Patient/caregiver was instructed upon therapeutic uses of nortriptyline as follows:
Major depression
- Nortriptyline increases the serotonin and noradrenaline concentrations and enhances their actions at the junction between nerve cells.
- This helps with contributing to increased alertness, enhanced memory & attention, and promotion of feelings of well-being, contentment, and happiness. This leads to relief from anxiety and control of depression symptoms.
Bulimia nervosa
- Bulimia nervosa is an eating and emotional disorder involving distortion of body image and an obsessive desire to lose weight. People with this disorder tend to consume large quantity of food in a short period of time, often followed by feelings of guilt and anxiety.
- Guilt and anxiety brought on by binge eating contribute to repeated purging activity and continues to establish as a vicious cycle of events, leading to the development of the disorder, bulimia nervosa.
- Binge eating and purging, characteristically seen in bulimia nervosa respond to treatment with nortriptyline.
- By regulating the concentrations of neurochemicals in the brain, especially levels of serotonin and noradrenaline, nortriptyline controls the guilt and anxiety, thus preventing the purging activity.
- This contributes to breaking the cycle of binge and purge, thus offering relief from symptoms of bulimia nervosa.
Bed-wetting in children
- Action of the neurochemical acetylcholine on urinary bladder results in contraction of bladder, bladder emptying, and urination.
- Nortriptyline reportedly reduces the release of acetylcholine, thus reducing the action of acetylcholine on the bladder.
- This action of nortriptyline helps with relaxing the bladder, prevent/reduce episodes of bladder contraction, and prevent urination during sleep. This helps to reduce episodes of bed-wetting in children.
