Cognitive/memory suffering as a side effect of drugs

[SuprSi]

Hi there,

I need help figuring out if it's one of my meds that is causing memory problems. I've never been amazing with names, but just recently I will almost always forget someone's name during a conversation and after trying to recall what it was and usually failing, I'll have trouble picking up from where I left off in the conversation. It's really frustrating, especially when it makes you look a bit dim to a potential gf!

Here's the list of drugs that I'm taking (total per day):

Lyrica 450mg
Amitriptyline 25mg
Penecillin V 500mg
Probanthine 45mg
Asprin 75mg

I'm thinking it's the Lyrica but it works too well on the neuro pain to experiment with. The Amitriptyline was prescribed because I was told 'it works well with the lyrica' to help with the pain, but I don't think it's actually doing anything. I might just stop taking it and see what happens, I'm on a fairly low dose so withdrawl shouldn't be a problem.

The others I'm not sure on..

If it is the lyrica causing this, is there anything I can do to combat this side effect?

[SCI-Nurse]

Lyrica can cause memory problems, but I do not believe that Amitryptyline does. (I will look it up to doubl check that.) What time of the day do you take the Lyrica? You migh experiment to see if taking it at night leaves you with less problems.

The rest of the medications should not be contributing to the problem.

CKF

[SCI-Nurse]

I just looked up amitriptyline and it does not list memory problems as a side effect. That being said, it is an anti-depressant and many of them do have that issue. If you want to stop the amittiptyline, please talk to your physician about it before doing it. No matter how small the dose, they should set up a weaning schedule. See if stopping it helps improve your memory.

Hope this helps.

CKF

[SuprSi]

Hi, thanks for your response and appologies for slow reply.

I take 150mg of lyrica morning, lunch and a couple of hours before bed. It seems to wear off fairly quickly so I try to space it out as evenly as possible.

I'll contact my doctor like you suggested re weaning off the amitriptyline, if it doesn't improve my memory at least it's one less thing to remember!

[fromnwmont]

Lyrical did effect me the same way, i felt like i was having a cheech & Chong moment! "What were we talking about "

[swh2007]

Lyrica definitely has that affect. I take three pills a day, but two of the three at night to try to minimize the those side effects. It helps somewat.