Taking Wellbutrin With No Improvement For Social Anxiety. Asked To Increase Dose. Have Shortness Of Breath. Suggest?

Posted on Thu, 10 Oct 2013

Question: My son has been taking 150 Wellbutrin with no improvement for his social anxiety/generalized anxiety for 3 weeks. On Friday we went to the doctor and she increased dose to 300 which he has only taken for 5 days. He is experiencing shortness of breath and would like to stop taking the medicine. What is the best way to do this?

Answered by Dr. Seikhoo Bishnoi (51 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Hello

Detailed Answer:
Welcome to XXXXXXX

Wellbutrin or bupropion is a good anti-anxiety and anti-depressant drug. When drug is started in any individual it start showing its effect in about 4-6 weeks. He has taken 150 mg of doses for 3 weeks and then dose was increased to 300 mg per day. Now for last 5 days he is having shortness of breath. The symptoms can occur either due to anxiety itself or due to drug doses.

Some times when dose is increased a little increase in anxiety may occur in a lot of individuals also called as rebound anxiety. It lasts usually for a week, so if he is ready to continue the medicines then you can wait for few more days and the side effects will go and he will show the response.

Other thing is to taper the doses of drug. Best is to start with 150 mg again and give him 150 mg for about 2 weeks and then you can stop the drug completely.

Visit his psychiatrist for detailed help.

Hope this helps you, if you have more queries you can ask again.

Thanks

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar