In this episode, I discuss my experience after using bupropion (Wellbutrin XL) for 2 months. I use Wellbutrin XL to treat depression associated with Bipolar Disorder.
Hey everybody welcome back to drug talk as always i’m my host gary campbell in this video i’m going to be doing a continuation of my last two videos that i’ve done in the last two months talking about my personal experience with bupropion or wellbutrin so far i’ve done a video at the one week mark and also at the one month mark now before i get into the kind of
Review per se i just want to talk about something i mentioned in my last two videos in that with most with most antidepressants um there’s kind of two things you really have to factor in in terms of how the medications working the first one would be the efficacy or how effective the medication is and unfortunately with antidepressants that kind of starts off
Slow and then gradually increases over time until around the one or two month mark where you really reach that maximum effect now the other thing to consider is side effects which seem to happen early on and then taper off with time i mentioned in my one week video that i was having a lot of side effects a lot of anxiety dry mouth a rapid heart rate and they
Kind of tapered off around the one month mark and now being at the two-month mark i’m really not having any side effects at all the only side effect that kind of still persists would be anxiety but i find this only happens when i increase the dose so after one month i increased from 150 milligrams to 300 milligrams and again experienced anxiety for four to five
Days afterwards and recently i increased at the two-month mark about two days ago i increased from 300 milligrams to 450 milligrams so again the anxiety is kind of back a little bit but it’s not as severe or troubling as it was at the one week review that i that i did when i first started the medication the anxiety was much worse overall i’m pretty confident
That over the next week or two i won’t be experiencing any side effects at all now the other thing to talk about would be my mood or my my frequency of depressive thoughts so the first thing i’ll say is during this whole experience going from just starting the medication all the way till now at the two-month mark it definitely wasn’t a linear curve of kind of
Like a decreasing um decreasing negative thoughts it’s kind of it’s kind of staggered some days i would have a good day other than the next day i might have a lot of depressive thoughts but overall the trend was positive in that the longer i was on the medication the less depressive thoughts i would have again just some days i would kind of dip back down and have
Those depressive thoughts but overall it was trending in a positive direction one indicator that i know that this medication is really working for me is that i actually use this medication last winter but i didn’t start it last year until october 31st this year i started september 17th and the reason i use it this time here is because with my bipolar disorder it
Seems like this this part of the year this winter time when the clocks go back and it gets dark early that’s when my depression really seems to set in i know that it’s working for me because when i compare myself the way i feel now compared to this time last year it’s a world of the difference last year at this time i was had suicidal thoughts suicidal ideation
Trouble getting out of bed in the morning a lot of physical symptoms of depression and my negative thoughts were really racing through my head it was hard to get control of them but now this time of year after being on the medication for two months i’m kind of back to myself like here i am making youtube videos i’m exercising daily um the negative thoughts aren’t
As rapid in my mind and i’m able to kind of not ignore but kind of focus on positive things when they do surface i just overall it’s a different experience right now than it was this time last year now that i’ve increased the dose to 450 milligrams i do still think that there is a little bit of room for improvement again i do feel good right now very happy i
Started taking the medication early but i still think there’s a little bit of room for improvement just because there is there are still some days where my mood is decreased and i’m having those depressive thoughts again no suicide lidiation no no suicidal thoughts so i’m in a good place and the medication has done its job but i just think there’s a little bit
Of room for more improvement and i talked with my psychiatrist that at the two-month mark or around the two-month mark if i felt like it was necessary i could increase to 450. so it’ll be interesting to see over the next month or so if i can really get back to completely feeling normal like i did in july and august during that time in the summer months i was
Feeling great and had no need for an antidepressant whatsoever so definitely overall i would recommend this medication for patients with bipolar disorder the main reason is because it only has a three percent chance of pushing you into mania um i don’t i can’t really talk for people that don’t have bipolar disorder and are suffering from depression um so you may
Have to look at other review videos on youtube to get that information because remember with bipolar disorder my depression may be different from people who have unipolar depression so just keep that in mind with all my videos talking about this medication anyway that’s all i really wanted to talk about in this video just to give you a two-month update on how i’m
Feeling with the use of bupropion or wellbutrin again very happy i started taking the medication early and actually next year i’ll start taking it september 1st just to make sure that i give myself the most chance to kind of get away from that depression that usually seems to happen in october um so yeah so as always um i’m very appreciative that you took the time
To watch one of my videos if you’d like to help grow the channel remember you can like the videos share the videos most importantly subscribe to the youtube channel and there’s also some links in the description you can check out as well alright that’s it for today take care
Transcribed from video
2 Months of Therapy with Bupropion (Wellbutrin XL) | Review By Drug Talk
