Hi - after several months of being on 300mg (later reduced to 200mg) of generic Wellbutrin, I started noticing extraordinary amounts of hair-loss - especially as I'm washing and combing-out my hair. I tried to "wait out" this side-effect to see if it resolved itself somehow (maybe it was due to some other cause) - but it hasn't let up, so my psych and I agreed to taper off this drug. But from what my psych has said - I don't think she's convinced that my hair loss is Wellbutrin-related. On each of the two occassions we've discussed this, she voiced her skepticism by citing the fact that I didn't start experiencing this hair-loss until around 8 or 9 months after I started this drug - and she expressed the belief that drug side-effects manifest either immediately or shortly after starting a drug. Although I feel fairly strongly that the hair-loss is caused by the drug - her doubts have rubbed off on me a little.

So I wanted to ask the people here who have experienced hair-loss on this drug - how long after starting Wellbutrin did the hair-loss start for you? And I have a more general question that anyone can answer: has anyone had experience with certain drug-related side-effects that didn't manifest until several months (or years) after starting the medication?

I've had prior experience with a late-emerging side-effect: About 13 years ago when I was taking Prozac, I didn't start experiencing the pruitis (itching) side-effect until I had been on the drug for a little over a year.

This hair-loss is unlike any I've ever experienced - I mean, I started experiencing hair-thining after being on Effexor for about a year-and-a-half....but it was a different kind of hair-loss. It was much milder (slower-rate), controllable (to a certain extent), and had characteristics of it being hormonal-related. This current hair-loss is a real beast: losing lots and lots of hair at once, tons of hair in the tub and literally coming out in near-piles as I comb out my hair, and there seems to be nothing I can do to control it. I take this as evidence that it is the Wellbutrin that is causing this.

This post has been edited by crossroids: Nov 6 2008, 06:57 PM