• Select Your Topic Then Scroll Down
    Alcohol Bupe Benzos
    Cocaine Heroin Opioids
    RCs Stimulants Misc
    Harm Reduction All Topics Gabapentinoids
    Tired of your habit? Struggling to cope?
    Want to regain control or get sober?
    Visit our Recovery Support Forums

Misc The Wellbutrin (Bupropion) Negative Side Effects Thread!

DoomeDXM

Greenlighter
Joined
Jul 17, 2009
Messages
26
The Buproprion (Wellbutrin) Negative Side Effects Thread!

Mod note: This is the thread to post in if you've had bad experiences with Wellbutrin / buproprion.

See also: Buproprion (Wellbutrin) Thread

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming....


----


Note: I know this thread is basically a trip report, however I would just like to hear from others about their experiences with this pharm.

Hey guys, I was just wondering if anyone else was curious (stupid may be a better word) like me, and tried using Wellbutrin (bupropion) for a recreational purpose. I took approximately 3,000 mg (which is a bad idea) and began to have vivid hallucinations all throughout the night and even the next day. In my bedroom, I saw tons of spiders and scorpions crawling all along my ceiling and eventually dropping down on me. Spiders were literally everywhere, and when they were falling on me, I would physically feel the touch of their legs on my skin (it was very odd).

I also witnessed what appeared to be an older man (it was so convincing) that would sit at the end of my bed and laugh at me, but obviously he was just a part of the hallucinations. At one point I remember seeing myself lying on my bedroom floor covered with the spiders and what looked to be a weird type of centipede. I cannot describe how scared I was at first, but after a while I realized that it was all in my head and things eventually got better. Every object in my room would just constantly sway back and forth and it was very interesting to watch. Eventually, I somehow managed to fall asleep through all the chaos, and unfortunately, I do not remember much else from this experience.

It was all such a mind-fuck for me and I will certainly never touch Wellbutrin again. Even now, the day after the experience, I am still experiencing mild hallucinations. Although all the creatures and images were quite frightening, I do not necessarily regret doing it.

tl;dr - I was just curious if anyone else has ever had a series of hallucinations while on Bupropion.

If you believe this thread needs to be moved, please do so as I am a new member here and haven't quite gotten used to things.

Peace guys %),

-DoomeDXM
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've taken wellbutrin before, my doctor prescribed me some a couple years ago when I was trying to stop smoke cigarettes. He said it would help me with the cravings. Instead it gave the worst vivid nightmares I've ever had in my whole life and made my feel like a space cadet during the day. I will never take wellbutrin ever again. Taking it in a normal prescribed dose sucked ass so I can only imagine what a shity time you had. Definitely stay away from that crap, I wouldn't even give those pills to my worst enemy.

ZombieAssassin
 
I EXPIERIENCED LOSS OF LIBIDO, IF THAT COUNTS....THOUGH...THIS LOSS OF LIBIDO OCCURED IN REALITY. So I guess it doesn't. Nope, I stopped after 5 days.
 
Im not surprised that taking 3g of bupropion would cause hallucinations. Its a DRI.

Why would you even think about taking that much?
 
That is an insane amount of wellbutrin. I hope you are still alive and you have not boxed your liver, had a heart attack or stroked out. Wellbutrin raises adrenaline levels and dopamine levels. So if you take ten times a regular dose (3000mg!) than norepinephrine levels skyrocket which not only helps focus and gives you energy, but it also activates your amygdala which triggers your natural fear system. Just like when coke heads peer out the blinds every 10min waiting to be busted by the cops, the adrenaline in your brain created by the massive dose of wellbutrin creates an unrealistic fear or super awareness and it results in an abstractive hallucination.

Also, because of the dopamine/noradrenaline imbalance created by taking so much wellbutrin, its possible that your brain released a bunch of serotonin as well to balance out the neurotransmission and this triggered hallucinations.
 
^^^
I think its purely a reaction by the dopamine system. Kind of like how people get amphetamine psychosis...
 
