Good to hear its doing something positive for you mate. It is strange how they are fine in dishing it out for smokers but no one else here in the UK.

Hey

Symptoms: light SA, distimia with boots of moderate/severe depression

Other treatments: paxil (slightly effective), effexor (not effective)

experience with wellbutrin: Horrible. I had an allergic reaction after taking one pill. I had rashes and joint/muscle pain. Rashes quickly went away, but the joint pains lasted for five or six days. Only after one pill... Turns out this type of allergic reaction is called serum sickness-like disease. It can be serious if the treatment is not stopped. From what I read it could affect about 1% of people taking Bupropion. I think it's a lot. No wonder why this med is not used as an antidepressant in many European countries. But I guess it can still work for some. I tried it because SSRIs don't do anything for my lack of motivation and anhedonia.

Starting this medication tomorrow morning. I got Wellbutrin SR 100mg. Did not ask my doc what the difference is between XL and SR. Looked it up real quick. SR is usually taken twice daily?? My prescription says once daily, I wonder why, but I will be taking it once every morning. Anyway, other than the difference in release times (slow, and even slower), SR and XL are basically the same, right? Also I think he will up the dose next time I see him anyway. I've been trying no meds, for at least 2 months now, and I got the Wellbutrin (I requested) to have for "just in case" I wanted to try it before I see him next. After a lot of thinking I made the tough decision to quit my no meds streak and to try a different med, therefore I just picked the meds up at the pharmacy, ready to go for tomorrow. Well, I'll be updating soon how it goes for me. I am trying this after Paxil (2 1/2 years I was on it) which I quit due to sexual side effects. One more thing, I wonder how the weight loss effect will... affect me. I'm already underweight. AND one more concern, does this medication decrease its effectiveness over time, or is it something I can take forever?

4/3/17
10 days on 100mg SR (and NOTHING else) -- Hey so I'm not sure it's fully supposed to kick in for 4-6 weeks but that you can have symptoms in the first week. I think this is correct. These are the new changes in my body WITHOUT necessarily claiming it's from the medicine:
- Nightmares. Really scary, not sure why nor do I remember any of them.
- Must not eat in the morning, not even a BITE of anything, or I will definitely get diarrhea is seems =/ This has happened twice recently. I don't really eat breakfast anyway so I can just avoid this.
- Random ear ringing
- ZERO reduction in depression. Horrible feeling every waking minute. Suicidal thoughts.

Hard to measure if depression has gotten worse though. I will continue and see if it gets better. I'm dying for this to work.

4/16/17
23 days on Wellbutrin SR 100mg - Today I had accidentally skipped my dose for the first time and I won't be home until later, so, I'm contemplating if I should actually continue. I'm at 3 weeks and wanted to give it at least 4, but I don't think it will make a difference. My advice is that 100mg of Wellbutrin is PROBABLY not enough. My depression has become much, much worse. Forget all the other potential side effects I posted. They went away very quickly and perhaps had nothing to do with the medication. I honestly noticed no change. I'm calling my psych tomorrow to see if he will see me early, and see what he says. But I doubt he will want to keep me on this, he wanted me to try Viibryd which I'm all for now. So I likely won't be continuing this. I know while it's in my system I should have the dose heightened and actually give it a chance. But I'm desperate for something to work ASAP and I think Viibryd will do it. Overall, 100mg is too low, moving on for now. Peace.

@athiesm

I take 150SR 2x's a day for the last 2 months(300mg/day is standard treatment dose.) Amazing mood boost throughout. Only insomnia at the beginning for about a week. No affect on motivation or anhedonia.

Wow how long did it take for it to kick in? If it was going to work for me, at 3 weeks would it have worked by now? That's what I'm torn about, whether or not I'm giving it enough time. On top of only taking 100mg of Wellbutrin, it is once a day for me, not twice. I wonder why he started me so low! And then I don't see him for a while. I'm not criticizing my doctor or anything but I've been wondering that. So yeah I definitely think 100mg is doing literally nothing to me.

Um my dr gave me no instructions so i pretty much jumped into it over 2 weeks, but felt a noticeable difference after 3 days. It's like my vision got really clear and sharp. The mood isn't crazy high, but it is better than what it initially was.

