Looking for people who are trying out Contrave? Thoughts? Is it working?

ericalee3012 wrote: »

I started Contrave last Friday and I dont get sick to my stomach but I do get a severe neck ache up the back of my head...almost like whiplash feeling. Has anyone else had this happen and should I just keep pushing through it? I dont want to feel bad every day because then I am less likely to get out and workout!

Erica, you should not be having pain up the back of your neck like that, and you should not feet bad every day. I suggest you stop the contrave and call your doctor.

I just started the 4 a day stage and it's been rough. Headaches, stomach cramping, severe sweating, twitching and shakiness. Will this go away or should I back down to 3 a day which gave me no side effects? I'm also taking 1000mg of Metformin daily. I haven't lost any weight but I didn't feel it working until I started the 4. Now I have basically no appetite, which I love. I'm just not sure I can deal with these side effects. If they go away I can do it, if not I'll have to stop.

kmp1winnie wrote: »

I just started the 4 a day stage and it's been rough. Headaches, stomach cramping, severe sweating, twitching and shakiness. Will this go away or should I back down to 3 a day which gave me no side effects? I'm also taking 1000mg of Metformin daily. I haven't lost any weight but I didn't feel it working until I started the 4. Now I have basically no appetite, which I love. I'm just not sure I can deal with these side effects. If they go away I can do it, if not I'll have to stop.

I got to the 2 in the morning, 1 in the evening point.. I did that for about a week, then I went back down to 1 in the morning, 1 in the afternoon. I did this because as I upped the dosage, I realized I was eating nothing! I would eat about 600 cal/day! Not healthy!!. I've been on it for 7 weeks now, and I am still seeing progress just doing the 1 and 1. Plus like I said in my previous post, it helps stretch out the prescription since it is not cheap lol

I'm on Contrave and have lost 19 pounds in two months.

I agree with the posters above that this is NOT a magic pill. I still have to log my food and watch my macronutrients/calories and work out.

The Contrave has kept me from being obsessive about my food choices or craving less healthy options. It's like someone hit the "reset" button and I'm back to thinking about food as fuel, not being an obsessive foodie (which was always my Achilles heel).

I am on it. I started in January and have lost 70 pounds. It is awesome. My only side effects are: it made me quit smoking, some foods taste and smell bad now - like bacon, I don't feel that great if I overeat or eat too fast (has only happened a few times), I poop less often, I am more forgetful and a little dumber in general, and dry mouth with bad taste and really bad breath. Nothing has been life disrupting or extreme.

Feel free to add me. I need more friends on C here.

Ive been on it for 10 weeks, have lost 24 pounds and I feel great. I do the 2/2. I had hardly any noticeable side affects, but we all react differently to medications. I do find myself not eating enough some days, hardly 600 calories, So I have to stay on top of that. But over all I like and am happy taking it!!

Thank you all, I am on day 2 now... yesterday i did have over whelming sleepiness, i was off work today and feel asleep watching Star Wars with my husband... LOL (thought it was just the movie). I do have the nausea but it comes and goes. I'm a bit embarrassed to say i'm having difficulty trying to figure out how to commuite on this.

I've been on Contrave for the last 4 months, really no side affects except for the occasional hot flash. I lost 10 lbs. the first 2 months and now haven't lost anything the last 2 months at all, in fact I keep going up & down the same 4 lbs. anyone else have this happen so early? I should add I'm also 51 which seems to make things even harder. My Doctor has to see me every 2 months so now I'm afraid she won't refill my RX because I haven't lost any more weight...

My doctor just put me on contrave. So far no side effects that I noticed. But he had me start it in the evening 1 pill pm the later 1 & 1. Now 2pm 1am. Also added metformin which I take at night since I hate the abdominal upset from it. So far nothing yet.... Hoping for the best

I just started Contrave yesterday. I'm sad I gained most of the weight back that I lost with Phentermine. After two years on Phentermine it just stopped working at all for me. How are you doing on Contrave?

In case anyone is curious about how the Phentermine worked, I lost 44 pounds in the first 10 months I was taking it. I carefully logged my food and exercise. I had ten months of amazing weight loss. The Phentermine worked, by motivating me to eat right and exercise. I felt great. It was a pleasure to go buy new clothes and look in the mirror.

