Venting Overdosed on Bupropion

[mob]

I'm not sure if this goes under "venting" or "story", but it doesn't matter. I need to put this out here.
Do not try to ctb with antidepressants, especially not Bupropion.
I don't wanna explain why I did it, and I also don't wanna explain why I called an ambulance afterwards. In the morning of Sep 1st I took 24 of my 300mg bupropion pills - so 7.2g -, I didn't take the whole thing because I believe I didn't want to actually risk what could happen.
I called an ambulance, paramedics arrived, took my vitals, drew some blood, they took me to the hospital. Had to drink some of that liquid charcoal, they did an ECG which I had to have on for 24 hours.
The first 12 hours were fine. I felt perfectly normal, aside from some twitching and funny feeling in my head. I remember thinking to myself 'I could've just slept it off'. Well, the thing about bupropion is they usually get prescribed as extended release medication, so it didn't fully kick in until 12 hours later. A bupropion overdose causes seizures, hallucinations, arrythmias, cardiogenic shock and more. It could certainly kill you, but in a very uncomfortable way. The range is from 6g upwards - people have died from the dosage I took, and people have survived after ingesting a lot more. It really depends.

As for me, I didn't experience any seizures. But I woke up around 2am and started full-on hallucinating. I felt paranoid and like I was going to die as soon as I fall asleep because my entire body would go limp if I even just closed my eyes. My head was pounding, my heart was beating like it was on speed, I was shaking and twitching. Hearing and seeing things that weren't there. It was very uncomfortable. But I managed to fall back asleep. The fact that I'd only gotten 2 hours of sleep in the past 2 days didn't help either.
The next morning, I felt like my brain was off. I could barely form normal sentences, and I couldn't think straight. If I said something to someone, I'd forget what it was a second later. If I did something, I'd forget I'd done it a second later. It felt fuzzy.

I remember seeing a long hair on my arm and because it was tickling me, I tried to grab it. I tried a total of 5 times before I realized there wasn't a hair and I'd imagined that. My roommate looked at me like I was crazy.
Thankfully, that subsided and after trying my absolute hardest to convince the doctors I wasn't trying to kill myself so they wouldn't put me in a psych ward, they finally agreed on letting me leave the same day as long as I went to the psychiatric hospital to get examined and make sure I wasn't actively suicidal. I turned up to the psychiatric hospital with no shoes (I didn't bring any), pants that were 3 sizes too big and dragging on the floor, twitching and probably looked insane. But I kept saying I'm not actively suicidal, so they didn't keep me there. I gotta see my psychiatrist tomorrow and got an appointment to get properly diagnosed. Have to take some anti-epileptic medication for 2 more days and that's it.
The doctor kept asking me if I'm aware that the overdose could've killed me, and I said yes. I also had to deal with worried friends and my worried sick gf, so that wasn't nice either.
Anyway, those were the worst 2 days of my life. Don't OD on bupropion guys.

 

[U. A.]

Yep.

Non-methods that should not be attempted

mod note: this has been added to the suicide resource compilation at the top. This has been made in response to the ever increasing amount of posts made about highly unlikely methods. Please read before posting about one of these methods or feel free to link if someone does post about them...

sanctioned-suicide.net

 

[Forveleth]

Wow, that sounds like a terrible experience. I'm sorry.

I always say they would not give bottles full of pills to depressed people if you could actually kill yourself with them.

... - people have died from the dosage I took, and people have survived after ingesting a lot more. It really depends.

This is the big gimbal with ODs. The amount it takes to kill a particular person is never known and it makes the method incredibly risky.

 

[NearlyIrrelevantCake]

Why ODs Fail Miserably (A Guide)

There's still a lot of questions and inquiries about ODs, and people asking about what things may facilitate a successful attempt. Let's be clear, ODs are rarely fatal. Why? For a couple of reasons: (1) modern medications are designed to be very safe, as manufacturers aim to avoid deaths that...

sanctioned-suicide.net

 

[metothemoon]

I'm not sure if this goes under "venting" or "story", but it doesn't matter. I need to put this out here.
Do not try to ctb with antidepressants, especially not Bupropion.
I don't wanna explain why I did it, and I also don't wanna explain why I called an ambulance afterwards. In the morning of Sep 1st I took 24 of my 300mg bupropion pills - so 7.2g -, I didn't take the whole thing because I believe I didn't want to actually risk what could happen.
I called an ambulance, paramedics arrived, took my vitals, drew some blood, they took me to the hospital. Had to drink some of that liquid charcoal, they did an ECG which I had to have on for 24 hours.
The first 12 hours were fine. I felt perfectly normal, aside from some twitching and funny feeling in my head. I remember thinking to myself 'I could've just slept it off'. Well, the thing about bupropion is they usually get prescribed as extended release medication, so it didn't fully kick in until 12 hours later. A bupropion overdose causes seizures, hallucinations, arrythmias, cardiogenic shock and more. It could certainly kill you, but in a very uncomfortable way. The range is from 6g upwards - people have died from the dosage I took, and people have survived after ingesting a lot more. It really depends.

As for me, I didn't experience any seizures. But I woke up around 2am and started full-on hallucinating. I felt paranoid and like I was going to die as soon as I fall asleep because my entire body would go limp if I even just closed my eyes. My head was pounding, my heart was beating like it was on speed, I was shaking and twitching. Hearing and seeing things that weren't there. It was very uncomfortable. But I managed to fall back asleep. The fact that I'd only gotten 2 hours of sleep in the past 2 days didn't help either.
The next morning, I felt like my brain was off. I could barely form normal sentences, and I couldn't think straight. If I said something to someone, I'd forget what it was a second later. If I did something, I'd forget I'd done it a second later. It felt fuzzy.

I remember seeing a long hair on my arm and because it was tickling me, I tried to grab it. I tried a total of 5 times before I realized there wasn't a hair and I'd imagined that. My roommate looked at me like I was crazy.
Thankfully, that subsided and after trying my absolute hardest to convince the doctors I wasn't trying to kill myself so they wouldn't put me in a psych ward, they finally agreed on letting me leave the same day as long as I went to the psychiatric hospital to get examined and make sure I wasn't actively suicidal. I turned up to the psychiatric hospital with no shoes (I didn't bring any), pants that were 3 sizes too big and dragging on the floor, twitching and probably looked insane. But I kept saying I'm not actively suicidal, so they didn't keep me there. I gotta see my psychiatrist tomorrow and got an appointment to get properly diagnosed. Have to take some anti-epileptic medication for 2 more days and that's it.
The doctor kept asking me if I'm aware that the overdose could've killed me, and I said yes. I also had to deal with worried friends and my worried sick gf, so that wasn't nice either.
Anyway, those were the worst 2 days of my life. Don't OD on bupropion guys.

What an awful experience. Where you alone and did you call the ambulance yourself? After how much time after you took the pills?

 

[TBONTB]

Thank you for sharing that important experience. I hope you start to recover quickly.

 

[mob]

What an awful experience. Where you alone and did you call the ambulance yourself? After how much time after you took the pills?

I think it's important to note that I wasn't trying to ctb, I just have issues with substance abuse and was feeling unwell. I hadn't gotten any sleep the past 2 nights before so I wasn't in the right headspace either. It was like, in the middle of it I suddenly snapped out of it and panicked. I was alone and I called the ambulance about 30 minutes after taking the pills, since I was afraid of having seizures from it.
The paramedics were incredibly nice, so I didn't feel embarrassed either. I think the charcoal drink saved me from experiencing much more uncomfortable and scary side effects, but thankfully the hallucinations that I did have passed quickly and I feel physically fine again.