> I'm fascinated with the idea that when you try to increase a substance in your brain, it "fights back",

Well, it's a truism that mostly-stable systems have at least locally corrective responses to perturbations. Back in High School, I was a bit mystified as to why Le Chatelier's principle should be so nearly universally applicable, until I realized that the sample set is extremely biased... if a chemical system isn't even metastable, it doesn't get much broad attention. Stable or metastable chemical systems must have locally stabilizing responses to change. Even for things like combustion reactions, we mostly study stable flames, except for niche studies.

I realized there's a generalization of Le Chatelier's principle that's almost a truism for any system that exhibits something approaching short-term stability or short-term bounded oscillation.

If some brain state weren't locally corrective, then it would be a transient brain state, and excluded from the most intuitive notion of normal brain behavior. So, we'd expect that for normal brain behaviors, we'd see corrective responses to change.

Hey, sorry for getting back to you late.

I have recently been put on bupropion for depression and potentially ADHD. I have never used medication before (started 6 weeks ago), originally was put on Vyvanse (at the suggestion of another HNer ! haha) but I found the stimulant aspect too strong. In a way, the bupropion feels too weak but I am giving it time (supposedly they effect the same neurotransmitters except Vyvanse is a direct stimulant/acts of synthetic dopamine and buproprion merely inhibits the natural process that removes these).

What do you think naltrexone would do to help? I'm not sure I am following your reasoning. I actually do have some leftover naltrexone, never thought about combining it.

So naltrexone + buproprion = more naturally occuring dopamine/norepinephrine?

My concern with bupropion is that it stops the process of removing dopamine from the brain, but what if I am not producing enough to begin with?

Here are two links I found helpful:

https://www.goodtherapy.org/drugs/antidepressants.html -explains the mechanism of action for lots of antidepressants including bupropion. I believe the different uses for the drug basically comes down to dosage + marketing.

https://www.leonardsax.com/stimulants.htm - a psychologist is against the use of stimulants in kids due to potential for long term damage.

Side note, just by presenting myself well and speaking clearly (and looking like a professional), I felt my psychologist was willing to let me try most things. I was very much in the driver's seat as far as what drug to take and at what dose. Next time we meet I may see if they are open to prescribing modafinil, which I have used in the past and thought it worked great (as a stimulant, even complimentary to caffeine) with no side effects.

For a time I took both Vyvanse and Buproprion. I was able to study for 10 hours a day and passed a professional certification that week.

I’ve been losing weight on the SNL diet (about 50kg, so far) — eat less/move more. Kicking the “sugar” habit is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. A few months back (just before the holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, all of the birthdays in my family), I got appendicitis. During recovery I was encouraged to eat & couldn’t exercise. I put on 7-8kg in a few weeks. Getting back off sugar onto a healthy diet has been awful. If that drug combo actually works ... I dunno; I’d pay a lot.

I have found the only way I can consistently lose weight is with keto. Otherwise, even when I thought I was restricting, I would end up binging at night on high calorie foods like nuts or cheese, sometimes even in my sleep!

Vyvanse also helped suppress my appetite but I lost about 10kg just on keto over a 2 month period.

Since you mentioned sugar, I had to mention keto. I do believe refined sugar is quite bad for the human body.

re: weight loss drugs, Vyvanse destroyed my appetite (among other side effects like severe sweating, easily winded, crashing on the come down), but that should be unsurprising since it is basically a proprietary (slow release) blend of amphetamine.