United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

hello. I am new to the general board and certainly appreciate, relate and understand all here have a wide range of quality of life. A bit frustrated at the moment to get into details, my question is has medication such as wellbutrin helped anyone's nerve issues and/or did it just cause unwanted side effects? Thank you and sincerely appreciate your feedback.

I'm going to respond to the "such as" part of the question as I've never taken wellbutrin but have taken a couple different antidepressants. As of now I only take gabapentin 1200mg 3x/day.

At one point my pain management doc prescribed me desipramine in addition to the gabapentin, which doesn't really make my pain go away so much as dampen it to the point that I can get by. I was supposed to start with 25mg/day and add additional doses up to 125 or until my pain went away. I found that I was pretty much without pain at 75mg, however, I experienced substantial sexual dysfunction. I won't go into specifics here; if anybody's curious, send me a message.

I stopped taking it, and asked my doc if there was anything else I could try. He said that desipramine was pretty much the best thing he had to offer, and suggested adding mirtazapine, another antidepressant, which should counter the side effects and not effect the pain suppressing properties of the desipramine.

I tried the combination out for a while and my experience was that the mirtazapine didn't affect the side effects I had from the desipramine, and also came with its own - I had the munchies all the time, and one day I slept for about 20 hours straight. I was completely disoriented when I woke up at 6pm thinking it should be morning.

You can probably understand why I gave up at that point. My doc upped my gabapentin dose (which was 600 mg 3x/day at that point) and I started going to a chiropractor which seemed to help a little bit. I'm still not totally satisfied but I'm waiting to see if things get better on their own (I'm only 16 months in at this point) before I go after more drugs.

I'm not proud to say this but I feel obliged to add that another reason I didn't like the antidepressants was that they really cramped my social drinking, and that I definitely manage my pain with alcohol on a regular basis.

-brian

Hey Brian,

Just wanted to say I can commiserate on all terms of what you describe below. I've tried amitriptyline, but got crazy sleepy (take 50mg of that + a couple beers and you'll sleep for 13 hours), and interestingly, desipramine had the opposite effect where I couldn't sleep. Goes to show that while everyone has their own med stories and suggestions, your own story will always be your own. Right now gabapentin 800x4 seems to be ok, with tramadol occasionally. Sorry Jaboo, I haven't tried wellbutrin.

I'm not particularly happy either, but after a while you get tired of trying drug after drug and rolling the dice on what the side effects will be. Not to mention that the latest drugs that might help are also the most expensive.

The best advice I can offer anyone is to get a pain specialist who understands nerve pain, stay active, and get enough sleep.

-MW

the only thing i have taken is lyrica and tramodol. the lyrica helped me more than anything else. any kind of narcotics made my tounge swell, so i dont do any kind of narcotics any more for anything. dont know if wellbutrin is a narcotic or not, but i have never taken it. lyrica is very costly. if you have insurance, it should help.

Thank you all for the experiences and suggestions. I am very 'stubborn' adding certain pharmaceuticals to my pain mngmt program. I firmly believe as perhaps implied in one response, that many of these compounds are simply money making human experimentation factories. I have tried so many combos and always come back to the more natural remedies, plant based or derived, in theory, such as the opiod class and have no tolerance for meds like amrix or flexeril short acting- which oddly knocks me out in a fog and deep 15+ hours of sleep, or skelaxin which made me crap blood (sorry for that visual). One of my rather good Docs is totally anti opiod but oddly seems fine with herbal remedies for relaxing you know what I mean... I don't really drink other than a beer or wine out with friends so there is no concern with mixing for me, maybe I should!! People close to me have taken anti depression meds and have had very bad side effects, some changed so dramatically I can't believe the news talks about pill mills and not ever about the poisoining of the mind and body for so many people!! That said, I am all for freedom of choice and if they do work for someone that is fantastic! Next visit is in a few days so I will check back. Thanks everyone. Gotta jaboo.