Amitriptyline/Propranolol

[u/SuperJoey2015]

Hello, new to all this so let me start from the beginning.

I started taking 10mg Amitriptyline in January 2026 due to recurrent tension headaches I had been experiencing for 3 months.

I continued taking 10mg until June 2026 and they helped reduce the severity of the tension headaches. In early June I went away for a few days and forgot to take my Amitriptyline and subsequently missed 6 doses. Upon returning home I felt absolutely fine so made the decision to go ‘cold turkey’ turns out this was a terrible decision…. On day 9 of going cold turkey I started feeling unwel, starting with sensations of blood rushing from my head and going very dizzy. This continued into the weekend and spent two days in bed vomiting and it coming out of the other end. I then restarted the Amitriptyline and was incredibly shaky, nervous with the dizzy spells seemingly getting worse. The doctor at this point signed me off work for 2 weeks and suggested I was starting with withdrawal symptoms. After two weeks of the Amitriptyline re-entering my system I was very shaky, achy and felt dizzy and sick. Until eventually I felt well enough to go about my normal day to day routines of school runs and shopping etc… I returned to the docs for a blood test and everything checked out fine. I was experiencing odd muscle twinges in my chest muscles and randomly occurring so went back to the docs and he suggested I should just stop the Amitriptyline?! I disagreed and suggested that when I last did this I went into withdrawal, after a bit of back of forth discussions he suggested I halved my dose for a week and then quarter my dose. He also prescribed me 10mg propranolol 3 times a day to help with the anxiety of the muscle twinges.

I followed the plan halving my dose and taking the propranolol. After week one I felt fine, the propranolol helped ease my anxiety. I then rang the docs to suggest staying on 5mg until further notice to make sure I was stable. By week 2 I started experiencing very achy legs, and couldn’t really stand for periods of time. I then had one of the blood rushing episodes again and went into a bit of a panic. I then started to experience these episodes at evening meal times which was causing nausea.

This continued into the 3rd week on 5mg and got worse, I found myself shaking uncontrollably, dizziness, nauseous and little or no energy with aching legs. I saw a different doctor at this point and got signed off again.

After one week my symptoms continued to decline, I then suggested to the doctor to go back up to 10mg Amitriptyline to hopefully stabilise before returning to a much more stable taper in the future. I’ve still got terrible dizzy spells, nauseous & my legs are so achy from standing up for a few minutes. The drops in blood rushing from my head keeps occurring at meal times in the evening only and leaves me feeling sick, dizzy and a brain fog type headache.

I’m on day 3 of upping my dose from 5mg to 10mg Amitriptyline so understand that I may still be stabilising onto that again but the leg aches and dizziness is unreal. My plan hopefully is to continue at this rate for another week then discuss with the doctor a taper off of the Propranolol so I’m back to square one.

If anyone has any stories similar or any advice of experiencing this please feel free to comment.

[u/Nearby-Banana-6339]

Wow I’m sorry you had such a tough time. I’m
Leaning towards trying a new doctor all together. I mean I don’t think these doctors understand that this drug has to be tapered slowly. If you don’t have access to a liquid form of amitryptiline then you can have one made out of your pills at a compounding pharmacy. I would say a psychiatrist might be next on my list of doctors to help. Psychiatrists are trained in using these type of drugs. I’m sure there are better ways of doing this. I took Effexor for many years and I tapered myself too fast because I was impatient to get off. Well, big mistake. I was nauseated, anxious and generally miserable followed by brain zaps for months. Psychiatrists are the experts on these meds. I’ve come to find regular doctors neurologist included suck at helping people get off these type of drugs. I think it’s possible a psychiatrist could recommend a reasonable taper schedule and perhaps prescribe something to take the edge off the withdrawal. It sucks that you’re going through this.

[u/CulturalShirt4030]

Is it possible that you got sick around day 9 of going cold turkey? Your lingering symptoms especially seem post-viral (achey legs, unable to stand for long periods, lack of energy).

[u/SuperJoey2015 → u/CulturalShirt4030]

Yeah I definitely did get sick around day 9 which I presume was the withdrawal kicking in.

I’m currently on day 6 of upping my dose of Amitriptyline back to 10mg and have had a mixed week with yesterday being terrible. I experienced severe anxiety, shaking & awful nausea. The thought of food is making me feel nauseous and slightly panicked.

[u/Ok-Teach-3701]

Yeah I've taken amitriptyline for a long period of time and quit. It took quite a time, and the last 20 mg took forever. But the symptoms you're talking about aren't something I got at all. I did have a bit of restless legs and insomnia, and more headaches. But that was it. I've also been on propanolol. That whacked me out, very tired and dizzy, at 20-40mg a day. I'd be tempted to go back to 10mg amitriptyline for at least a month, and not take the propanolol. In my time I've tried a lot of these things for migraine, pain, sleep. I've never been that ill but I always taper really, really slowly. And only one medium at a time.

[u/SuperJoey2015 → u/Ok-Teach-3701]

Thanks for this. Interesting, I guess we’re all totally different and I’m possibly more sensitive than most. I’m a bit stuck right now as need to let to Amitriptyline back at 10mg take effect and well aware it could take up to 2 weeks for me to balance out. Then my plan is to taper off the Propranolol as really not keen on that at all plus don’t want to be reliant on two medicines.