You are correct

that was a bad idea. seizure waiting to happen

...but since you already did it (or did you?), good post:\
 
I've experienced almost identical symptoms after abusing mdxx substances while i was on ssri treatment...i would see army men, old men, glowing spiders, everything would spin and make noises etc...
 
It's not a good idea to abuse Wellbutrin in this manner like the OP has; I wish no one else would try such a thing.

It is common to experience hallucinations while on a large dose of Wellbutrin; but this is not a positive experience for most. The vast majority of people find it very negative.
 
more clearly

It's not a good idea to abuse Wellbutrin in this manner like the OP has; I wish no one else would try such a thing.

It is common to experience hallucinations while on a large dose of Wellbutrin; but this is not a positive experience for most. The vast majority of people find it very negative.

It is a stupid idea too use Bupropion above the highest indicated dosage. Were the pills sustained release?
 
using wellbutrin above 450mg increases chance of seizure times 10. seems like you probably don't have any type of gaba drug habit (benzos, g, alcohol) or were on one of those or you had a damn good chance of having a seizure.
also, why take a non-recreational drug at a huge dose? if it won't get you high it won't get you high.
 
My ex experienced some nasty perception changes while taking her Wellbutrin at the prescribed dosage. She said she felt like she was living in a bubble. All of her senses were being filtered, she said, through this wall around her head and that everything was toned down to the point of absurdity and made her begin to question the reality of her surroundings.

She's fucking crazy though, so...
 
Well I was prescribed Wellbutrin for my severe depression about a year ago. Late last yearI had found that at times my daily dosage of 300mg a day would not work, so I'd take an extra one if I felt it necessary. I also have pretty severe anxiety problems, and I noticed when taking more Wellbutrin, my anxiety would fade away. So I started just taking three a day normally. And then, for some reason I thought it was a good idea, I tried taking four. And I found the more I took, the easier life was. All my anxiety cleared out and it was a kind of peace and content I had never felt before. Over time, my body naturally adjusted to the higher dosage and in the end it was to where I was either taking four five pills a day, depending.
Back then I used to smoke quite a bit of weed [no longer do, because of its effect to ironically enduce anxiety now] and so what happened was when I got high one night after having a day full of welbutrin, I noticed that when I closed my eyes, and I thought about it, the initial light blotches that you see when first close your eyes, would turn into almost a psychedelic pattern. Very cleary. At first I was excited by this. [I had various accounts of fun with psychedelics] but then it started to happen that I would see what was a spinning pattern, like going through a tunnel, not only when I closed my eyes, but projected on the real world. And then one day after five Wellbutrin and an excessive amount of marijuana, I was at the bus stop and stared at the ground and saw the pattern begin to manifest. And I was loooking at the spot long enough that all of a sudden, in the middle of the spiral, there was an eye. This freaked me out initially. Over the past couple days I got used to the visions, but one specific night. I was cleaning my room. And I thought I saw what looked like a bug on my carpet and I jumped, but upon closer examination, it was justa little pine needle. Like what i drag in with my shoes. And I soon started to notice that all of the little dirt spots on my carpet from whatever I spilt or dragged in, etc, started to look EXACTLY like bugs. Bugs that were wiggling and everything. Sooo realistic. Until you got closes enough. So I started to freak out. And you know how with hallucinations, the more you get upset and anxious about it, the more prevellent they become. Well that was what was happening.
Until reading some things online, I never really made the connection to it maybe being a "bad trip," but the title makes sense.
So I layed down and tried to sleep to make it stop. And the worst forme was, well with anything that I saw it was always projected onto something. Never a 3D materialized vision. But I started to see the outline of what looked like long legged spiders standing on my knee.. This was one of the scariest nights I have ever had.
I have a lot psychological issues and reality issues, so when things get too far away from it, I can't handle it.
Needless to say, from then on I stopped taking my pills for a couple of days and then started back on my regular dosage, because the medication does really help me a lot.
But then a couple weeks later, another incident happened. Me and my friend had purchased some e, and it wasn't really working, so we ended up taking three each. they were shitty drugs, but after my friend left, and I was home alone, I started to see 'the eye' [after that first night that eye has been a reoccuring vision] but it got crazy. I was seeing it EVERYWHERE. my body, paper, walls, clothes, my window, toilet paper!
This just goes to show that these hallucinations are most likely caused byirregular dopamine levels. In studies of scizophrenia that's one thing that they seemed to have determined. Irregular dopamine.
That last night was so bad, because it wasn't just a visual mind fuck, but a complete mental breakdown. It was so bad I had to call into work. Even after I stopped see things, my brain was just way out of wack. One of the only people who call in for a "mental health day" but actually mean it.

