Doctor prescribed Wellbutrin | ADHD Information
Well, I just got back from the doctor.
She was hesitant to give me Ritalin because I had heart surgery when I was a baby. Ritalin (and other stimulants) can have cardiac side effects, so she wanted to steer clear of that whole hornet's nest. *sigh*
Instead, she prescribed Wellbutrin SR, 150mg/day. An antidepressant, which I have read doesn't have the greatest track record with ADD. Now, of course, I'm feeling discouraged, and I haven't even tried it yet.
I will be taking the first dose tomorrow morning. I have to see my doctor again in 3 more weeks for a progress report. For those of you wondering "what about Strattera?", it isin't available in Canada yet.
Anybody have success with Wellbutrin?
Anything that is a stimulant is not a good idea with a heart condition--I have had heart conditions since birth. I have a friend that has ADD, and she starting taking Wellbutrin to quit smoking. It didn't get her to quit, but it greatly improved her ADD. Don't get down, yet, it could be right for you. Good Luck!
Oh, just curious, what kind of heart condition do you have? I was born with a hole-- it closed on its own, but now I have pulmonary stenosis and a serious grade murmur.
stepmom2maddy38449.7280671296I was born with a hole too, but it didn't close on its own. Ususally when this happened, they waited until the child was 5 years old before performing surgery, but I wouldn't have lasted that long. They did it when I was 20 months old. In 1980, that was extremely rare. Today, the infant mortality rate from such a surgery is less than 1%.
I still have a slight murmur, but as of the EKG and echocardiogram I had last year, everything looked just fine. But I guess my doctor didn't want to take any chances anyway.
Tahnks for the feedback on your friend. I guess it works for some people, or else it wouldn't be considered an ADD treatment option. Let's just hope it works for me! 
Hey! I was on Wellbutrin! I liked it! For some reason, wellbutrin SR (the old kind) did better for me than the Wellbutrin XL
It helped me because I tend to be a "lazy" ad/hder, and the wellbutrin gave me a nice boost. It's like, I would lay on the couch, and think "I need to go and do this..." but there was no "connection", I couldn't "get up and do it", so I would just remain on the couch, "procrastinatin", and my brain would be trying uselessly to form that "connection" between thinking about what I wanted to do and actually getting up to do it...and wellbutrin gave me the "connection" that I needed...Like, I would think, "I need to get up and do this", and then I would just get up and do it, and then it was done. Wow! I could actually just "get things done" now......It was a miracle to me!!
Bc girl, are you the "lazy" type of adder? Because if you are, i'm wondering whether you would have wanted Strattera anyway. I kinda found that being a "lazy" ad/hder, strattera calmed me down a lot, and counteracted the affects of the wellbutrin.....this would be fine if I was a hyper fidgetting type ad/hder, but I did not neeed to be calmed down more...I was already "lazy" enough, what I needed was "pep"...
But don't get disappointed yet. Try it first for those 3 weeks, and then, if it doesn't work well, then tell your doc, and maybe he will have something else he can prescribe for you.
sonya_h38449.8384490741Yeah, I didn't have surgery because they waited to evaluate for that when I was five. At that point, I had started gymnastics--this significantly improved the strength of my heart and helped it to close on its own. Doctors are sooooo cautious with heart patients. When I was pregnant, I was "high" risk and had to run the gaunlet with all the tests. Technology, now, is amazing. I guess, I am a year or so younger than you are, and I probably experienced alot of the same things you did as a kid. There aren't many of us. I am my cardiologist's youngest patient by at least twenty years.
BC...congrats on your first pill! I believe it is going to take a couple weeks or more for this to actually kick in. Since it's also an antidepressant, this is usually the case. However, I'll again suggest what I always do...ask your pharmacist. They're the best source for info (besides Internet).I can't seem to find any info on the 'net about Wellbutrin, pertaining specifically to AD/HD. Everything I find talks all about how it works for depression, but only mentions as a sidenote that it can also be used in the treatment of ADD/ADHD.If anyone can find anything, I'd be glad to hear it!
BC... It may or may not be fda-approved, but Wellbutrin has been prescribed to treat AD/HD for some time now. This may be because depression so often accompanies AD/HD, and has been effective in treating ADD/ADHD. Not everyone, just like any of those 'approved' may help some, yet not others. Can't say, but if it helps you, that's the important thing. I do not mean any disrespect to your doctor, Seeker. k?
according to my doctor, wellbutrin isn't approved for add by the fda as of yet. so it is rarely prescribed unless under the approved (read legal) treatments of depression and nicotine addiction.Hi, I'm new to the boards and also have been newly diagnosed with ADD. I started taking wellbutrin last year because I was suffering from fatigue and since I smoked and had also gained alot of weight in the previous months my doctor put me on wellbutrin twice a day. WOW I felt great! I had a lot of side effects- Nightmares, hazziness, headaches etc. BUT they were ok because I was actually getting things done. My house was cleaner and more organized than it had ever been in my life. I lost 20 lbs, stopped smoking and drinking, It was GREAT. Until it wore off after about 6 months. We upped my dose but It did no good. When I stopped taking it I eased myself off but I still had a terrible time, I was very ill and bottomed out in a heavy depression. I tried it again after several months of not taking it but it does not work for me any longer. I am glad I took it however because it made me aware that I possibly had ADD. After bringing it up to my doctor he prescribed Concerta but I have recently switched to Ritalin. I wish you luck with Wellbutrin but from my experiance with it I found it to be a pretty heavy drug so just be careful with it.BC:
Wellbutrin takes maybe about a week or so before you will notice anything...
