Major Depressive Episode - physical symptoms, OMG!

[astronaut]

Hi Swampgas,

Those things only make me nauseous if:
a) I'm in the car
b) I've got some sort of stomach flu
c) I haven't eaten enough and the last thing I ate was full of refined sugar (I normally eat pretty healthy so sugar makes me sick easily)
d) I once felt like that when I got a serious bacterial infection several years ago. It was caused by some heavy duty anti-biotics that I went on for a severe blood infection. I had to go on more anti-biotics to get rid of it. But I do distinctly remember not being able to read or watch TV or even open my eyes at all sometimes because it made me so queasy.
e) Sometimes if I'm over heating I get nauseous.

I don't think I've even been nauseous from depression itself. Has your doctor looked into the nausea to treat it as though it is separate from the depression? I mean, just because you are depressed and have nausea doesn't mean that the two are related. I'm sure that if you were nauseous all the time that it might contribute to your depression though because it would likely just make you feel worse all 'round.

Does Gravol help? I know that Gravol can make people super sleepy but sometimes taking a half or a quarter of a Gravol can help and you could try it when you are going to be home for the day and don't need to worry about being alert or driving or anything like that. Ask your pharmacist if they think this is a good idea. I'm not a doctor so really, I'm not supposed to suggest things to take. Pharmacists can be really helpful though and they may even be able to give you an idea as to whether they think that the Wellbutrin is contributing to making it worse or even give you an idea of the likelihood of the Wellbutrin causing the problems. Sometimes they can suggest other over-the-counter drugs or supplements that are safe that might help with the nausea.

Anyways, keep us posted if you find out what this nausea is all about. I'm curious to know!
astronaut

[imsosad]

Swampgas,
I'm on wellbutrin and abilify. The abilify makes me really nauseous and dizzy, not the wellbutrin. There is a ginger gravol you can try that does not make you sleepy. Still check with the pharmacist but this works in our house, regardless of who's on what med. Not sure if you wear glasses or not but if you do, might be a good idea to get your script checked again. This is something that can make you feel sick while reading or watching tv.

[astronaut]

ginger gravol? What? Cool. I haven't heard of that before. I sometimes drink ginger tea for stomach aches but it isn't always potent enough to have a noticeable effect.

I hope the side effects calm down for the Abilify, imsosad. I had some stomach issues when I first started Abilify but they went away for the most part after a month or so. The killer for me with the Abilify was the headaches! They went away too but that was after my dose was lowered and I had been on it for about 6 months. Brutal. It might not have all been from the Abilify because I had the tension headaches before I started taking meds but the anti-psychotics that I tried all seemed to make the headaches worse and did not take them away. I often get chronic tension headaches with my depressions and they can be very distressing so it was irritating when the meds weren't improving this particular symptom. Do you get headaches, imsosad?

[imsosad]

I've been getting headaches as well, very similar to what I had with cipralex. Hoping they go away. I am starting to increase the dose of the abilify tomorrow and if the nausea returns as bad or the headaches get worse, I may just give up on it. I know I have to get the dose higher to help with the depression but these side effects are brutal.
Good luck with the ginger gravol. You can get it at any drug store and it does work for us.

[Lost@40]

I get motion sickness very easy and I take ginger Gravol. It works and best of all, no side effects. We always have a bottle in our house and travels. As for general nausea or dizziness, I have an inner ear problem, it gets inflamed from time to time and throws off my balance and causes a drunk like effect. The only other time I get like that is when I take my night time meds (Clonazepam, Seroquel and mirtazapine) on an empty stomach.

[astronaut]

Oh yeah, I forgot about taking meds on an empty stomach. I used to take zoloft on an empty stomach because my doctor never specified and it made me SO sick every time I took it too far away from a meal until I figured it out!

[swampgas]

I'll try the gravol after speaking with the pharmacist. I'll try anything at this point. And I also take med's with a meal. My GP after 12 weeks has finally decided to think outside the box and is having more extensive blood work done to rule out other physical causes. I'm not sure if I hope he finds something or not. The alternatives don't sound much better.

Thanks again for the tips.

