I saw my psychiatrist this morning and we decided to try prothiaden for depression (he recognized that i was depressed and wanted to try something straight away)and for neuropathic pain. Being an old tricyclic antidepressant it is good for depression, neuropathic pain and also has antihistamine effects. So 7f it eorks hopefully it will work on those three fronts. I tried it before about 8 years sgo and was successful on it for depression for some time. And then it stopped working properly. It never seemed to help migraine pain (for which it was prescribed) but did help depression, gave me energy and helped somewhat with erythromelalgia. Although in those years my erythromelalgia was partially controlled through following a very strict and limited diet. Not so anymore.
Just because I have used a med before does not mean my experiences using it a second time will be the same. Plus I am starting slow - on the lowest dose of 25mg to start. So it will take me some time to reach effective dosage, I think.
I was wondering if anyone had experienced some success from prothiaden. Apparently it is not available in the US, but is in many other countries. Any experiences of people taking prothiaden or any of the other tca antidepressants would be welcome. BTW, I can't handle the ssris or the snris - they cause me agitation, sleeplessness and dont help my EM at all.
Help with EM would be great. But I'll be happy if it helps with my depression.
Hi Blue. I Live In The US so as you said it may not be available here. I don’t have issues with depression that would warrant meds but it sounds as if it could be effective for EM too with its antihistamines and known to help with neuropathic pain. It sounds encouraging.
We sent out a quick message to our members here to see if anyone else has tried this so hopefully you can hear from someone who has tried this soon.
I’m glad you are on your way to feeling a little better. I’m so proud of you for taking the steps to make it happen
I took my first tablet last night and got about 5 hours sleep. I woke a few times but quickly fell back to sleep, so success in that regard already.
I did break and eat a lot of chocolate yesterday. Chocolate will cause an EM flare and it did -last night. I was cursng my foolishness in eating it - I was burning and even my most soft pj top was hurting my skin. But once I got into bed with the fan blasting, the sheets I had on my bed (which will hurt my skin in a flare) did not hurt! That was a pleasant surprise. It seems too early for the med to worked as much as it seemed to but ...hey.. whatever helped me to sleep when my skin felt like it was being sanded by my clothes, I actually did sleep better than I have in a while.
My only concern was that last night I developed mouth ulcers and they are still there. This can happen with certain foods (and can be part of a flare) so I hope it was the chocolate and not the prothiaden that caused them. Fingers crossed that it's not the med. Am looking forward to tonight's sleep which should be even better as long as I dont eat anymore of the foods that cause me to flare. It had been a long stressful day and I think I was really indulging in some ' magical thinking' (as my pain specialist calls it) that the chocolate wouldnt burn or that somehow one little tablet would turn things around completely. At least it shows I have some optimism left :)
It really is strange that I slept as my skin is still hot and very sore now. Guess it's going to take some time to get over yesterday's chocolate indulgance. my feet feel numb and burning and as though my clothes are cutting them all at the same time. But there is not a lot of redness - I dont always get red. My face is red and a bit swollen but not so badly as I have seen it. The places that are hurting the most have few visual indicators that they are hurtng. I find lately, that this is occuring more and more. Back to my limited and boring diet, thats for sure. Next time I break away from it I won't go for something as hard core as chocolate. I had been craving it persistantly for days. After my EM started, I used to take days to react to chocolate, now its hours - and the reactive flaring is a lot stronger than it used to be. Before Em chocolate used to be such a 'comfort' :(
