Sure thing. It increased feelings of happiness but decreased the desire for reward. That’s one of the reasons Wellbutrin is used to quit smoking—it decreases the desire to take risks and seek reward (dopamine effect). For me, I had less desires for basic things like traveling, engaging in relationships with my wife, and consumption of dark chocolate. It did however improve my attention span and get it done attitude initially but that was it. Here’s an article regarding happiness and reward:
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That study was conducted with healthy people. But it seems to be echoed by your personal account.
I currently have essentially no desire for anything. Like complete anhedonia. You do things because you know you must, and that’s about it. I’m never happy nor sad. So it may well be that Bupropion won’t improve these symptoms that I carry.
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Brother, it gave me feelings back but I was overly emotional about stuff. When I think about it and because I too suffer from no emotions prior to Wellbutrin, what’s worse? Feeling panicky or having no feelings? I think the answer is subjective—there was nothing fun about waking up in a full blown panic attack last night which isn’t the norm when I don’t have any feelings. On the other hand, being able to have my feelings hurt actually meant something. Has anyone tried L-Dopa? L-Dopa is supposed to increase the reward part of dopamine apposed to Wellbutrin.
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Here’s my running diary using Wellbutrin. I started on 5 Nov:
Day 1: leg muscles twitching, nauseous, slight drowsy, nervous and unsure what to expect, sleep score 82
Day 2: really happy, nauseous, slight anxiety, completed psychology homework assignments with ease, sleep score 87
Day 3: really happy, nauseous, slight panic attack, depersonalization after lunch but quickly disappeared, sleep score 80
Day 4: manic happy; sleep quality degraded, sleep score 77
Day 5: felt numb, head felt weird, sleep degraded, things don’t bother me as much, sleep score 74
Day 6: extremely tired, flu like aches, no desire to travel, improved sleep, muscle tightness, anxious during Japanese test, sleep score 86
Day 7: slightly emotional, slightly depressed, muscle tightness, desire to do things degraded, sleep score 81
Day 8: woke up feeling great, traveling to Tokyo, heart rate down to 44bpm, highly stimulated after walking, emotional about children, had two panic attacks, heart palpitations, sleep score none
Day 9: high anxiety for unknown reason likely due to crowds in Tokyo, considering to stop medication (morning), skipped dose for day but considering continuing tomorrow, overall happy (evening after talking situation with wife)
I can’t overemphasis the manic happy on day 4. That day was something that only one can experience.
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What dosage were you on? Was it the extended release version?
Stimulants are known to surpress feelings of hunger, that’s why coffee is mostly used in diets to help keeping to it. While wellbutrin is not a classical stimulant, it probably has the same effect.
I do understand that excess of floatin dopamine decrease the significance of it once it is released, there’s probably is less differentiation between no dopamine and dopamine, decreasing it’s significance. Not sure if that’s the way it works though.
@MatchaTea interesting, looking into it
is that feeling of anhedonia worse on wellbutrin then off of it? Because it seems PFS caused the same anhedonia for me. Looking forward to being productive and efficient though. It’s something that used to give me happiness.
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I’ve never taken it.
Oh my bad, mixed things up i see
I was on XL but I decided to stop after day 9.
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Did you think about trying a reduced dosage?
Has anyone else tried buproprion for at least 2-3 months? Please share you experience
I have posted a spreadsheet collating user stories of those who have taken it. Take a look.
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I’m still trying to understand what negative side effects people felt from this drug. Most have posted it made their condition worse but if you go onto Wellbutrin’s support page, there are people who also complain of side effects as their body is adjusting to the drug—my question for those that made their condition worse, were you experiencing a side effect then assumed it made your condition worse or did it truly make you worse?
5-HTP for example made me worse and it was immediately evident that something was not right. With WB, other than drug related side effects that the majority complain about, that’s been it.
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For me it was totally clear that the anorexia and sleeping problems came from bupropion, and they stayed for the whole 3 months of use. Subsided when I quit again.
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I see however sleeping problems are a side effect of the drug though. Did you have sleeping problems from PFS? The anorexia part is interesting as weight loss is also a side effect.
I don’t exactly understand what you’re asking. Fortunately I have almost no sleeping problems from PFS, same goes for anorexia.
When starting and using bupropion I clearly noticed how I was eating less and how I wasn’t eating any sweet things anymore. My weight significantly dropped after starting bupropion while I had a relatively steady weight with PFS already.
Same goes for the sleeping problems (waking early).
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Gotcha, and thanks for the feedback. I ask about sleeping issues from PFS because that seems to be a common theme. I developed sleeping problems from PFS so it’s hard to tell what’s from PFS or from the drug. How’s your sleeping now?
Most posted that it improved their condition actually. Do you mean to say ‘of those who said that it made their condition worse’?
I’ve been trying to find these posts that state things got better but it’s been spotty. Do you know who said things got better?
Look at my spreadsheet.
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