My Head Hurts #7: Seven Months and Counting

I’m not a medical professional. The following is my personal experience. Please talk to your Doctor before you change your medication or take painkillers.

If you’ve ever avoided writing a letter, you realise that the longer you wait, the harder it gets. It sounds as though I’m making excuses; it wasn’t that I didn’t want to write, if I’m honest, I haven’t known what to write. It may not have come across, but when I’m writing about my antidepressant withdrawal, I’ve tried to maintain a note of optimism and, in my own clumsy way, inject a little humour. However, as last year came to an end, I couldn’t summon either. My 62nd year has been one of the worst, and it seems as though there’s nothing I can do about it.

When I took my last tiny dose of Amitriptyline on the 20th July 2025, I knew that there were going to be withdrawal effects, that at times they might be unpleasant, and they were likely to hang around a while. I wasn’t wrong. What I hadn’t expected was that almost ~~six~~ seven months later, they would be having such a significant impact on my life and that they would, if anything, be getting worse.

So, I put off writing, telling myself that I’d pick it up at the end of January; today is the 14th February, so judge for yourselves how well that went.

I’d like to think that I’ve now come to terms with that new reality, but being honest, I haven’t really. Back in July, I remember reading that the 5% of antidepressant users have withdrawal symptoms that last longer than nine months. But there are dozens of antidepressants and millions of users; we’re all different. I rationalised that although most of the remaining 95% would have been taking the drugs for less than my 25 years, some had to have been. Maybe Amitriptyline wasn’t one of the worst drugs, and I couldn’t be that unlucky, could I?

In the cold light of January, I read the summary of a paper detailing the reality of how many sufferers experience side effects for multiple years; that many are far worse than I have experienced (so far). Missing both the Amitriptyline and the sunlight, my mind started to wonder whether not only could this last more than my mythical nine months, but it could get significantly worse.

The Symptoms

In the abstract, it’s interesting how the symptoms have changed. The first few weeks of withdrawal were dominated by headaches. Amitriptyline takes about seven days to leave the system. So in those first few days, the headaches were the actual withdrawal of a drug my brain had become used to over the previous 25 years. They were followed by a range of symptoms (I wrote about them in MHH #4) affecting every part of my body, from balance and tinnitus to itchy skin and insomnia. There’s a very comprehensive list on the Mind website; I’ve ticked off most of them.

The constant, since I started cutting down the Amitriptyline over a year ago, is the numb pain in my extremities, mainly my legs. At first, it was similar to pins and needles, annoying but easy enough to ignore. It transitioned through restless legs and has now developed to become a dull, constant pain that affects my whole body from my toes to a patch on the top of my head. It never recedes completely. At times, if I’m distracted, it’s easy to ignore, and then there are the other times, when it is everything. Nothing can quieten its presence.

There are the large waves and the smaller waves within them. The best way I can explain it is like an electric current running through my body. The large waves last a few days; the smaller waves, a couple of hours.

The Solution

This is probably a good time to remind you that I’m not a Doctor. These are my conclusions from my personal experience. Discuss your symptoms with your doctor.

It should have been obvious sooner that any substance that affects our perception is, to a larger or smaller degree, changing the chemistry of our brain. That could be coffee, antidepressants, or painkillers. This is the same chemistry that our body is trying to rebalance. It doesn’t seem a stretch to think that this could slow that rebalancing. If you have a medical diagnosed imbalance, that’s one thing, but if we’re self-medicating even to ease symptoms, are we hindering that rebalancing? Of course, the effect could be negligible, or a price worth paying. I’d love to have the medical knowledge to research it.

So, the options are limited. I find the headaches the hardest to cope with. On average, I get two bad headaches a week. As I understand it, Paracetamol is one of the safest commonly available over-the-counter painkillers. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have much impact on my headaches, so for those, I take Ibuprofen, which does help, but taken long-term can damage the kidneys, so I don’t like taking it frequently.

The pain is generally worse in the mornings and evenings, so I take two 500mg paracetamol tablets before I go to bed. Generally, they help me to get to sleep. Then I take two more if the pain is bad when I wake up in the night (as long as four hours have passed). I don’t take painkillers during the day, unless in the most exceptional circumstances.

I mentioned in MHH #5 that I’d taken Co-codamol (which contains codeine and can be addictive). My pharmacist had said it was okay to take one tablet each night. That didn’t chime with what was clearly written on the box. When I next saw a GP, I mentioned it, she was emphatic that it is far from okay and went so far as to insist that I don’t take it.

The Effects

Antidepressant withdrawal syndrome has had a huge impact on my life. If I weren’t able to work from home, I would have had to stop working some months ago. As it is, there are many days I have been less productive than I need, but I’m fortunate that I can catch up when I feel better. However, I have decided to retire early. I have a demanding job, and I know that I’m not turning in my best work; there’s only so long you can make excuses. I’m not old enough to get a state pension, but my wife is working, and I’m not a huge spender, so as long as I’m careful, my savings should last.

I didn’t have a busy social life, which was not great, but okay, but now it’s virtually nonexistent, which isn’t okay. A couple of lovely close friends have kept in touch, and I’ve promised myself I will treat them both when I can. Apart from that, life is quiet.

I have so many plans. There is so much I want to do. When I hit 60, I realised that there is far more I want to do than I have time for; so these days spent sitting on the sofa looking out of the window are not easy.

If you’re entering withdrawal and looking for reassurance, then I feel I should apologise. Today, you’ve come to the wrong place. I don’t have a life-threatening illness, and yet this withdrawal has all but stolen my life. It’s difficult not to feel just a little cheated.

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For Professional Advice

Dr Mark Horowitz’s website offers the most practical, professional advice I’ve found online. The academic papers are impenetrable to the non-professional. But he has useful links to newspaper articles which explain things in layman’s terms. The UK mental health charity, Mind, is also a good resource.