The hardness isn't an issue; the coating may be. Check with your pharmacist to see what coating it is. If it's a once a day XL (extended release tab), might not work or be absorbed well. I was on that, briefly, and had to do a twice daily non-XL tab.

I had to switch off of the extended release to the generic pill form and take 3 100 mg pills a day. Be careful and do not take a dose at bed time as it will keep you awake. Please change ASAP. My transit time is too fast for any medications like that.

The good news is the old school form is really cheaper than the fancy once a day kind

I take Wellbutrin with no problems. As the others have said, make sure you're not taking Wellbutrin SR or else you won't be able to absorb it.

This is the second time I have been on Wellbutrin-the last time was before my surgery. It's a different type of pill this time around-the last time, it seemed like there was a coating on it, this time there is not (seems like it is similar to a Tylenol or aspirin tablet). You might remind your doctor that you don't have a colon....my doctor is aware (matter of fact, we discussed it on the day that I was in her office getting the Well.!), but it slipped both her and my mind that she prescribed me the extended release.

Thanks everyone could not see my doctor but talked to her nurse twice yesterday. I love my doctor and she knows i dont have a colon. She first called back and said new prescription of 200mg twice a day. I said that is not the problem but the absorbtion is and that will not help. She called me back and called in 100mg 3 times a day that is well absorbed and you can chew a little to make sure. I am her only patient that has no colon and a J pouch and i always remind her of that and i told her and she still gave me 3 month supply of the extended release. So i went from effexor to wellburtrin with no weaning off and for a month was feeling worse than ever. I was crying all the time and felt horrible. A month of feeling that way when i did not have to makes me angry. My vacation was hard and my family said that i was short tempered and sometimes mean and if you know me that is not me. I pray that the new pill will work. Just want to feel better. so hope now for sure. What does it take sometimes for some one to here you. Found a support group and left a message and i pray they get back to me. I really need to go to one. Feeling alone is no way to feel.
Thanks to everyone who has wrote me back it means the world to me.
Lynne

I'm typing this off of my prescription bottle so you can tell them what works for my j-pouch:

BUPROPION 100MG TABLETS

I take 300 MG per day, if you need 400 MG per day you take 2 pills twice a day. (I take 200 once a day and 100 once a day, per my doctor. I am also on a SSRI antidepressant that I take when I take the 100 dose.) REMEMBER do not take before going to bed or it will keep you awake. I take my last dose around supper/dinner time.

This is generic Wellbrutrin and I absorb them well. I honestly think something must have gotten lost in the translation between the time you said it and it got through the nurse to the doctor. I don't know if the other medication is helping or not. I know how it feels to be short with your family when you don't want to be, etc. It is hard to be charming when you feel so bad and are down to begin with. Hang in there it will all get sorted out.

Thanks TE for you info and kind words. The 100mg generic 3 times a day seem to be working. Starting to feel a little better but its only been 3 days. I think it will take a couple weeks to full real effect. I hope so because i was at the end of my rope. The idea of taking medication for a month and just pooping it out explains so much. I hope and pray i am on the right track i have to be. I truly need some good things feel like for the last 15 months i have been through the ringer. Have not heard back from support group that i left message with but will try again later in the week after the holiday. I really need a support group. You guess are all i have that when you say i know what you mean really know.
Happy Labor Day
Frances

Francis,
I am so relieved I didn't understand that you had gotten the generic, that's why I wrote it out. Please don't take the last dose to close to bedtime and you are set.

After surgery 1 when I had my temp ileo I was complaining about pain to the Visiting Nurse. She was looking at my appliance and just then my pain pill floated out whole into my bag. She said that might be why I was in pain! I started cutting every pill I was taking in half, including that extended release Wellbrutrin and called my Internist. That's when I went generic
If you are on FaceBook there are all kinds of support groups for various health and mental health conditions. There are also all kinds on "HealingWell.com" where you can have a screen name. If you want to know more about FB groups please PM me.

I am on Wellbutrin and when I came home from the hospital after my first step surgery, I wondered what would happen to the buproprion XLs I was taking at home. Well, after the first time I took it, I just saw a fragment of the outer thin shell (it was my only white med) in my pouch. I worked with my psychiatrist and he switched me to the buproprion SR, saying that even though it was still extended release, it was absorbed more quickly than the XL.

The reason it is absorbed faster is the way the extended release is manufactured. The XL has a coating around the outside of the pill; the SR is made up of multiple very small "beads" of buproprion that have the extended release coating. The SR pills can be cut; the XL can't. I switched to the SR, and have had absolutely no visual evidence in my pouch that it is not being absorbed, and my depression is stabilized. This is a relief.

I did NOT want to go to straight Wellbutrin/buproprion, and this is why. (I am a psychiatric RN, so I know this from working with patients). Before we had the extended release forms of Wellbutrin/buproprion, the plain dose was absorbed rather rapidly, with a quick peak and fairly rapid excretion, so we had to give it to patients several times a day. Because of the peak, it put SOME patients more at risk for seizures at higher doses. That is the reason the maximum recommended dose has been 450 mg/day. So the use of extended release Wellbutrin/buproprion, I observed, really decreased the amount of seizures that patients were having.


UC for over 10 years - annual screening colonoscopies since then.

Colonoscopy 3/6/13 - a mass in the rectum that was adenocarcinoma.

26 treatments of radiation therapy with Xeloda, which were completed on May 8.

Genetic test in April revealed that I have the HNPCC/Lynch Syndrome gene - the EPCAM deletion.

First step surgery done on July 11, 2013 - total colectomy with IPAA & loop ileostomy.

Thanks so much i was feeling little better but now i feel i could cry all day. I think it has alot to do with gaining 40 pounds. I work out 4 to 5 times a week and burn about 500 calories and eat well and nothing not a pound. I know i need to get out more but with the opium i have to be very careful driving when i can and can not. I go to therapy tomorrow and sad but i cant wait. Its through the college so they are allmost done with school and its a teaching college. Its very inexpensive so that really helps. I still have not heard from the support group i called and then got the e mail from her of who to contact and heard nothing yet. Its a very lonely time in my life but its so hard to have friends when they are working and i am at home. Sorry to whine so much but i just need some peace and a purpose in my life.
Thanks to all
Frances

Hello-

The absorption of most nutrients and drugs takes place in the area of the terminal ileum (If I remember my A&P training). The Colon is primarily responsible for resorption of water and bile salts. J-Pouchers often have stools that are rich in bile salts due to that lack of Colon. It also changes the smell and consistency of the stool.

As for breakdown of pills -First they get blasted with Gastric acid and churned in the Stomach, then they get a slow journey in the upper small bowel out of the Duodenum in which they are further broken down chemically. Not much chance of a pill surviving that journey intact.

However, since the Terminal Ileum has been surgically manipulated in J-Pouchers, the absorption of essential nutrients etc... can definitely be affected.

MK-