since all this shit. i don't fuck with my dosage. And have strayed from psychedelics [even though I never actually hallucinated on them] for obvious reasons.
Still to this day, I notice if I start to see a little something, patterns imprinted on things etc, it's only when I start to freak out about it [anxiety] does it get worse.
So everytime it starts I have to try and clam myself down.
My biggest fear is turning scizophrenic. And that's basically what I did to myself. Well... just barely. But enough to freak me out. Once you've seen things when you don't want to see things... you just never want to see things period.

Sorry this post is so long. I can be abit wordy. but just wanted to let you know that it's not just when you take an excessive [and man.. 3g is EXCESSIVE] amount when hallucinations can occur.
It's scary shit. Don't mess with it.
 
Good thread and I love the lengthy posts describing the effects of Wellbutrin, especially when taking more than prescribed dosage. My doc prescribed this med for me a month ago. I'm on 300mg a day. I'm still sort of waiting for it to "kick in".

One thing I've noticed is that my vision is quite blurry and I will often have tunnel vision, but that's very probably due to the stims I've been insufflating lately.

(I just want to state that I have no plans to use more Wellbutrin than is prescribed for me because I don't want to run out of them before my refill date. I just really find this all very interesting about the hallucinations on higher dosages).
 
Last edited:
Wellbutrin erased my soul

I've been in an extremely peculiar state for the past 11 months. I have literally lost everything inside of me and no longer have a sense of "inner being". My personality has been completely erased, along with the inner psyche I've spent a lifetime building. When I attempt to "look inside", it is impossible because there is literally nothing there. Everything that made up my specific sense of personal being is gone, including including my hopes, fears, dreams, goals, opinions, values, morals, likes/dislikes, and most strikingly, all emotions and feelings.

I have no feelings associated with past events, and no emotional connections with anything in the world. Specific emotions that defined my personal sense of being are no longer there. People, places, things and events that I thought were etched in my soul as having significance no longer mean a thing. Absolutely nothing, I can't stress this enough.

I am unable to look backward or forward, have no sense of past accomplishments and no desire for future ones. The strangest thing is, I cannot feel anything toward being in this state, as that part of me is gone too. It's like a recursive erasure of everything I ever was, am, and will be.

It doesn't feel like life is a conscious experience that I am having anymore, as there is no inner construct within me to absorb an experience on any level. I see, hear, touch, and smell, yet each of these is so devoid of emotional content that they don't coalesce into anything meaningful I can call a human consciousness. My sense of being has been replaced by a constant void of nothingness that is unchanging, 24/7, I feel nothing towards the nothingness. It is not like feeling empty inside, there is no inside to feel empty within.

Getting to this state was a long process that started with gradually losing my emotions. This started when I decided to withdraw from the antidepressant Wellbutrin/Bupropion which I'd been on a high dosage of for 5 years. Strangely, going back on it did not help, but made things worse. When I stopped and started the drug a second time, I experienced one tremendous day of improvement followed by a seizure while sleeping, and woke up in a confused state. After this I regressed and felt completely dead inside.

This waking up in a confused state happened 2 more times, once in May 2010 and once in September 2010. Both of these were preceded by sudden improvements. But upon waking I felt like I had lost a basic part of my self. Not just feelings, but the core of my being. What I felt to be the complete and final destruction of my inner being happened on September 7th, 2010, and there hasn't been a change since (it has now been 11 months). Eleven months of the state I described above.

Obviously, antidepressants affect neurotransmitters. Maybe my neurotransmitters were severely imbalanced by the manner in which I withdrew, along the seizure(s) (there is only one I am sure of). What I don't understand is how a neurotransmitter imbalance could completely erase me as a human being. What I'm experiencing is not depression, anhedonia, or flat affect, but a permanent change in my consciousness that literally destroyed my humanity. All the parts that made up my being are literally gone. I don't understand how this is even possible, or what (if anything) I can do to change it.

