I am considering switch from buspirone to bupropion, need your feedback.
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I was already on bupropion when I took fin and developed PFS symptoms. Perhaps it helped me get through it and perhaps it prevented me from crashing even further! (After seven months of PFS, Iāve been symptom free for a month now. Fingers crossed as I know some people crash again).
Iām still taking bupropion. At the very least, Iāve never noticed any negative side effects from it. I think it being a dopamine booster makes it unique and potentially a much better drug than SSRIs.
Given that I was already taking it before PFS, I canāt speak to whether it changes symptoms of PFS if begun after PFS sets in. But I bet some other people here can.
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I recently started it and had to stop just as quickly. Positively I felt strength and presence but developed increased irritability and the urge to give someone a kicking. Iāve never raised a hand to anyone in my life so found it quite disturbing . Symptoms of high dopamine. Back pain and dark urine ensued later that dayā¦ however it has been a godsend for many, hence my toe dip.
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Hi, it is awesome that you recovered, congratulations. Itās a overnight recovery or improved gradually? Any sign before recovery?
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Thanks for your feed back
I found that mostly I had to distract myself from thinking about it too much, so there may have been slight improvements with some of the mental and cognitive symptoms over the course of the 7 months, but nothing too noticeable.
The ED, genital numbness, lack of libido, poor orgasms, watery ejaculate were consistent throughout the seven months. Nocturnal erections began coming back after about 5 months, Iād say. I definitely took that as a positive sign, but I still had no libido and could not get an erection from arousal.
Then one day (and it felt very sudden), I had a sexual thought and I noticed the sensation of organic, spontaneous arousal for the first time in 7 months. Everything worked as it should, and my ejaculate was normal, and a very large amount.
In the month since, my libido has been mostly within normal ranges. It can be hard to know for sure if little dips are due to lingering symptoms or just general life stressors. But Iām just happy for things to seem mostly normal again, even if there are some minor symptoms lingering.
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So just from increasing dopamine, even though it took 7 months, you had that one day of basically a reversal? Just from Wellbutrin?
I ask because my pscych mentioned it but Iām afraid of increase anxiety which i already take Ativan for
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Itās hard to say how much of a role the Wellbutrin has played in my recovery. But I have never gotten any negative side effects from it. I tend toward low energy/no motivation in my depressed state. So I never had an issue with it making me jittery or anything like that.
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Iāve been on bupriopion for the past 7 months or so. I started taking it after my second crash when I was impotent and libidoless. A couple of weeks later, just like Roy1, something just suddenly started working down there and I had slight spontaneous arousal and it grew slowly from there (no pun intended).
I have felt 90% recovered for the last 4/5 months. Iām kind of afraid to stop the bupriopion, just in case itās the only thing giving me this improvement, but my doctor assures me that the brain can maintain the upregulation of dopamine production after weening off after a long period of time.
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Thanks! It is really give hopes, I will talk with my doctor about this later.
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Congratulations on your 90 percent recovery and the length of time itās held for. Very interesting especially considering that I have personally narrowed in on the neurotransmitter path as being the likely culprit.
My first through is why the heck are we only learning of Bupropion and PFS peoples responses to it now. I mean the drug has been around since 1969 and we have been here for years. Anyway ā¦
Ok so Bupropion sells under brand names Wellbutrin and Zyban. The drug is a norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor which prevents reuptake/reabsorption by neurotransmitter transports. I have read that in laymanās terms that this means it makes these specific neurotransmitters āhand aroundā longerā¦
The drug is used to treat Parkinsonās which we know involves ālack of dopamine signalingā which I think means in a nutshell lack of dopamine in the brain. Itās also used to treat ADHD. Interestingly I have ADHD . I was born with it. Also a combination of decreasing natural serotonin synthesis and increasing natural dopamine synthesis has brought my sexual sides back to baseline. Increasing natural serotonin synthesis solo fixes my constipation and makes my sexual sides worse. I have read that the body strives to keep serotonin and dopamine balanced. So at least in some of us maybe dopamine in the brain is impaired in result of 5AR enzyme inhibition and serotonin is lowered to match the low dopamine causing the constipationā¦
Did you crash/get PFS from Fin? You said āafter your second crashāā¦ what caused the first and second crash ?
How did you get the idea to take Bupropion? Did your doc offer it ? Do you know any other PFS people taking it outside of this thread ?
You also mentioned that ābut doctor assures me that the brain can maintain the upregulation of dopamine production after weening off after a long period of timeā
Iām just curious to know like how this came to be . Are doctors currently treating PFS people with Bupropion and are we not aware ?
