Hi - I hope someone can offer me advice. I am fortunate and my symptoms are relatively mild and mailn sensory. I suffer from freezing feet and leg - neuropathic pain which I deal with using themal socks and blanket and Pregabalin. I am now at the maximum does of 3 x 200mg per day. Since September I have been waking in the night. At its worst it would stat about 1 or 2 am. I have now cut out caffine after 6pm. As I go to the loo a lot I have cut down liquids in the evening… This improved things a little and I now manage to sleep until 3 or 4. Increasing my pregabalin helped a little too but I am getting to the end of my tether. I am not sure if I need the loo when I wake up sometimes I get up for a pee sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I am aware of sensations in my legs, sometimes I’m not. Sometime I feel as if my heart is racing sometimes not. What is common is I have dificulty in getting back to sleep and at best I only dose. I just seem to be getting more and more run down and don’t know what to try next. I use self hypnosis CDs to help me diet so I have good relaxation techniques but this does not help much. My symptoms are alway best in the morning after rest and get gradually worse throughout the day. Because of the lack of sleep I am exausted during the day and my symptoms then feel worse. My work are really understanding, I reduced my hours to 34 in August anyway, and they let me take time off at short notice but I can’t keep taking days off. I would be grateful of any advice on what I could do be a lifestlye changes or medication that might help. Thanks for your time. Rona
Hi Rona, I used to have problems sleeping at night due to neuropathic pain and having to get up to go to the toilet. My neuro prescribed Amitriptyline at a low dose (20 mg) which works on more than one level: it helps with neuropathic pain, it causes drowsiness and I also find I don’t need to go to the toilet as much during the night. I find that I am sleeping much better with the Amitriptyline. It certainly makes a huge difference to get a good night’s sleep. I also take Pregabalin and my neuro says that it is fine to take both. I hope this helps. Amily x P.s. I take the Amitriptyline at about 8.00p.m. and the drowsiness wears off by the morning.
Amitryptilline definately helps sleep as well as nerve pain, well worth a try.
Thanks for your advice guys. I took Amitryptilline about 18 months ago to help sleep before I went onto Pregabalin as I needed something during the day too. My sleep interuption is worse now than before I took Amitryptilline. I could not manage throughout the day without the Pregabalin and it had never crossed my mind that I could take Amitryptilline on top of that at night. Thanks again. I will email my MS nurse to make sure that it’s ok with her then get another prescription from my GP. Thank again your help is much appreciated x