Coming off nortriptyline: how slow is slow enough?
Episode notes
Nortriptyline (Pamelor) is an older tricyclic antidepressant, and people take it for four quite different reasons: depression, nerve pain, migraine prevention, and sleep. Where you started is where a taper plan starts too.
This episode covers what the drug does and why it can leave you dry-mouthed and drowsy, the reasons people revisit an old prescription, what a sudden stop tends to feel like and how quickly it arrives, and how a step-by-step taper is built with smaller cuts as the dose gets lower. We also talk about telling withdrawal apart from the original problem returning, and why slowing down, holding, or stepping back up are all normal parts of a taper rather than signs of failure.
Read the full guide: How to Safely Come Off Nortriptyline (Pamelor). To find a clinician who works on deprescribing, see our provider directory.
The hosts of this episode are AI-generated, and the discussion is built from our written guide.
Educational only, not medical advice. Never stop a medication without your provider. If you are in crisis in the US, call or text 988.