In today's article I want to give an update to my previous review.
I said that I was starting Bupropion early because of the depression I was feeling associated with my bipolar disorder.
I've now finished the first week of therapy with Bupropion or Wellbutrin so I just want to kind of share my thoughts and my experiences with it up to this point.
The first thing I'll come right out of the gate and say..
Since I started the medication my anxiety has kind of gone through the roof, it's something that I've been experiencing very intensely.
Probably more intense than I've really experienced it in the past when I made that last review saying I was starting this medication.
I said that I was experiencing thoughts of depression, kind of early on nothing too intense but I was having some depressive thoughts and with those thoughts comes anxiety.
I was already experiencing anxiety but after starting the medication I could feel it right away.
In the first two days anxiety kind of just went way up and I'm still experiencing that now, but luckily as you may know I do have Clonazepam to kind of combat that.
Just for these first couple weeks until it kind of levels out and my body gets used to the medication.
So as many of you probably know the big thing with antidepressants is that when you experience most of the side effects associated with them, the side effects kind of happen early on and then taper off as you as you get used to the medication and then benefit kind of takes a little bit longer to stir.
But then rises up kind of opposite as side effects so side effects start off early on go down.
Benefit kind of takes a little bit of time a lot of people stop using the medication while the side effects are kicking in before they have a chance to really experience that benefit.
So knowing this obviously I'm going to keep pushing through.
These side effects especially the anxiety: and get to that point where I know I can get maximum benefit which I'm hoping will be around the one month mark.
I think I will see some some progress along the way but for me it's really that that first month I think is when I'll see some benefit and I'm basing it off my experience with this medication.
Last winter other side effects that I'm experiencing, one would definitely be a rapid heart rate so tachycardia.
I don't know if this is associated with the anxiety but I do know that this is a side effect that can happen I believe greater than 10 percent of the time with Bupropion.
So I am experiencing that and also a little bit of dry mouth or xerostomia.
With that I just drink extra water and it kind of gets better throughout the day.
But other than those three side effects so dry mouth, rapid heart rate and anxiety.
I'm not really experiencing any other side effects.
I think I'll be able to successfully push that one month mark like I just talked about.
I'm still feeling really good about my decision to start this medication early.
I don't know if this is placebo or what it is, maybe I just feel a little more secure being on it but I already feel a decrease in the depressive thoughts that I was experiencing.
So it's interesting I don't know if I can get this much benefit in the first week.
Some people say you could get 10 benefit in the first week so maybe I'm experiencing that but I do notice a decrease in my depressive thoughts that I was experiencing.
It's just that anxiety that I really need to go away.
Some good news with my therapy I got a phone call from the psychiatrist office the other day I do have an appointment scheduled for October 17th.
So that's perfect timing especially when I just started this medication.
You know making the medication change and experiencing side effects, experiencing changes in the thoughts of depression that I'm experiencing, but these are all things that I can bring to the psychiatrist and we can have a really rational good discussion about it and kind of make a plan moving forward.
He may have some suggestions of medication changes I can make or even dose adjustments I can make to kind of get through this winter better but overall it's really good to have him to follow me through this time is because like I said in some other rview last winter was really tough..
Author: Garrett Campbell