Friday, May 30, 2008
Daily Douchebag: Wellbutrin XL
DOB: first synthesized in 1966, patented in 1974, FDA approved in 1985
Occupation: antidepressant, smoking cessation aid, hangover adjuvant
Hometown: GlaxoSmithKline manufacturing facility
Current residence: my medicine cabinet
Douchebaggery: My lame former shrink prescribed me Wellbutrin to aid in my smoking cessation efforts. I've taken Zyban (the name Wellbutrin is marketed under for smoking) in the past, and thought it worked pretty well. Plus, it didn't make me feel numb and emotionless like my brief post-abortion scrip Lexapro did, and I didn't experience any sexual side effects (obviously VERY important to me). Since I've been having trouble staying off the cancer sticks long-term, my shrink decided that long-term Wellbutrin therapy might help with both that and the stress issues which trigger relapses for me.
I don't know if I drank less when I took Zyban in the past or what, but in the past week I have had two completely incapacitating hangovers. Tuesday I couldn't even make it into work because I spent the whole day throwing up, and yesterday morning I spent lots of quality time clutching the toilet as well, and the afternoon experiencing the shakes so seriously that I could barely do any lab work. In both situations, I'd surely had lots to drink the night before, but not so much as to warrant such brutal after-effects. I'm an accomplished alcoholic, and it takes a LOT for me to suffer so tremendously.
Because I don't remember having such problems the last time I took Zyban, it didn't occur to me that Wellbutrin might be the culprit behind this until J-Sexy mentioned it.
"Razzy, you weren't even that drunk last night," she said yesterday as I picked green-faced at my steak at our post-doc's going-away lunch yesterday. "Do you think it might be because of your Wellbutrin?"
"But I took it before and I don't remember that happening," I said.
"Well, who knows? Maybe you drink more now, maybe you're older and it has different effects," she said.
Later she looked it up on the internets, and found some reported cases of people saying that Wellbutrin caused them to have significantly worse hangovers than they had when not taking it. That was all the convincing I needed to blame Wellbutrin for sending me into a miserable reverie of dry heaving after only 6 or 7 beers, which may sound like a lot to some people, but to me sounds like just the right amount for a barbecue on a school night. I'm a champion boozer, so a six pack is no big deal.
I'm going to stay on the Wellbutrin because quitting smoking is absolutely imperative. Smoking has made my childhood asthma return with a vengeance, and is something I can't afford to do health-wise or financially. I've been smoking for almost 20 years, and smoking a pack a day for almost 15 years. This has to stop now, so in my mind Wellbutrin isn't an option. However, I'm completely pissed that this might mean I have to cut down on my drinking too. While that's probably for the best from a hepatic perspective, it's going to really cramp my style to have people think I'm wussing out on my normal rock star-caliber alcoholism. Thanks for ruining my reputation, Wellbutrin.
Labels: alcoholism, Daily Douchebag, drugs, medical drama, smoking
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I hope for your sake its the wellbutrin cause otherwise you're turning into a huge vag. Pretty soon your gonna have to just stay home and knit...
# posted by 
: 5/30/2008 8:52 AM
: 5/30/2008 8:52 AM
I remember when I used to take Wellbutrin I couldn't drink at all - just one or two drinks and I'd feel awful the next day. But I was never a Razzy-level partier to begin with.
# posted by : 5/30/2008 11:07 AM
: 5/30/2008 11:07 AM
I've been on Wellbutrin for years and thought my hideous hangovers were just the wrath of my much-abused, bastard liver. Nice to know that I'm not a pussy and it's the pills!
# posted by : 5/30/2008 12:46 PM
: 5/30/2008 12:46 PM
That sucks dude. You might want to check out chantix, that shit works for me. No smokes for two weeks now! And no hangovers after my nightly wine and/or vodka binges
# posted by : 5/30/2008 2:17 PM
: 5/30/2008 2:17 PM
I had a several year spell between the 1st time I was on wellbutrin and the second. The second time I was on wellbutrin xl instead of "regular" and I had awful anxiety attacks on it that went away when I switched to Paxil. I found out later that a friend in the field found several therapy patients routinely put on it from wellbutrin as an "improvement" had similar problems. You may be better off with regular wellbutrin.
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# posted by : 5/30/2008 5:01 PM
: 5/30/2008 5:01 PM Links to this post:
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