Hey folks, I'm about to get started on Welbutrin to complement my Effexor. I was hoping that if you guys have any particular opinions or things to watch out for you could,et me know so I can keep an eye out. I've been warned of the possibility of anxious or nervous energy, especially soon after taking it and I've been googling it for some more info. I tend to have resistance to some sedatives, but since this one gives energy I have no idea how this will go :3
I took effexor and THEN welbutrin (ironically enough because the effexor started making me feel like i was on speed while the welbutrin had me much calmer. Idk how it would be taking them together but fwiw i responded well to both and liked the smooth level of low energy increase the welbutrin gave me. Good luck!
i've got two separate experiences with wellbutrin. the first time i took it, i was taking it and nothing else. i wound up crying a lot (and when i was unmedicated i didn't cry at all) and stopped taking it after two months. i'm taking wellbutrin now along with cymbalta, and i'm feeling pretty good! i think wellbutrin gave me the energy to have feelings, so alone it wasn't a good thing for me, but it works well in combination with something else.
wellbutrin made me so calm, i did pretty much nothing the whole time i was on it. i was just a contented marshmallow. now, maybe that was because i really needed a rest and was finally able to take one, but after a few months i got too frustrated with not having the motivation to get up off my ass, and also with the fact that it seemed to make my nonverbal-ness bleed over into text so it was super hard to write anything but cliches and echoes, and i quit taking it. important note: do not go cold turkey from wellbutrin. you will sleep 20 hours a day for a week, and think you have mono or worse, and waste money on doctor's appointments and freak out your spouse. :P
Welbutrin produces a brief window, about a week in, where my brain is suddenly in top form and working really well. After that, it makes me painfully stupid and gives me really bad brain fog. It sucks for me. :(
Don't take wellbutrin if you have seizures. I also know someone who took wellbutrin for 4 years and developed a seizure disorder because of it. Also do not for the love of god take wellbutrin if you have a history of psychosis. This is how I ended up in the hospital for an extra week because it exacerbated my existing condition. Be on the look out for psychotic symptoms (delusional thinking, paranoia, hallucinations). If those occur tell doc immediately and have them switch you to something else and stop the wellbutrin. Good luck!
i've been on welbutrin for about a year; think it worked for me in the beginning but isn't making a discernible difference now, and i'm really only taking it at this point because it makes me too nauseous to eat, which is a shit reason to stay on a medication! so, uh. try and avoid if you've got a history of disordered eating, otherwise i remember it being awesome for energy and staying awake when it was still doin things 4 me 8)
Thanks for all the help folks! I've started taking it today, and in three days or so will have a full first dose (I'm having half pills for the first four) to see how my system reacts. I've told mom about the worse side effects and to keep an eye on me. I thankfully have never had a history of migraines or seizures of any sort, or paranoia or stuff, so hopefully that won't happen. I frankly don't have a good idea what will happen with a stimulant, since I know I have a resistance to most sedatives, but hopefully it just means I'll have a bit more energy than I do normally. I hope things work out with this one, but if not, Effexor alone is not bad at all, so I'm pretty optimistic.
Dosage was really important to me with Wellbutrin: 300mg works really well for me, 200mg leaves me a marshmallow. It's also made me more sensitive to heat - I'm already pretty heat sensitive, because I've had heat stroke several times, but with Wellbutrin it kicks into nausea pretty much immediately as soon as I get the least bit overheated. A cool drink seems to help, though. I also had a pretty steep side effect curve when I was going on to it - the first few days it was kind of like I was on speed, and I had to tell a professor that I probably shouldn't commit to the project we'd been talking about for the three hours over which I missed lunch because I felt like I could conquer the world. I also got aphasic episodes, but those stopped about 5 weeks in, and some dehydration issues (dry mouth and other) that have been 100% managed by upping my water intake, and not super dramatically. I also got really irritable sometimes for the first few months, which is what prompted trying the lower dose, but that hasn't come back in the two months since I went back on the full dose. I talked to my doctor about the side effects four weeks in, and that's apparently when a lot of them start tapering off sharply. Oh, and I now get migraines twice a month instead of every 2-3 months, but since you don't have a history hopefully you won't get it. And, like, that's a fairly long laundry list of side effects, but my brain now works and I don't want to die, and the upsides of that cannot be overstated. So hopefully you don't get any of these! The only one I'd point out to other people necessarily to watch for is the irritability, because for me that escalated slowly but badly until I was feeling really bitchy and that felt normal.
I was considering Wellbutrin because my mom and I are very similar and it worked well for her. But uh... this worries me. you guys better let me know if I try wellbutrin and my thinking becomes psychotic
Well if you don't have psychotic symptoms now they shouldn't make you psychotic but it's something to be aware of.
Thaaaaat makes a lot of sense :P I moved house recently and lost track of my bupropion (aka Wellbutrin, but known in the UK as Zyban). This was problematic, because executive dysfunction already meant aaaahhhh unpacking, and hypersomnia already meant holy shit what is with my circadian rhythm, so I didn't find it before I ran out. After I ran out, I was too sleepy to look for it. (I stumbled across it the other day, though.) Anyway. I actually suggested bupropion to my psychiatrist, because I thought that it would help the lethargic, inert, 'stuck' symptoms of my depression, and it couldn't hurt on the hypersomnia front either. (My sleep disorder and my mood disorder are demonstrably distinct entities, but my depression contributes extra sleepy/sedative symptoms.) It's interesting that you're combining it with Effexor, because a lot of the reasons I suggested it were specifically to counteract the still-lingering side effects of my six-month Effexor stint. (Doctors: 'It might kick in at some point! You have to give it a chance!' Thanks for that.) Effexor had no primary effects for me, but had a whole laundry list of side effects, including significant weight gain and adding about five hours to my daily sleep needs - both of which have stuck around since I stopped taking it, and both of which seriously damage my mental health and general well-being. So the bupropion suggestion was partly made in hopes of counteracting that, but I do think it's helped my mood. My depression has improved, my avolition issues have decreased, and it's easier for me to keep a relatively regular sleep cycle, by which I mean getting up before noon and not sleeping for more than twelve hours at a time. (That's easier, though, not actually easy.) I haven't noticed any side effects, apart from the accidental withdrawal, which caused brain fog/sleepiness and increased appetite.
Update: so far I haven't noticed any effects. Granted some side effects might have been masked by the cold I nursed for like a week and a half, and I'm not at a whole month, but I am vaguely surprised since I remember feeling changes, if feeling unsure if they were really changes or all in my head when I started taking Effexor (it was a real change that got stronger as my dose grew).
