Elavil withdrawal?

[Steph4302]

Hi. I'm a 24 year old female, on Elavil for the past 18 months. Started at 10 mg, increased to 75 mg over time. Originally prescribed to help me sleep and help with my GAD. It helped at first but lost its effectiveness even after increasing the dosage. Panic attacks started while on the Elavil leading my doc and I to believe it is not helping the anxiety. Doc prescribed 1 mg Ativan to take on nights when I must get a good night's rest. It is working wonders for me. I've been told to taper off of the Elavil over a 2 week period but I've been dragging it out a little more to make sure I do not receive any WD symptoms. I have not taken any Elavil for the past 48 hours and am now feeling nauseous, shaky, irritable, and uneasy. Is it possible that these are WD symptoms? Or maybe just my regular anxiety? Even though I have no reason to be anxious, it's a saturday night! Any comments or experiences appreciated :)

[Paxiled]

Yeah, common withdrawal, but usually with ssris.  Tricyclics can also be difficult to withdraw from, though to a lesser extent than ssris and snris.  If it's not tolerable, tell your doctor you want to taper more slowly.  Just a reminder -- neither ativan nor elavil is for sleep.  There are so many stories on here of people being put on these strong drugs for sleep problems; they should be handled with remedies, hopefully natural, that are actually designed to help people sleep -- sedation isn't the same as helping somebody sleep naturally.  It's also possible elavil caused your anxiety to increase -- although ssris and tricyclics can be good for anxiety, they can also cause it.  Now, it might be helpful for GAD, but not sleep -- eventually, these things usually interfere with sleep.  Two separate problems.