[astronaut]

good luck with the blood work. Better to have things ruled out now then keep treating something that isn't causing your main issues, or ignoring an underlying condition that you could be treated for now before it gets worse.

Hopefully you can figure out what is wrong and that it isn't anything too serious that can't be healed with time.
astronaut

[swampgas]

Side effect... Does anyone have experience with Wellbutrin at 450 mg? Does Wellbutrin interfere with anyone else's sleep? Buzzing head?
My GP is just today upped my dose from 300 mg to 450 mg after being on it for 12 weeks. All the blood work has come back normal, which is good, but still more to do. I've also had to start taking sleeping pill. Geez, I'm thinking that my improvements have been due to the passage of time and all of the problems are side effects related to the med's, but the GP wants me to stick with it for a bit longer. What kind of harm can this medication due if I'm not really needing it? So many questions, so few answers...

[imsosad]

swampgas, I'm on 450mg wellbutrin and have to take it in the morning. I also found that it increased my anxiety a huge amount at first. That has gone down from when I started. Still get anxious times and still have panic attacks occasionally but had those before I started.

[astronaut]

Hi Swampgas,

I take 400mg of Wellbutrin and the first time I went from 350mg to 400mg, I noticed no difference. The second time, I had a significant lift in mood. I sleep about an hour to an hour and a half less each night but I'm not sure if that is the Wellbutrin or not. I also started getting many symptoms of hyperthyroidism which the doctor attributed to the portion of my Wellbutrin that is rapid release (the added 100mg) opposed to the extended release 350mg.

You have a lot of good questions and there are no answers. No one can know for sure if your improvements are from the meds or from the passage of time. Time is needed to get better whether or not we are on meds. Your physical symptoms may very well be side effects. The doctor, no matter how confident he sounds, just can't know for sure what is working especially if you haven't been keeping a detailed journal each day of what meds you took, how your mood was, how long you slept and exercised for and what your energy level was like. As far as I know, blood tests can't tell you anything about Wellbutrin and whether it is working or not or whether you have too much in your system.

I have been on Wellbutrin for a year and a half now and I feel better than I did when I first started the drug and the side effects are worth the improvements I have felt in my mood. That being said, the Wellbutrin did not prevent me from going into a much deeper depression this winter/spring and I can't be 100% sure that the raised dose of wellbutrin helped me get out of that depression as several other factors came into play at that time also.

I don't know what the long term effects of Wellbutrin are and the effects are likely different depending on your body chemistry, and how long you take the drug. I don't think I would worry about how long you have been on it right now. What's done is done and you were only trying to make yourself better.

I remember you saying that you still have access to a social worker and a psychiatrist. If you do decide to taper off the drugs, at least you will have the psychotherapy component of your treatment in place to work with if you start having a setback.
Do you talk to the therapist about your questions over the drugs? Sometimes they are helpful in getting you to sort out your thoughts about the drugs and to come up with a good plan for managing your drug regime or coming off of them if you feel as though you are getting more sick from them. There are loads of different meds out there to try and if Wellbutrin is making you nauseous and sick then it may be worth it to try something else.

good luck,
astronaut

[swampgas]

Thanks for the feedback.
I took my first dose of 450mg today... spent the day in bed feeling worse than ever. Dizzy, vomiting, this sucks. I had some real good days and then ran out of sleeping pills (the wellbutrin is almost certainly causing insomnia). Spent a few days very tired until I got in to see the GP. Yesterday, after a good nights sleep I felt great. Last night despite the sleeping pills only got 5hrs and now this. I think I need to get of this particular Med. Argh!

[swampgas]

I have found the following useful, what are others using?

https://www.optimismonline.com/

http://www.moodscope.com/login

Hi Swampgas,

if you haven't been keeping a detailed journal each day of what meds you took, how your mood was, how long you slept and exercised for and what your energy level was like.
astronaut

[astronaut]

I use this one:

http://www.cqaimh.org/pdf/tool_edu_moodchart.pdf

it is really easy to use and it looks like a graph so you can visually compare fluctuations easily over time.

astronaut

[paul m]

Hello Swampgas and Astronautr. Thx for posting those links. Take Care. paul m