Managing your mental health can feel like a part-time job. Keeping up with taking medication, understanding its side effects, and tracking your experiences for your doctor or psychiatrist can be overwhelming.
On top of that, if you’re feeling like your anxiety or depression symptoms aren’t improving, you might be searching for options you can discuss with your prescribing care provider.
If you’re wondering whether Wellbutrin and Lexapro are medications you can combine for your treatment, keep reading. We’ll also show you a few more alternatives to help you manage your symptoms while you’re figuring things out.
What is Wellbutrin?
Let’s say you’ve briefly talked to your doctor about your symptoms, but you’ve been waiting to bring up medications. You may have seen this medication come up when looking for treatment options for anxiety and depression online. What does this medication do? Let’s learn more about its purposes and side effects.
Who Can Take Wellbutrin?
Wellbutrin is a class of drug known as antidepressants.
This kind of medication works to combat the effects of several mental disorders, including seasonal affective disorder and major depressive disorder. Typically, Wellbutrin helps those who experience feelings of emptiness or sadness, worthlessness, numbness, low energy, or problems with sleep.
Medical professionals sometimes prescribe Bupropion, such as treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder symptoms. There is little research to support these uses, so exercise caution and bring up any concerns with your prescribing provider.
What Are the Side Effects and Benefits of Wellbutrin?
If you take Wellbutrin, you may notice some of your symptoms of depression subsiding after weeks of taking the medication. However, you may also notice a few common side effects:
Dry mouth
Trouble sleeping
Headache
Weight loss
Nausea
Dizziness
Constipation
Sore throat
If you experience more severe symptoms such as muscle pain, thought disturbances, eye pain, or suicidal thoughts, always let your care provider or prescriber know immediately so that you can find a better option if necessary.
What is Lexapro?
While you’re searching for medications to help you deal with the symptoms of anxiety or depression, you might come across Lexapro.
Lexapro is also an antidepressant, and its drug class is a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI). You may also see this medication called escitalopram, its generic name.
Doctors or mental health care prescribers may prescribe Lexapro to help treat major depressive disorder and anxiety symptoms. If you’re experiencing these symptoms, talking to your doctor or mental health care provider about trying medication can help you determine which is appropriate for your needs.
Potential Side Effects and Benefits of Taking Lexapro
If your prescriber suggests Lexapro as a part of a treatment plan for your symptoms, you may want to be aware of some side effects. Here are a few of the general side effects you may experience while on this medication:
Headache
Diarrhea
Nausea
Dry mouth,
Increased sweating
Restless
Fatigue
Insomnia
Before taking Lexapro or any medications, speak to your doctor about your experiences and medical history to understand whether you have any health concerns that Lexapro could worsen.
Can You Take Wellbutrin And Lexapro Together?
Perhaps you’re already on Wellbutrin or Lexapro, and you’re wondering when you’ll start to see benefits. Maybe you’ve wondered if adding another medication could help your symptoms even more.
In the case of Wellbutrin and Lexapro, these two drugs have significant interactions, meaning that taking them both together could produce severe adverse side effects in some cases.
You may experience adverse reactions when combining these drugs. Always speak to a medical professional who understands your medical history when combining new medications.
Tips for Managing Depression
If you’re still in the stage of researching your symptoms and treatment, you might be wondering if there’s anything you can do to find relief more quickly. Although you might not be in a position to try medication this week, there are a few adjustments you can make to your life to help manage symptoms of depression.
1. Be Vulnerable with a Support System
We know it can be challenging to open up to others when you’re depressed. It’s not always easy to admit you’ve been feeling tired and numb for days, weeks, or months.
Still, taking the opportunity to open up to those around you can be rewarding. Sometimes, people care more than you know. Being open about your experiences can help you feel a sense of connection with the people in your life. These people may even support you in your mental health journey to make you feel less alone.
2. Have Compassion for Yourself
Waking up every day while battling depression can be a frustrating experience. Your job, school, relationships, and commitments don’t pause when you’re not feeling well. It can be easy to begin to resent yourself for your experiences with symptoms of depression.
In these moments when you veer toward self-condemnation, try to give yourself compassion instead. You’re not any less worthy of a rich life just because you go through these symptoms. Exercising this compassion is one small way to show up for yourself and stay hopeful for finding relief.
3. Do One Thing that Makes You Feel Good Each Day
Your depression might feel like it’s taking over your life at times. Although it can be exhausting to deal with these symptoms day after day, you can make small choices that help add positivity and joy to your days.
For example, if you have the energy, try to do one thing each day that makes you feel good. It’s one way to prioritize your interests in this season.
Ways to Manage Anxiety
You may be struggling with anxiety instead of depression, but we also know that depression and anxiety can sometimes go hand-in-hand. If you’re looking for ways to help manage the symptoms of anxiety outside of medication, here are a few of your options:
1. Evaluate Your Life to Reduce Stress
Sometimes, anxiety is a chemical issue in your brain. Yet, some factors in life can contribute to excessive stress.
One way you may reduce some anxiety in your life is to evaluate areas of your daily routines that cause you to worry or become panicked. If a relationship or commitment is doing more harm than good, consider eliminating it from your daily routine to relieve some tension.
2. Practice Guided Meditation
Anxiety is a response from your central nervous system to attempt to keep you safe from perceived harm. Sometimes, anxiety gets out of hand when your nervous system perceives more danger than exists in reality.
If you often feel anxious without knowing why you can try activities that help activate your nervous system’s rest chemicals. You can try guided meditation, yoga, or gratitude journaling as a few options to help you relax.
3. Take Care of Situational Stressors
As we mentioned, sometimes, anxiety results from a perceived danger. If there’s one massive problem causing you to lose sleep at night, it might feel easier to avoid it. Some examples might be a medical bill, a new project at work, or a messy house.
Though it’s easy to ignore these stressors, taking action to minimize their impact on your life can help you feel relief knowing you’ve tackled part of the problem.
Why Seeing a Therapist Can Help
Ultimately, the above tips can only help so much when you’re dealing with long-term depression and anxiety. When you need expert help, we know reaching out can be a challenge.
At Mood Health, we’ve made it our priority to make it easier for people like you to access quality mental health care. Psychiatric care and therapy should be accessible and affordable to help you find the proper diagnoses and treatment.
You don’t have to wait months to see a qualified mental health care professional; at Mood Health, you can tell us more about yourself today and make your first virtual appointment with your therapist this week.
You Deserve Better Mental Health Care
Anxiety and depression can be discouraging, but you don’t have to deal with them alone. At Mood Health, we believe you deserve mental health care providers who help you find the correct treatment while listening to your story with compassion. Connect with a clinician virtually this week to develop a treatment plan that works for your life.
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