Unfortunately I gradually started losing a few pounds and gaining a few pounds over and over. I was fighting to keep that weigh off that I lost. I got tired of taking it since it wasn't working anymore. I lost the motivation I had from taking Phentermine.

In the past six months I have just stopped caring. I stopped exercising, and started eating junk food and nothing that is healthy for me. The funny thing is I before I stopped caring, I preferred lots of vegetables, nuts, fruits. But now all I want to do is eat and am back to drinking a couple of glasses of wine a day. Which makes me hungrier

I am skeptical about Contrave. Please continue sharing your stories, this is really helpful.

My doc prescribed me phentermine along with contrave. I started Phen on 8/31 and Contrave on 9/6. In 2 weeks I have lost 12 lbs. Today is the first day of the 1/1 dose, so far only side effects have been some nausea and slight dizziness.

Today is my 2-week Mark I just increased my morning dosage to two pills and one pill at night. I have lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks and find it challenging to make sure I am eating enough now. I used to at McDonald's on my way home so I could eat before I went home to fix dinner for my whole big family because I normally never had time to sit down with the family and eat. I don't even think about fast food I do not think about sweets for binge eating I really think that this medication is going to be a big help for me. Side effects only thing I am noticing is a slight constipation not bad enough to have to take something for it.. I did read where it can cause illicit dreams the only dream I had so far was about a spider on my neck and that was gross. I was actually hoping last night I had a great dream about Brad Pitt since he's newly single lol no such luck. Best wishes to all on this medication I hope you're having good success I'm very grateful that my doctor gave me the prescription I never heard about it until she said something and she was reluctant but we went down about every Avenue as far as why I was not losing weight. I stay extremely active with 5 children I run 5K races and I still was not losing but even slowly gaining weight. I'm very excited to find this medication.

I started Contrave the first week of March. I had the nausea and general queasiness for the first few weeks but that has gone away. I had lost 34 pounds, but after my birthday (and lots of eating out and cake!) a couple of weeks ago have gained back 4 that I can't get rid of! I was already walking (using a pedometer) about 30-35 miles a week. I do fine during the day- breakfast half a banana, skim milk and either egg and wheat toast or high fiber cereal, I take a salad to work for lunch, I don't eat dressing and use spinach or spring mix, lean protein and almonds- it's when I get home in the evenings. I can literally eat (Sweets!) from the time I get up from supper until I go to bed. The Contrave really helped with that when I first started talking it. I am only taking 2 pills in the morning but I have started back to the old cravings. I tried adding one pill in the evenings but couldn't sleep. I was considering trying 1/2 a pill in the evenings but just read it should not be cut. I really want this to work. I am down 3 sizes and it is so nice to not have to buy my clothes in the "PLUS" department!

Seems I'm a bit different than everyone else on here. I have been taking Contrave for over a year and have only lost about 8 pounds. A few years back I was using phentermine and had great results. I lost 40 pounds and then I hit a plateau, so I thought I could do it on my own. Over the next few years, I gained 30 of the 40 pounds back. I went back to the doctor and this time phentermine didn't seem to do much, so he decided to try Contrave. I had absolutely no side effects and the weight very slowly started to come off and then completely stopped. I am using the ScaleDown program that comes with the prescription and all that does is annoy me! You are supposed to weigh yourself every day and if you don't, you get these annoying texts from the program. If I sleep in late one day, I get texts saying "You haven't weighed in today, please get on the scale now!" Thanks for waking me up for that! Grrr! I see my doctor in a couple weeks and I am going to tell him I want off. Hopefully we can find something else that will work, if not, I will just keep trying to do it on my own.
It's really frustrating when I read about all of these great success stories and I have not seen the same results; not even close!

Day 5 on Contrave and I've lost 4.2 lbs. Still only 1 pill in the AM's. No weird side effects. Definitely started to feel a big difference after a few days, much smaller appetite. I feel it start to wear off a little around dinner time and for those late night snack cravings, so I'm excited to start the PM dose in a couple days.