Some ideas...
1) Faster metabolism, so you need a bigger dose? This would only effect an 150%-200% increase tho.
2a) Loss of magic/honeymoon phase
2b) Permanent cumulative benefits replacing temporary immediate boosts.
3) Exercise releasing neurotrophic factors and otherwise correcting deficiencies/restoring your brain to a healthy state, in effect, curing the ailments medicine would normally treat, and removing the need for medicine. If there's no illness to correct, medicines will be useless.
Faster metabolism? As in the amount of calories my body burns or how fast my liver metabolizes drugs? It could very well be a change in my liver enzymes as bupropion is metabolized extensively into 3 main metabolites.
I don't think I have any permanent cumulative benefits and exercise has certainly not removed the need for medicine. In fact, exercise doesn't do anything for me. I still feel numb, anhedonic, no emotions, fatigued, poor concentration and attenion, etc. The only thing that exercise did was improve how I responded to Rhodiola. In the past I would just do HIIT on the treadmill 3x a week and it seemed to greatly potentiate Rhodiola, but on its own it did absolutely nothing. However, I should note that I started doing HIIT in the winter of 2012, which is after I took Wellbutrin. But my Rhodiola experience has been mostly when I was doing HIIT.
I don't do HIIT anymore and I just do strength training and hypertrophy work. Could HIIT confer different benefits from resistance training or regular exercise?
Its very interesting,
weight could seriously be the thing here, as you said you went from 120 lbs to 160 lbs, and some medications are done by weight.
** BUT the thing is this:
* You said Wellbutrin now is awful for you, its more worse than bad. So what's seriously going on here? because this is an issue for all people who use substances.
1. Wellbutrin worked good for you.
2. You stop taking Wellbutrin?
3. You started exercising/gained a lot of weight
4. You Start taking Wellbutrin again and it makes you feel crap? why is that?
The weight gain was on my part alone. Medication had nothing to do with it. I was actually trying to gain weight because I was extremely skinny. It was difficult gaining weight as I don't enjoy food, even fast food, and I get full easily and stay full for more than 5 hours. I should also mention that sweets are absolutely disgusting for me and I was worried that I might have diabetes because of it, but I did a fasted blood test and my glucose/HbA1c were normal.
Well, it's not exactly awful or making me feel like crap. It's just that I now have memory and learning issues with it along with the other side effects, but little benefits. Still, it's better than my baseline state.
Could it be that when you first starting Wellbutrin you noticed the effects and it effected you in a strong way because 1: you were not exercising/did not weigh much ,
then you stop taking Wellbutrin.
and start exercising and gaining weight
so could it be possible that some substances may have a 'long-term' memory of some sorts or something when they effect you?
It could be that it was because I did not weigh much, but I was exercising when I was taking Wellbutrin. I forgot about this, but I was training 2 times a week doing Taekwondo at a local dojo.
No, I don't think that's the case that some substances have a long-term effect on me. I've stopped and restarted Wellbutrin many times in the past as well as Rhodiola. In about a week's time tolerance would reverse and I could get the honeymoon effects again, but this was rather unpleasant. Wellbutrin gives me a lot of side effects in the first 2 weeks and Rhodiola takes about a week to start working. Cycling these substances would make me unstable and go through periods of being almost anhedonia-free to being completely numb. This has great implications because when I can experience pleasure and emotions, I obviously pursue them and one of them was socializing. So to cycle through numbness and the opposite would mean I had to plan my life around this. As in, which week could I watch a movie with my friends, which week is going to be the one I can laugh and which week is one I can feel nothing.
Serious question: by any chance since you began resistance training have you started masturbating more often? Icing on cake of the runner's high...I suggest twice a week maximally, twice a month ideally.
A cascading release of endorphins, opioids, acetylcholine[1], dopamine[2], and norepinephrine[3, p.163] could desensitize neural pathways and cloud pharmacological effects.
(Yes, moderate resistance exercise positively affects nearly every neurotransmitter of nearly every organ, so I suspect it is correcting the imbalance before bupropion has the chance.)
As for his weight gain, I think he's implying that it's a good thing, that he's gained mostly muscle from his resistance training, maybe 25lbs muscle and 15 of fat.
No, resistance training hasn't given me any mental benefits whatsoever. I don't get a runner's high, not from HIIT nor resistance training. It doesn't matter how hard I train, I have never felt it and in fact the harder I train the worse I feel.
My libido is dead. I use porn to experiment how different substances affect me. If my libido increases then my anhedonia decreases and so do my cognitive symptoms. Any substance that has increased my libido has given me benefits in other aspects. I usually masturbate once a week to help prevent prostate cancer. One of my uncles had prostate cancer and I don't want to increase my chances of getting it.
One thing I should note is that it's easy for me to get an erection. Looking at porn I get erections, but have absolutely no desire at all. I don't feel anything when I look at it. In fact, I find most porn to be disgusting.
The only time I had even a glimpse of a libido without medication was when I was 15 and puberty was just starting for me.
I think I was able to experience what a normal libido is like on my 3rd day of Wellbutrin, back when it gave me a honeymoon period. It was the 3rd day of Wellbutrin and I had a tingling sensation in my groin and started to think sexual thoughts so I looked at porn and felt something that I have never felt. I guess it was lust and what being turned on is like. I actually had a desire to masturbate. Unfortunately, that only lasted for one day, which is quite odd. Why would it only be on just one day and just on the 3rd day of Wellbutrin? This would happen every time I cycled Wellbutrin in the past.
I suggest if must you exceed twice a week, do restrain yourself better. Prolonged stimulation/teasing may be half as bad as reaching orgasm, especially for females. If you do it every day, like copulating lab rats, ΔFosB levels are expected to rise in your nucleus accumbens, you'll be daydreaming and dreaming about it more than normally, you'll feel addicted and will suffer mentally from your abuses.
Just my opinion, never liked rhodiola, like vinpocetine it's too unreliable, especially with prolonged use.
And consider bupropion is a harsh medicine, often causing palpitations, anxiety, and more, and that your aging body is not handling it as well?
Our advice ultimately will be the same as a doctor's, to drop something if it doesn't feel good and to obviously avoid documented contraindications.
Yeah, Rhodiola is definitely not a herb to be used long-term. I read a study that found it was only effective for 6 weeks in treating fatigue in internship doctors (I think they were internship doctors, not sure).
Well, I'm only 21 years old now. I took it when I was 18 years old. Not sure if aging has effected it somehow.
Edited by NeuroNootropic, 16 April 2015 - 01:18 AM.
