Getting off Wellbutrin with least amount of withdrawal or side effects

Posted by peggygris @peggygris, Apr 26, 2017

I have been on Wellbutrin for depression 20 years. It is no longer working. How do I go about stopping it with the least amount of withdrawal or side effects?

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@rucker25

I’m am tapering off wellbutrin beacuse its causes me trouble swallowing. I have been reducing my dose by 25mg every two weeks. I am down to 75mg an extremely sick. I am having spells of extreme anxiety, crying spells, but the worst part is my left side keep going numb amd my whole body feels off. When i try yo go to sleep i get more anxiety beacuse my brain racing and I’m jolted awake. Can anyone help or relate?

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I feel silly because I don’t know how to taper off 75 mg. And if I’ll feel any type of withdrawal.
I’m so sorry about your symptoms. I wish I could help more.

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In June I was on 450mg of Bupropion, that I had been on for fifteen years. I am now on 150mg and that goes in a week. I have had no discontinuation effects at all!

In fact in June I was on fourteen different meds, eight psyche meds with the remainder to deal with the side effects.

I am now on two, the aforementioned bupropion and 40mg of Latuda. Both will be gone before the end of the year.

All of this has been approved by my therapist, psych provider and primary care physician. I am monitored closely, weekly therapist visits, monthly labs as well as monthly primary care and psyche provider visits Oh, I am also on parole. I see my parole officer monthly as well.

How has this happened.

1. Research into my diagnosis, meds and all of the side effects and interactions of those meds.
2. Dietary changes: No sugar, no ultra processed foods, lots of veggies, whole grains and clean protein.
3 Daily exercise: fifteen minutes a day to start now two hours ( love moving)

That's it!

Let's be clear if I screw up I go back to prison! And prison sucks!

Initially my doctors were skeptical, no one gets better from major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder or whatever they said I had this week. I had to have the research to back it up. Fortunately the information is readily available on page one of a Google Search.

Yeah that's it type in your question and you will have high quality, peer reviewed literature from the Country's leading institution at your finger tips. I had more information about my conditions and treatments than my doctors did in about four hours. When they realized this they had to pay attention.

It took me fifteen years of hell, my wife leaving me and taking the children and going to prison until I was desperate enough to finally, type a question into a Google Search. If you can read and have access to the internet (pretty much everybody) then you can find answers your doctors haven't even thought up the questions to yet.

Are doctors bad people? No, I do not think so. The system does not allow them the time to ask the right questions let alone find the answers.

My parole officer said to me just today "you look great, I never knew when you came in if I was going to see you again, you where so suicidal".

I want to be clear: THERE IS NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT ME!

I went to prison for assaulting someone who was breaking up my marriage. I had never committed a violent act in my life and never have since, it's been ten years. I was however on massive quantities of psych meds along with alcohol (sure you can drink on psyche meds just not too much is what my doctor told me.) Who knew!

I was a successful business man worth millions by forty. I was married to the love of my life with four beautiful children who counted on me. Fifteen years ago I went to a psychiatrist because I was tired, depressed (what I called depression then) and felt like I had nothing to live for.

I Had also worked twelve hours a day, slept five hours a night, ate garbage and never exercised for twenty years. I was I was one hundred and eight five pounds when I started my business, twenty years later, two hundred and fifty. I topped out at two sixty, four months ago. I'm now two thirty five without weight loss drugs, long way to go.

I was sick alright. But I didn't need 450mg of bupropion, 450mg venlafaxine and 900mg of Lithium. I needed to take stock of my life and what I had to lose. My wife told me you work too much, you don't sleep enough, you eat garbage and you haven't exercised in years. Her advice came from love and fell on my deaf ears.

The psychiatrist advice came out of the mouths of drug salespeople pushing magic pills to fools like me looking for a quick fix to the problems I had created for myself.

I have destroyed the lives of my my now ex-wife and my children. Am I at fault? You bet I am.

I went looking for a pill that would allow me to continue to feed my ego. While I tried to achieve more and more I told myself it was for my family; bullshit! It was for the greater glory of me and they paid the price.

Now I am sixty years old and a broken man. My only goal now is to live long enough to try to help my ex-wife and children heal. All I had to do was stop and listen long enough to the woman that loved me and I might have saved my family from years of horrible suffering. I failed them.

Deep inside there was a little voice telling me my wife was right but I snuffed it out.

Please, please, please if you ever hear that voice pay attention!

I wish everyone the peace you deserve. Remember you are loved.

P.S. I had to do one other thing. I had to be mercilessly and ruthlessly honest with myself.

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@mjfalk3

Took 2 years to get off venlafaxine counting beads ( for hot flashes) with the help of generic Wellbutrin 150 sr. Now 1 month of 150, 1 month of 150/100, one month of 100, one month of 100/75 ir, down to 75 ir and am sick - nauseous and fatigue. Went back to 100 mg and still sick 3weeks now. Please help. My doctor is no help.

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I did the same counting beads. I really thought that withdrawal was worse than my depression and past suicidal thoughts.

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@chiaska19

Hi....I am doing what you are. I am now taking 150mg every other day. After several weeks, I plan on taking one every 3 days etc. My MD told me that getting off Wellbutrin should not be difficult. I have noticed a difference in how I feel, but not enough to continue as I was. I am willing to persevere because I want off anti-depressants just as you do.

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I’m down to 150 for a month now and want to try every other day now. How did it go for you?

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Hi Melanie...my journey of getting off the meds went well. There was a relief when I took my last pill. I went down to 75 mg. manybe twice a week to none. That period of total withdrawal lasted for about 8 months. I want to try psychedelics and legislation is moving forward to provide an alternative here in Arizona. I have a friend in Colorado who said that microdosing psilocybin treatments helped her son overcome depression and alcoholism. The pharmaceutical industry will allow this to actually happen about the time that they have a drug on the market that they can charge us big time for......glad that you are being persistent. Stick with it! Take care, Debra

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