Med. Question...

[born2swim]

Well,

I am on Elmiron, Atarax, Elavil, and Ultram. I have been on Elmiron for the last 2 1/2 weeks and I added Atarax and Ultram last Thursday. What a difference they made! I take all 3, 3 times a day and it helps so much! I added the Elavil last night (Sunday night) and boy that knocked me off my feet. I was expecting the Atarax to give me more trouble with groggy side effects, but holy cow! Elavil was a sedative! It is wearing off now and I'm feeling better, but that was about 16 hours of severe groggyness.

My questions:

Does Atarax show such a drastic improvement, within a couple of days of starting it? (I have severe allergies and I noticed an improvement with overall allergies too).

Do the bladder instillatoins (with Elmiron/lidocane) help faster than just taking the oral meds? I saw the PA at my doctor's office today and she thinks I'll be on the mend quickly since I have some Elmiron in my system already. I will have 2 more instillations this week then weekly for a couple of months. Then she said, "as needed"

Elavil... yikes. It was 10mg before bed (8pm'ish) and it knocked me out (groggy until about 2pm today). The PA said cut it back to 5 and see if that helps and maybe up it to 10 eventually. What are your experiences with Elavil? I don't want to take a med that makes me feel worse (in a different way). I can't function with this bladder, but I can't function being so groggy. I had to drive somewhere today and that was pretty frightening!

I can't thank you guys enough for all your help, sharing your experiences, and guiding us newly diagnosed... giving us hope and letting us know that life isn't over with this disease! My PA thinks my prognosis is good (catching it early), so I have to make sure I don't mess anything up and treat my bladder with care!

Thank you again!

[GriffsMommy]

I just started Elavil almost 2 weeks ago. I started off on a higher dose though, my uro gave me 25 mg. Like you, I thought I was going to pass out the whole next day. I was at work and felt that I literally needed toothpicks to keep my eyelids open. It will get better and pretty quickly. I find that I am still sleeping much better with it than I did before but I am less drowsy. The best suggestion I can make is depending on what time you go to bed start taking the Elavil earlier in the evening. I usually don't go to bed before 9:30 or 10 so instead of taking it right before I go to bed I take it w/ my other meds at 8pm so that way it has time to make me sleepy and I don't feel so sleepy the next day. I can't speak for the other med as I'm not on it, hope this helps though

[born2swim]

Christine, Thank you for your advice! I think I'll cut back to 5mg and see how that goes and after I get used to that I'll do 10mg/day... unless 5mg works well enough for me!

[Kathy in Canada]

Med questions

Regarding the Elmiron/Lidocaine instillations. I am on the same routine (they also add sterile water and sodium bicarbonate inj to the instills). It helps a lot. I also take oral Elmiron. But the oral Elmiron does not help much for 3-6 months or more and it also only helps about 35% of people. So getting Elmiron instills can get you feeling better sooner. The med get right to your bladder in a larger amount. Very little oral Elmiron gets to your bladder.

I take 10 mg of Elavil and it doesn't make me drowsy. I actually take it in the morning because when I took it a night it wore off by 4 pm. I'm not taking Atarax though. Likely the combination is making you drowsy or you are just sensitive to the meds. As time goes by, you it may not bother you as much. They are both good meds for IC.

Good luck with your treatment.

Kathy

[born2swim]

Well, I was on the Atarax for a few days then taking Elavil just knocked me off my feet. I also noticed another problem with it. I couldn't swallow very well and threw up everything today. I talked with my doctor (who talked with a GI specialist) and said STOP ELAVIL. He said people with chronic diarrhea sometimes take it becasue it slows down the GI tract. If I feel it on a baby dose, I will have problems with it. So, no Elavil for that reason too. I was doing good on Atarax though, so I'll stick with that, Ultram, and Elmiron. I felt ok after the bladder instillation, so hopefully that helps me for each instillation (2 this week) and weekly for the next couple of months.

Thank you for your help!

[L. Thomas]

I get instant relief from symptoms with instillations I use. On the average I do 3 instills a week. I started out with 3 a week and had to increase at one point to every day.

Now I know more aware of my symptoms and don't let things get ahead of me. It is hard to play catch up with IC. Sometimes I don't need a treatment for longer than a week and sometimes it may be every day for a week. I just keep an eye open.

I think that is one of the differences in instills and other meds. I can regulate instills. I'm not sure how I would do that with oral meds.

[vm]

When I started Elavil it made me drowsy the first handful of days, but that symptom left as my body adjusted to the med.