1 month ago today, I started taking Bupropion (antidepressant) XL extended release. Daily dosing: 150mg for the first ~6 days 300mg after that Beginning just before taking my first dose, I felt amazingly better (happy, optimistic, excited, etc). Placebo is pretty cool. Then Friday came, and I felt shitty all weekend, as per the ~month long trend. On roughly the 8th day, I experienced an alarming level of depression. It was a school day, which typically distracts me enough to forget about mood. On this day however, in my first lecture, I couldnt focus for any reasonable length of time. By about mid-lecture, most of my mental effort was directed to the active suppression of lachrymation (a cool word that I just learned). Im usually pretty good at masking and suppressing these feelings, especially in public. I think that a decent metric for the intensity of an emotional state is the ability, and required effort it takes to suppress the associated physical expressions of that emotion. Apparently it showed on this day, as my professor stopped to ask me if I was okay on his way out of the lecture hall. Of course, I said yes. A couple of hours of this feeling at school was troubling, but eventually I snapped out of it. Casual conversation with a stranger was impressively influential here. It was around this time when my therapist strongly recommended that I get about an hour of aerobic exercise every day. So for the past ~3 weeks, thats been my intention, and its been largely successful. Ive probably averaged ~5 days a week. Typically its been an hour long run to and along the beach, with some stretching and meditation/reflection in the ocean at the half way point. My legs werent so happy with 6.5 miles per day (shin splints?) so Ive recently been substituting runs for hour long yoga classes. Ive also been eating healthier. I quit caffeine completely. I avoid most dairy and bread. I consume mostly salads, fresh fruit, nuts, eggs, bacon, fish, chicken, etc. Ive been sticking to my goal of 8 hours in bed per night (10-6), which tends to deviate by a couple of hours on either end. Ive also been consuming mass quantities of information on physical and mental health and illness. So how has my mood been over these past 3 weeks? Significantly better. Depression hasnt vanished, but the dips are much less severe than they had been. I have been much more optimistic in general, and much more resilient to bad news (which frequently comes mostly in the form of grades). I saw my psychiatrist again today, and summarized the previous month to him. After talking everything out, we decided to increase my dosage of bupropion to 450mg per day. 300 in the morning, and 150 later in the day. As the dosage of bupropion increases, so does the risk of seizure. From what Ive read, risk is something like the following: Up to 300mg/day - .1% 450-600mg/day - .4% More than 600 is not recommended as apparently seizure risk increases significantly beyond that. Im not worried about it. I havent noticed any side effects since Ive been on the drug, but my mood has been much more stable. In a week and a half, Ill be done with finals for this quarter. Then Ill have 3 and a half weeks to relax, have fun, improve my environment, and prepare for next quarter. My grades are quite awful across the board. I hope I dont fail all of my classes (and possibly get kicked out of my major). But even if I do, Ill be okay. By the way, I only post all of this stuff in the hopes that it might be helpful for someone else. In my experiences, people dont really talk about these issues, which makes them more mysterious and potentially scarier than they should be. There are roughly 7 billion of us on this planet Most of us are online. There is an immense wealth of knowledge among us. Its easy to share. So if you read this and it makes you uncomfortable, Id encourage you not to ignore it. Think about it. Talk about it. If you want to, you can comment or ask me questions here. A surprising number of you have done this already - mostly in private (which is okay, but more work for me, and less helpful for others). Hmm... how to close gracefully... ah, here we go. I like this one: Namaste.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 21:47:50 +0000
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