Is It Safe to Combine Cymbalta and Wellbutrin? How Will the Wellbutrin Make a Difference in My Current Status?

Question by Brandi Beverly: Is it safe to combine Cymbalta and Wellbutrin? How will the Wellbutrin make a difference in my current status?
Just got diagnosed with severe chemical depression and started on Cymbalta a month ago. Working great for me. Haven’t felt better in my life! However, I have started suffering from extreme fatigue about a week after starting and it hasn’t subsided. And I have begun suffering from body aches and severe muscle stiffness. Prior to taking medicine I thought it was a symptom of my depression. And after starting the Cymbalta, at first my boyfriend and I attributed it to me moving a lot more than I was used to because my depression had gotten to a point of being crippling. But the fatigue hasn’t gotten any better. After talking to my doctor about these side effects she says the fatigue could be a side effect of the Cymbalta and should dissipate in about 6-8 weeks after I started, but she is really concerned with the muscle aches and stiffness because the Cymbalta is supposed to be a muscle relaxer and a type of pain med. She is concerned I have fibermialgia and wants to put me on Wellbutrin also. I am concerned about taking two different anti-depressants. Also, I am concerned that the Wellbutrin is also supposed to have a side effect of fatigue, and don’t understand why, when the Cybalta is working so well on the depression and anxiety, she would put me on an additional anti-depressant to fight the fatigue and body aches, even after suggesting I may have fibermialgia, which Wellbutrin doesn’t even show it treats. Could someone bring some light to this subject for me? Does this make sense to anyone? How likely is the Wellbutrin to make my fatigue worse? And what would be the benefits of taking the Wellbutrin with the Cymbalta? Is Wellbutrin proven to treat any symptoms of fibermialgia? Or muscle soreness and stiffness? And is it safe to take two anti-depressants, especially when what I am taking is working miracles on my frame of mind?

Best answer:

Answer by lifeslikethat
I am bit surprised by the addition of Wellbutrin instead of substituting it, and personally would keep an eye out for serotonin syndrome as it would increase your risk for that. Wellbutrin is a more stimulating medication so that is probably why it came to mind. Are you sure she said in addition to and not instead of? Because they are very chemically close.

Lyrica is typically used more in fibromyalgia I haven’t really heard of Wellbutrin being used a lot for it. Sometimes older tricyclic antidepressants such as Elavil or Trazodone will be used at low doses to treat this type of thing.

Answer by gardensallday
People get extremely variable results from psychiatric drugs, and most of the response is the placebo effect. Your doc is just throwing drugs at you. Google kirsch antidepressants for more on lack of efficacy, and ioannidis antidepressants.

There is no such thing as a “chemical depression.” if your doc told you that, it’s a lie. At this time, NO ONE knows what causes mental illnesses of any kind. The idea that it’s a simple chemical imbalance has been disproved, many years ago, and doctors who say that are lying to their patients (not informed consent!) Your problem may or may not be biological in origin, but it’s not due to a simple chemical imbalance. Again, nobody knows the causes of mental disorders. Google mental illness brain circuitry, and you’ll find articles about lead psychiatric researchers admitting it’s not a chemical imbalance, and lying that they never said it was a chemical imbalance. They now say it’s “brain circuitry” though they have little to no evidence of that (nobody knows what causes mental illnesses)

What docs usually do is tack on drug after drug after drug, to treat the side effects of the last one, until you turn into a shuffling zombie. I took so-called medications for bipolar 1 for 15 years, and I was utterly debilitated by these drugs. I tried 25 drugs alone and in combos, and ECT, and it was a disaster. I am feeling much better OFF all drugs, for 3 1/2 years now, albeit I’m still not functioning very well. I am no longer suicidal every moment of every day, though, which is how I literally was while on those so-called medications.

Think hard if you really want to take this drugging path. Frankly, I think these drugs are as bad as chronically using booze to deal with problems. I found self help such as meditation, doing positive activities etc. to be somewhat helpful, and otherwise, nothing.

I swear, psychiatrists are the ones who graduated at the bottom of their medical school classes. They just throw drugs at patients, with no rhyme or reason. I trained as a geophysicist before bipolar took me out, and psychiatry isn’t science, and docs have poor logic skills. I actually had a psychiatrist insult me (not just note it) in my medical chart because I used a couple of big words that he didn’t know what they meant. I have absolutely nothing good to say about psychiatry except that some psychiatrists I have had were loving people who were really trying to help me, but failed, because they bought into this bio-psychiatric model 200 years before its time.

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