Kurt301, how to get off Wellbutrin, first taper failure. Definitely more educated now

[Kurt301]

Hello,  I'm Kurt and I'm a military vet. I found this place because although I have had a little prior experience with ssri. I was never on them long and never at a high dose,  most of them I didn't even get to maintanence before i was done with the side effects. The last one I was on was celexa at 20mg but was having delayed sexual response and I heard this went away with welbutrin so,  I decided to give it a shot and switch, this was about a year ago.  The switch went great wellbutrin did good but wasn't the best at stopping the worry and anxiety and still had an occasional panic attack.  So I thought maybe there's something better and the celexa seemed easy enough to tolerate so Id try going back on that and see if it killed more of the anxiety,  I still got pretty anxious about driving long distances or being in the middle of no where etc etc.  

 

So I stopped taking it with the intent of taking to the doc at 300mg xl. 4 days later I was feeling pretty bad,  discontinuation symptoms and got in and talked to the doc.  Standard taper and cut was followed,  started the 150xl for two weeks then off then start the celexa 10mg was the plan.  

 

I asked about starting the celexa at the same time and he didn't think that was a good idea but was willing to give it a go.  I decided instead to go with his recomendation and taper off one before starting the other.  So the script was written for 150xl along with .5 klonopin as needed just incase. 

 

The drop to 150 proved to be ungodly intense for me.  But I made it 14 days.  At that point i asked to extend the 150 because I was feeling horrible and nothing in the discontinuatuon had susided yet.  Lots of head pressure, lots of anxiety and stomach upset constantly, racing thoughts, fear, panic, sick.. it was all there.  I did notice it was flowing the withdrawal timeline I ran across and have included with my post but my goodness I didn't expect it to be so bad and so so intense.  

 

So at that point i thought celexa could start working in as little as two weeks and it could be helping.  I wasted this time but could have possibly been feeling better by now.  So I started that while still on the 150xl wellbutrin. 

 

After 4 days of this.  Whatever I was feeling on the wellbutrin drop got amplified by 10 times.  It was a 24 hour panic attack with no let up at all.  So that's a nope.  I stopped the celexa and at this point.  Things were rough rough,  I decided to go to the ER. I was done scared to death and didn't know what to do.  

 

I came out of there deciding to go back to the 300xl wellbutrin and come at this some other way. And at this moment we are 11 days back at 300xl. The cut attempt lasted a total of 21 days before I decided to reinstate it at the original dose and I started doing some serious research on tapering. 

 

Had I been smart I would not have tried to tough it out until it broke, I would have gone to the doc and told him I was having trouble long before it got as bad as it did but I'm a vet and it was a fight so you suck it up stick to your guns and be tough.  

 

I've seen the suggestion and thread for tapering wellbutrin but it is a little outdated. They no longer make 75mg immediate release and the xl sr versions can't be cut. 

 

At this point I'm still not what I would call back to original condition stable but much much better than I was. Still some head pressure, pretty strong depression, lack of joy, etc etc but not as much panic.  

 

Before this cut,  I was singing in front of hundreds of people,  after 2 weeks of the cut and the adverse reaction to celexa.  Walking into the store to get soup was a miracle

 

I did get to see a psych nurse practitioner who has suggested I also start a very low dose of lamictal. 

 

And the last thing Ive done was take the genetic test a few days ago that lets you know which antidepressants work best for you.  After I'm armed with this knowledge,  the plan is to switch to the sr version of wellbutrin so I can atleast make my cuts 50mg at a time versus the 150. Hopefully that will go a little smoother but so far,  this was my first ever taper/discontinuation failure.  Lesson learned right? 

 

Thank you all 

[Go2zero]

Hi @Kurt301, 

 

Welcome to this support site. Before we can answer your questions, please give us more information first. Good that you came to this website. There is a lot of knowledge to be found and shared here. Also the members can support each other here.

 

Can you please give us specific information about your drug history for all drugs you are on and have been on, especially for the past 18-24 months?  It would be especially helpful to have the details of your drugs in a concise list (no symptoms), only drug names, specific dates (as best you can say for example early March if you don't recall the day) and dosages of each medication decrease or increase.  Please read the link below for instructions.  This will allow us to give you the best guidance.  

 

https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/topic/28240-how-to-summarize-your-drug-history-in-your-signature/

 

After we have this info we can come back to you with more detailed info.

 

For now I already want to say that jumping around with psychotropic medication very often makes things worse. This kind of medication cannot be stopped at once and changed for another. When done so, we easily sensitive our nervous system, which may need a very long time to cure again.

 

Furthermore it is a myth that Wellbutrin SR or XR/XL cannot be cut. It is said so on the container, but all that happens is that the Extended or Sustained release is changed to Instant Release after cutting the pills.

 

Please look here for more info about that and how the pills can be cut:

 

 

 

[Go2zero]

Hi Kurt301,

 

Thank you for doing your signature. Could please make it more detailed. According to your introduction post there seem to be several overlaps in time in medication (Celexa and Wellbutrin).

 

You speak about several changes in dosage, etc. But we need to see clearly ALL changes in you signature and WHEN changes were made (with dates as much as possible).

 

It is a big puzzle for the moderators to get this important info from your introduction post. We need to be able to see it clearly with dosages and dates (at least months and years). This website runs on (unpaid) volunteers with limited time. So please help us to get a clear view on your medication history. Then we will be able to advise you much better.

Edited August 26, 2023 by Go2zero