If not neurotransmitters specifically, is there anything else physically affected in the brain that could lead to this state? I had a brain MRI in September of last year (without contrast), and that came back negative. I am unsure of what to do. Any suggestions or advice?
 
That's a very unusual experience, i've never heard of it happening with wellbutrin, nor any of the typical antidepressants (though ive seen a number of reports of lasting negative effects not resolved by resuming treatment after withdrawing from some TCAs, which act through means still not fully understood, and behave much more strangely).

It's also really strange that you've on several occasions noted improvement, followed by waking up in a state of confusion. One wonders if those waking up in state of confusion occasions were preceeded by undetected seizures as well. Wellbutrin is known to tend to cause seizures.

The state you describe does sound very strange.

Are you taking, or were you taking, any other perscription medications?
Are you taking, or were you taking, at any point in this, any recreational drugs?
If yes to either, describe your usage.

Talk to your doctor ?

Seeing as he had an MRI, he probably has!
 
Talk to your doctor ?

The one who prescribed the drug that got me into this state? I'd rather die, to be honest. I thought time would change things, and when I got myself back I would have learned my lesson and avoided these drugs (and psychiatry in general) for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, it's looking more and more like a permanent change, and I'm not getting a second chance. It's just a matter of how much longer I'm willing to wait before the inevitable. This is no longer a life.
 
Well, i'd pick a different doctor, obviously - and in any case, one can't really blame him, as Wellbutrin has helped a lot of people, and to say that your response is abnormal is an understatement. Wellbutrin is, as I said, not known to produce severe, persistent, negative effects afterwards.

I'm also having a hard time really understanding the state that you're in - you've given a lot of metaphorical description of it, which is probably the most natural way to describe it, but I think a more concrete description might help some of us get a handle on what you're experiencing... Maybe even describe a situation and how you previously would have felt in that, and how you feel in it now?
 
Go out there and build a personality for yourself instead of worrying about what you've lost, and brain damage, and neurochemistry, and so many other things that people who get into depressive states start worrying about.

Life is what you make it, it's not predestined for you or anyone. Lots of depressive/anxious people get into this negative feedback loop of "oh, I feel so empty inside, I don't want to go out and do anything, but I'm so empty and bored."

Western culture which promotes consumerism, a constant sense of fear, and the sliding socioeconomic conditions sure don't help, but trust me, there are still good people and fun things to do out there. Pack up your things and go camping, or on a vacation. Start volunteering for civic and charity organizations. Plant a garden. Learn a new hobby. Read a book. Go for a walk, jog, run, or bike ride. Call someone you haven't seen in a while and arrange a meet up. Meet someone new online. Make a map of your neigbourhood. Stand on your head. Learn to cook something new and fancy. Clean your living space. Make a work of art. Make a really strange work of art. Show it off to your community. Play a game of chess with a stranger at a park. Do some botanical drawings. Find something in your city that's new to you. Plan a future or alternate life for yourself in another country, place, or time period. Hang out with an animal or animals. Learn something a university professor should know. Visit your local library. Watch an old movie. Watch a new movie. Listen to an audio book. Party all night. Play with your mind with some optical illusions. Do a book of word searches. Take psychedelics and sit wide-mouthed in awe at nothing at all. Learn to meditate. Learn to be mindful. Learn to be old-fashioned and polite. Learn what all the new kids on the block are doing. Listen to a new artist. Go into the wild and identify mushrooms. "Adopt" a child - be a Big Brother or Big Sister. Go on a museum tour. Go to a famous landmark.

These are a small fraction of things you can do that are more productive than fighting with pharmaceuticals. If you honestly have tried most of these and they have no effect I recommend to try MAOI antidepressants. Very effective, but they need dietary restrictions.

Suicide is almost never an option. If you are so dissociate from yourself that you are numb inside, get to work and be productive. Work is a good reinforcer of natural dopamine circuits in your brain.
 
Top