My doctor recently prescribed nortriptyline for my headaches. why?

Experience: Nortriptyline which as you may know is a tricyclic anti-depressant. Amitriptyline also a tricyclic has been shown to be effective for headache prevention. Often medications which are developed for one condition are discovered later to be effective for others. That is the case here with amitriptyline.

This tricyclic antidepressant medication was not uncommonly used, years ago, to prevent or control the onset of migraine headaches. Currently, there are many far more effective and safer prophylactic medications both prescription and over-the-counter.