then, all of a sudden, one day, very soon you will be stretched across the couch, and think to yourself..."gosh, my bedroom/bathroom/kitchen/<insert dirty area here> is filthy, i need to clean it.." and then something totally amazing, wonderful, and unexpected will happen. You know how, usually for us, this is kind of a fleeting thought to get up and do something that needs to be done comes and goes through our mind, with no consequences, maybe 2 or 3 times in the 4 hours of your inactivity on the couch??? Well this time, once that first inclination comes through your mind that first time, that something needs to be done, your legs will take over, and THIS TIME, for the first time in your life, YOU WILL ACTUALLY GET UP AND DO IT! IT WAS WONDERFUL TO ME!! Wellbutrin was my connection from my brain to the rest of my body. it was a cure to the deathly ad/hd "procrastination" factor...
Now, they are right, wellbutrin is not intended to so much "focus" people with ad/hd as much as other meds are. I was still very unstructured on wellbutrin. Like, i still would be doing one thing, and then see something else, and would drop what I was doing, and go do that, going from one thing to the next, to the next. But what was different, my energy did not "run out".....I still managed to "go back" to all of the half finished things I left lying around, and I had enough motivation to actually finish them.... So, for me things got done...It might have been a messy, and unorganized way of getting things done, but I GOT THINGS DONE!! I HAD NEVER "GOTTEN THINGS DONE" BEFORE, AND I DIDN'T CARE HOW I WAS ABLE TO DO THIS FOR THE FIRST TIME, WHAT WAS IMPORTANT TO ME, WAS THAT FOR THE FIRST TIME I COULD ACTUALLY GET IT DONE!!!
but alas, i must agree with some one else who posted here...(i forgot who it was, sorry...) but yes, wellbutrin XL stopped working for me. It was kinda wearing off after a few months on the SR (old) formula, and it really stopped helping altogether on the new XL formula. Maybe if I went back on wellbutrin SR, it would work better.
And strattera reinitiated my spaced out, daziness.....I lacked the energy I needed to get things done once I started strattera...some one else mentioned that too. So if you are a hyper ad/hder, and bouncing off the walls, and need to be calmed, then maybe Strattera would work for you, but if you are like me, and would lay around staring at the ceiling all day if you let yourself, maybe the calming factors of strattera would not be best.
Perhaps, if I could somehow get wellbutrin working for me again, PLUS try another drug that would focus my ad/hd more, I COULD RRUUULLLEE THHEE GALAXY!! HA, HA, HA ,HA!!!
yeah gypsy- no offence taken. it was meant as a technical detail. i take wellbutrin for add and depression. i'm pretty sure doctors are only allowed to prescribe medicines based on what the fda has approved them to treat. that's all. there are lots of other medicines that have been approved to be used more broadly though they initially came to market to treat something specific. that's why you see all the little news blips about this or that already used drug showing promise in treating other conditions. it usually is a sign the fda will approve it for another use so doctors can prescribe it for additional conditions.
i have been on three other anti-depressants up to this point. the one that was somewhat effective at treating the depresssion (zoloft) did not fully address my problems, so i quit. i suffered less from depression, but not the disruptive behaviours that were really the main basis of the depression. my research led me to ADD.
i took strattera for a few months. it helped calm me down a little, but i was still scatterbrained and sometimes even more spacy. after a few months of that, i am now on wellbutrin. i am better, but still not sure whether i'm 'there' yet. still more docile, can sit down and read a book without going to sleep, higher threshold of frustration. still stacking thoughts and can't stay on task very long, or think things through very well. but i am much more mellow.
Sonya - I'm sooo glad to hear that Wellbutrin worked for you. Yes, I am definately the "lazy" type, though I do have my restless/fidgety moments from time to time. How long did it take for the Wellbutrin to kick in? Was it instantaneous, or did it take a couple of weeks? I took my first dose about an hour ago, but I haven't really started my day yet so I can't tell if anything is different.
Stepmom2maddy - Before I had the surgery, my mom said I used to get exhausted really easily. Her/my doctor kept telling her that heart murmurs in babies are "normal" and that it would go away. She knew something was wrong though, because I used to turn blue when I cried, and I couldn't even walk across the living room without sitting down for a rest. Other toddlers my age seemed to run non-stop. She took me to another doctor, and that one sent me for surgery almost immediately. And I know what you mean about being a young heart patient - when I had an echocardiogram last year, all the other people in the waiting room were easily twice my age!
Sonya_h has a great depiction of ADD.
I've been taking between 300 and150mg of welbutrin for years. It does give you a lift. But I could never get things done, and when I discovered ADD websites I realized why.
(We seem to have too many connections and too few inhibiters. And the executive function (time-sense) is out of whack.( For a primer on executive function, read 1-3 of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.))
For three weeks I've tried Strattera(ZZZZ), and am longing to get back to Welbutrin,ditsy multifocus and all. Hopefully with all the ADD info. for organizing and awareness I might have a chance at getting somewhere this time.
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