I'm undecided as to whether I'll continue on it b/c, as i said, it hasn't touched my motivation and anhedonia issues, but the mood boost is really nice. I was doing a lot of therapy work previously and getting a lot of good results before taking it so i am curious to see if I can mimic the mood boost and get some movement on my other issues without the meds.

@Atheism it might be dose. Might be worth sticking dose up higher for a short period and seeing what happens? It's always worth trying a med on all doses before abandoning it, esp since Wellbutrin isn't an SSRI / SNRI etc. .

If you've mentioned your anxiety, that could be it. Wellbutrin tends to have a stimulating effect and can, in some people, actually increase anxiety. He probably wanted to ease you into it, to see whether you could tolerate it or not.

Atheism, jaiho posted something on a parnate thread on the medication forum about agmatine sulfate and its antidepressant med enhancements properties, one of the med it enhanced was buproprion. Might be worth looking into - agmatine looks like a widely available supplement

Thanks guys. I'm reading these even though I haven't replied. I'm still not sure what I'm doing, if I should keep trying it or just move on to Viibryd. I did decide I wasn't going to call my psych early, and give this medicine a little more time. So I believe I'm seeing him in 10 more days. Wish me luck ^ I'll check out that parnate thread still.

Finally talked myself into asking my doctor about increasing my dose--even though I am terrified to do so, since it just seems to be starting me down the path toward yet another med tolerance. sigh.

Just filled my new prescription. Before I was taking 150 mg of the xl tablets... Now I've been prescribed 300 mg (150, twice a day) of the sr tablets... And I'm already having second thoughts.

This is probably going to end badly.


And yet another schedule-dependent pill to juggle is just what I need...

I have a combo of ADD, depression and anxiety. I feel like my biggest issue is the add, but the depression has creeped it's way into my life the last 20 years or so... and has become quite burdensome. The anxiety is kind of the least of my concerns, because I don't feel anxious all the time. But in certain situations it feels pretty debilitating. It causes me to not pursue many things I want to do because it keeps me at bay. I still have issues with making phone calls, and building up the nerve to initiate things.

I'm taking bupropion generic at 300mg. And it's helped quite a bit. Before the med I would generally not get as much enjoyment out of things, I didn't know it was there... but my passion for stuff went away. I would wallow in my own thinking and it was hard to get out of it. I can play a video game and just appreciate the art of it. I would not find any pleasure in looking at things I used to get filled with a sense of wonder. I thought my lack of enjoyment was just a sign of maturity... but it's really not.

I still feel about the same with anxiety. But the rebonds from adversity is much faster now, I can withstand negative things without automatically going to dark places. I still get nervous, but I can just roll with it with good humor and general amusement with life.

I also combined this with strattera for ADD. And the combo is bad news. It really messed me up with a high dose of both. I am now on 40mg strattera (before I was up to 100mg), and it works pretty well. But the two amplify each other. My brain is more clear though. And I can speak, communicate much more clearly. It actually doesn't do much for my general distractibility, or procrastination. In some ways it's worse, because I don't hate on myself as much for being lazy sometimes.

In certain situations though, the combo seems to worsen my anxiety. It's a strange feeling because, I can sense myself being socially anxious and nervous... but at the same time I'm able to cognitively perform around it. I can have the two states working in myself at the same time. Before the anxiety would overwhelm me and numb me.

One downside is my sensitivity to caffeine and alcohol. I used to be able to drink a large coffee drink and have no problems. Now if I drink the coffee, or even a large soda, and do something socially stressful I really start to get anxious. It's pretty awful. By myself I can handle the caffeine decently. But doing my job is no good. Alcohol seems to be affected too, though I'm careful to keep myself to 1-2 drinks a night though. I wish I could drink more, but the affects aren't the end of the world... it just amplifies the feeling.

Wellbutrin is a unique drug, and I think it's worth a shot for depression. It's certainly helped me a ton. Hasn't solved all my cognitive issues. But at least now I get to enjoy the ride.

Has anyone experienced random uncontrolled muscle twitching or jerks on Wellbutrin / Bupropion?

I am experiencing my leg jerking or shoulder shrugging or extra hard blinking from time to time and I don't know if it is this or the Lyrica (Pregabalin) that I'm on.

It is like a bit of a twitch as if I had been startled or something, it is hard to explain but basically an uncontrolled movement for a brief second.

Wanted to try it but the psychiatrist said they don't use it and put me on Olanzapine instead which I've already tried ugh