Belviq. What's your experience?

My personal opinion on the upsurge of medications that directly impact neuro-receptors and neuro-transmitters other than dopamine is incredibly skeptical.

Dopamine agonists like phentermine make a lot of sense to me, because dopamine is the chemical associated with satiation, satisfaction, and energetic emotions. However, serotonin agonists such as Belviq carry a much greater risk of influencing a person's mental health, as serotonin directly impacts a person's state of mind regarding mental illnesses such as depression. Forcibly increasing one's serotonin levels when they do not have a deficiency issue or a diagnosed mental illness seems incredibly ridiculous to me, especially for something like weight loss.

Now, it's no new thing for physicians to utilize psychiatric medications to inspire weightloss, but in my eyes, it makes it no less scary. Something like Belviq may help you if you have emotional eating problems or struggle with depression that leads to the inability to maintain a dedicated effort to lose weight through diet and exercise control.

Things to note: Belviq has not been evaluated for efficacy or safety when used alongside ANY other medication, including herbal supplements and OTC medications. They also have not had long enough time to establish any cardiovascular impact that it may have, so one has to consider the CV impact of serotonin levels themselves... and well, high levels can seriously affect the heart... Serotonin increase is what fenfluramine did.
Another thing that I found interesting is that pharmacologically, if you take it for 12 weeks and fail to lose at least 5% of your body weight, resources state that you should cease the medication entirely, because clinical trials have shown that if your dietary habits are not successfully impacted to that level by 12 weeks, it is highly unlikely that it will ever work for you. So keep that in mind.

These things are summarizations of the fact sheet provided on Belviq's website, found here: http://www.belviq.com/documents/Belviq_Prescribing_Information.pdf

Basically they state that if you take it, you should not have pre-existing mental health issues, cardiovascular issues, should be aware that the medication can cause mood disturbances and psychotic issues, and that in men, it's been shown to cause priapism (prolonged southern salute if you know what I mean)...

If you are not having difficulty controlling overeating or emotional binges, it's pretty unlikely that a serotonin agonist is going to do anything for you regarding weight loss. It's basically an appetite suppressant that makes you not want to eat during high-stress, enabling more control. My psychological professional opinion is that people see far more success addressing their overeating and eating disorder issues through cognitive therapy and sometimes the utilization of long-term psychiatric medication use than short term, high dose psychiatric use without therapy.

Lots of info, and no firsthand experience. Frankly, I won't ever have the experience, because I think these drugs are far more dangerous than most people want to admit, and I chose a while ago to not mess with my brain chemistry regarding serotonin and norepinephrine for the sake of something like weight loss.

Editing to say... by the by... just because it is not an active stimulant doesn't mean it won't have a stimulating effect. Many serotonin-acting drugs cause sleeplessness, anxiety, mood swings and more... I don't know why you think of this as a "clean" weight loss medication, because it is going to flood your system with a neuro-transmitter that regulates just about every emotional experience that you have. The documentation they provide themselves shows MANY risk factors and warnings... Not to mention it is classified as a Class IV controlled substance due to the potential for abuse and dependence, which means it's classified on the same level as phentermine in this sense.