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@ Hanru_Sun
Please keep us updated
Maybe if itās low dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain for us then maybe this causes GABA to lower or something and this causes the need for benzodiazepines. I wonder why this scenario would happen ā¦
I mean as far as we know the only direct impact we are aware of that 5AR inhibitors have on neurotransmitters is the lowering of
Allopregnanolone while on the 5AR inhibitor . And Allopregnanolone is allosteric positive modulator of the GABA receptors. So I can see how this would impact GABA. But why dopamine and norepinephrine? Maybe we have a predisposition to having dopamine issues in the brain ? And for some reason Allopregnanolone lowering and its impact of lowering on the GABA receptors triggers the pre existing dopamine issue? Just thinking out loud
@5-alpha-victim youāre ignoring the fact that DHT is synthesized in the brain and with 5ARI like Fin this downregulates as well.
DHT in the brain directly impact dopamine system. As well as other areas like motor learning, sexual function etc.
Edit: A nice read for anyone interested https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3500858/
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Congratulations on your recovery and the length of time it has held for
So you took Bupropion and fin together ? You got PFS . Or all the PFS sexual sides anyway. Then you stopped taking Fin. But stayed on the Bupropion and 7 months after getting all the PFS sexual sides AND staying on Bupropion all of your sexual sides recovered. First erections came back on line and then all of the other sexual sides went away ?
Do I have all this right ?
How did it come to be that you ended up on fin and Bupropion at the same time ? Did your doctor just tell you to take both at the same time ?
I took one pill and was hit 4 hours later after waking up. Totally impotent and zero libido. I technically consider that my first crash (or just and instant adverse reaction). After roughly a month I partially recovered somewhat, then crashed to impotence and zero libido again after 3 weeks. This lasted for another 3 weeks to a month. Then I started buproprion, originally for the depression and suicidal thoughts. Then I had my improvements.
It was prescribed by a psychiatrist who had never heard of PFS but has been kind about it and told me buproprion can have potential libido-increasing effects due to the dopamine.
He told me that buproprion can be weaned off of, while your brain maintains the state of dopamine production after cessation when I expressed concerns about stopping it and potentially ācrashingā (which he doesnāt understand the concept of really).
Iām not sure if it was thanks to the buproprion or my body healing over time, or even the cocktail of other drugs I took out of sheer desperation, but itās nothing short of miraculous.
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Interesting ā¦Thanks for sharing
We should deff explore this further . Bupropion sounds like something that has potential for us
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Wow
So a psychiatrist has at least temporarily cured your PFS with bupropion accidentally without really even knowing what heās doing . Very interesting
Canāt believe you crashed from 1 pill of fin, started to recover and then crashed again. So after your second crash you went ā3 weeks to a monthā stuck in that crashed PFS state before going on the bupropion and getting better and staying better for 7 months ?
You mentioned you took a cocktail of drugs before going on the bupropion? What you took all kinds of other stuff out of desperation in that 3 weeks to a month time period ? Iām asking because that seems like a short amount of time to have the chance to trial a cocktail of other drugs ?
Thanks 5-alpha! Hopefully it continues to hold.
I had already been on Wellbutrin and Trazodone from my psychiatrist; Wellbutrin for depression/motivation problems and Trazodone at night for insomnia. These symptoms were related to interpersonal trauma/betrayal that I had experienced months before.
I noticed my hair starting to thin (probably sped up by the stress of my interpersonal trauma). The internet kept bombarding me with ads for hairloss treatments. I ended up getting Finasteride delivered to me through the website Hims. I never told my psychiatrist. I donāt dislike this particular psychiatrist, but I just have a distrust of the American healthcare system in general. My experience with fin only confirms my distrust of the pharmaceutical aspect of the system.
My PFS symptoms started within a day or two of taking my first dose of fin (six 1mg pills over the course of six days). I got hit hard with the sexual side effects (complete numbness and everything else that comes with it), and the mental sides too. Really awful anxiety, moodiness, irritable, couldnāt concentrate, brain fog, unable to sleep, etc. I didnāt put all of this together as being related to fin until I had taken it for six days. I looked up side effects of fin and found the Propeciahelp site. I immediately stopped taking fin at that point.
But I kept taking Wellbutrin, and Iām still on it. And I doubled my dose of Trazodone so I could actually sleep. Itās probably a good thing that I had a sleep aid already prescribed to me so I didnāt have to go a week without getting any sleep.
I recently reduced my Trazodone dose by half, back to the original dose. I also go without it some nights, if Iām tired enough. But itās nice to have for when I feel like I really need a solid night of sleep.
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Two weeks into my second crash I started the bupriopion, then around 2 weeks later I noticed a spark in libido.
The next few months had ups and downs with some ED, so I was worried for a while and relied on cialis and viagra, but then that subsided and hasnāt been back for these recent 4 to 5 months. Also, only in the last 3 months or so have spontaneous erections started to happen again. Morning erections are still hit and miss.
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