyclics has a number of very serious adverse effects, e.g. potential arrythmia and so forth.  Some psychiatrists still use Elavil as an adjunct to SSRIs but at relatively small doses, e.g. 25 mg.  My personal opinion is that if you can avoid Elavil, for whatever indication, then you should as it's not a benign agent and it's hard to predict how any one individual will tolerate it.

If, however, your physician feels that it's appropriate for you, then it's likely s/he has more knowledge of your particular history and other critical information so your physician's opinion should supercede anything I might suggest.

Best of luck.