Misc should I taper off wellbutrin?

[infantannihilator]

been taking 300mg/day in the XL form for 4 months now. back in mid march I smoked meth for 3 days and didn;t take my meds and was really, really fucked up once the binge ended. Even after sleep. I was seeing and hearing shit and I would randomly start crying at the slightest thought of anything "emotional" Kinda messed up for a drug that doesnt even directly affect sert. I don't really feel like its doing anything anymore and want to hop off the medication wagon

ideally I guess I should taper but I kinda feel like just riding it out like it were another drug. i figure my past experiences with a few days off were more or less due to the other substances consumed. given the dose id have to jump right down to 150mg anyway, and then from that to zero so why not one go? think just taking the med every other day would suffice? I kinda don't want to go see my doctor *shrug*

 

[Dresden]

Cold turkey is fine.

 

[Jabberwocky]

My doctor tapered me off wellbutrin, but just cause he wasn't convinced I didn't need to be on it. I didn't stay on tapered dose for long before stopping altogether. Experienced no withdrawal effects. Think this is out of an abundance of caution. They ramp up the dosage at the beginning for a reason; in rare cases Wellbutrin can trigger mania when you start it for those predisposed. I haven't heard of effects being triggered on cessation.

 

[infantannihilator]

May I ask what doses you were on? They ramped me to 300 really quickly, and I know the docs will ramp me to 450 if I say its not working, and I really don't want to go down that path, and quite frankly I don't want to end up supplementing things. I don't feel like WB has done anything for me in a while, at first I got a nice energy and motivation boost and felt good, but I ended up riding the wellbutrin rollercoaster for a while and then things just seemed.. normal. I've learned there are a lot more things that make a major impact on my mood and depression that ultimately these medications don't help with, and if I am honest I want to stay away from others because quite frankly I do enjoy using substances and I don't want to marr my brain anymore than need be.

Few weeks back for instance I was doing coke and I hadn't taken my dose that day just because I wanted to see if it would affect things.. I started getting weird heart palpitations and chest pains, hard breathing, that wasn't from the coke. I stopped doing the coke, took my dose of WB and within an hour I was fine and able to continue doing coke with zero issues.. My mind is thrown back to the almost panic attacks and other weird chest feelings the WB gave me as I was adjusting to it..

I guess my only worry is that jumping off I'll jump into that shit again

 

[Jabberwocky]

They ramped me up to 200 mg the last time I took it, and on a previous separate occasion I got as high as 300 mg. Despite telling them it was well tolerated, they always ramped me up starting at 50 mg just to be sure. I don't remember the exact way they ramped me up, but it usually took a month or two before I was on my full dose, which annoyed me because I needed help now. I found wellbutrin to be good at energizing a person just enough to get out of a rut, but with sustained use it plateaued and my rut went deeper than that. I also noticed that mixing it with alcohol was a bad idea (I don't drink anymore, but back then I did). It lowers the threshold to blackout. I experienced 3 blackouts while on wellbutrin, whereas before then I'd only experienced one, so I see a correlation there. Anyways, if it is helping you you might consider staying on it. It isn't a solution per se, but it can help energize a person enough to start making changes and participating in life more, which as you pointed out have a more profound impact on depression than the medication itself. Good luck annihilator.