Anyone have experience with wellbutrin for anhedonia?

[marvinoman]

So I've had 2 psychotic episodes(one in september and one in november) which left me with what my psychiatrist told me is depression even though the only symptom I've felt is anhedonia. I've just been prescribed Wellbutrin 4 days ago and am wondering if any of you had success stories with wellbutrin for anhedonia.

[jt07]

Wellbutrin didn't help my anhedonia. The only med that actually does help my anhedonia is Abilify. That is not to say that Wellbutrin won't help you because it does help a lot of people.

[OliverB]

It helped me a lot with motivation/interest and partially with lack of pleasure.

[mikl_pls]

Are you on an antipsychotic for psychosis prophylaxis? If so, higher doses and in some people even lower doses are known to actually induce negative symptoms as in the negative symptoms of schizophrenia (not that I'm saying you have schizophrenia!). Examples of negative symptoms are flat expressions or little emotion, poverty of speech, inability to experience pleasure (anhedonia), lack of desire to form relationships, and lack of motivation.

[marvinoman]

59 minutes ago, mikrw33 said:

Are you on an antipsychotic for psychosis prophylaxis? If so, higher doses and in some people even lower doses are known to actually induce negative symptoms as in the negative symptoms of schizophrenia (not that I'm saying you have schizophrenia!). Examples of negative symptoms are flat expressions or little emotion, poverty of speech, inability to experience pleasure (anhedonia), lack of desire to form relationships, and lack of motivation.

I was on risperdal but I got tapered off of that and am now taking 5mg abilify, along with the wellbutrin

[mikl_pls]

4 hours ago, marvinoman said:

I was on risperdal but I got tapered off of that and am now taking 5mg abilify, along with the wellbutrin

The Abilify should help if anything with the anhedonia. Perhaps you need a higher dose of Abilify? Everyone has their "sweet spot" with that medicine, which usually ends up being around 10-15 mg (unless you're taking a CYP inducer or CYP2D6 inhibitor.) I think Wellbutrin is a CYP2D6 inhibitor (in addition to being a CYP2B6 inhibitor), so the Abilify dosage might need to be kept lower than normal, so you might be in the right range, actually, on second thought. An increase to 7.5 mg (half of 15 mg) or 10 mg may be as far as you would need to go, but that's just from my uneducated perspective.

But I don't think you're on any dose high enough to induce secondary negative symptoms from the Abilify.

What's your dosage of Wellbutrin?

[marvinoman]

14 hours ago, mikrw33 said:

The Abilify should help if anything with the anhedonia. Perhaps you need a higher dose of Abilify? Everyone has their "sweet spot" with that medicine, which usually ends up being around 10-15 mg (unless you're taking a CYP inducer or CYP2D6 inhibitor.) I think Wellbutrin is a CYP2D6 inhibitor (in addition to being a CYP2B6 inhibitor), so the Abilify dosage might need to be kept lower than normal, so you might be in the right range, actually, on second thought. An increase to 7.5 mg (half of 15 mg) or 10 mg may be as far as you would need to go, but that's just from my uneducated perspective.

But I don't think you're on any dose high enough to induce secondary negative symptoms from the Abilify.

What's your dosage of Wellbutrin?

Im on 150mg of wellbutrin once a day. i've been taking it for four days so far but it hasn't had an effect other than making it hard for me to sleep. When should Wellbutrin start making me feel better?

[jt07]

34 minutes ago, marvinoman said:

When should Wellbutrin start making me feel better?

Possibly up to a month or six weeks. When I took it, it was a month almost to the day when I raised the dose to 300 mg to when I first felt the effect.

[marvinoman]

@jt07 How long have you had anhedonia?

[jt07]

1 hour ago, marvinoman said:

@jt07 How long have you had anhedonia?

Anhedonia is one of the major symptoms of my depression. So I've suffered from anhedonia off and on since I was first depressed as a teenager which was quite a few years ago. I tried every vitamin, herb and supplement, and they never helped. I tried just about every antidepressant except the newer ones, and every class of antidepressant including an MAOI. The ONLY med that helps my anhedonia is Abilify, and it only began to work once I hit 10 mg. All I can say is thank God for Abilify because otherwise my quality of life would be crap.

[notloki]

I find the max dose of Wellbutrin and Abilify to be very effective in treating anhedonia. 

[marvinoman]

2 hours ago, notloki said:

I find the max dose of Wellbutrin and Abilify to be very effective in treating anhedonia. 

Is this coming from personal experience?

[notloki]

4 hours ago, marvinoman said:

Is this coming from personal experience?

Yes.

[browri]

I've taken a few different formulations of bupropion. Immediate, sustained, and extended release. Including Aplenzin. They did improve anhedonia for the most part but I was having a really serious anxiety problem at 300mg. I'm at 150mg now and will be off it in a few days. The anxiety was causing too many problems and outweighed the benefit.