As many of you know i failed Amitriptyline… I have a meeting with my PA on Friday… i was hoping to see if he would let me trial Nortriptyline… can anyone comment on what the difference between AMI and NORT?
note: i failed AMI due to high resting heart rate and heart palpitations… although it did help with my MAV symptoms.
Amitriptyline is a stronger anticholinergic and ultimately a stronger vestibular suppressant so can make people feel less symptoms. Nortriptyline is milder but generally better tolerated.
Imho if you can handle Amitriptyline take that, if you can’t settle for Nort. Nort is definitely worth a try even if you have failed Ami. Good luck!
I failed AMI before… my resting heart rate jumped from 70-75 to 100-115… also the heart palpitations were scary 
What dose were you on?
I started at 10mg which already caused me to have high resting heart rate but when i bumped it up to 20mg the heart palpitations started.
Wow. Well I had restless leg for a while on 20mg but most of these side effects eventually subside.
I’ve written about this before but the worst side effect is the slowing down of your bowel because unfortunately the bowel uses the same neurotransmitters.
It also makes you less mentally sharp. I reckon I gained 20 points of IQ stopping Ami, lol
I had the same feeling on topamax… I felt doped up and extremely stupid on it. Did you have worse dizziness when closing your eyes ?
At the beginning there were episodes I couldn’t close or even move my eyes for fear of immediately throwing up.
Hi Brian,
What dose did you start Amitriptyline on? It is a very difficult drug to increase or decrease. Any little change throws my body off. When I first started it, I took the lowest mg pill (10mg) and broke it into 4 pieces…so 2.5mg and from there very very slowly over more than 6 months, did I reach 20mg. But it made me feel very very heavy. It is a very difficult drug to work with. However when I reached 20mg I asked my doctor if I could switch to Nortriptyline. Basically they are the same. Ami convers to Nori in the body. I was very scared about the switch, but I did, and I had no issues whatsover. It was the easiest switch considering my elevated fear. Instead of the 20mg Ami, I took 20mg Nori. Some people have said that Amitriptyline is stronger. But I can’t find dosage equivalents anywhere. If you are working with either form, start very very small, and increase it very slowly over a long time. Then your body won’t get thrown into a flurry of difficult side effects. Don’t move to the next dose up, until your body has gotten used to the present dose…maybe upto a month. It is a long, slow process.
Hope this feedback helps you Brian88, even if I did not answer the question exactly. 
It did.
Sorry to hijack an old post but wondering if you could give me some advice. I was diagnosed 2 month ago with VM. I was prescribed Amitriptyline which has amazingly worked well……no dizziness or headache for 4wks then bang out of nowhere I’ve had a headache now for a week. But no dizziness as of yet. I’ve tried sumitriptan for 3 days at the onset and that only works for a few hours before coming back. Do I keep going with the Ami ….are breakthroughs common when a medication has worked extremely well initially ?
Thanks in advance.
Please don’t go off Topic. Raise this in a Topic about Sumatriptan. Find a suitable one via Search.
Breakthroughs are normal. These medications aren’t silver bullets unfortunately. I suggest sticking with Ami for at least 3 months. If you give up on medications too soon you will risk a journey of constantly switching meds which definitely won’t help.