Contrave during 6 month medically supervised weight loss

My insurance requires 6 months of medically supervised weight loss beyond all the other comorbidity appointments I've already demonstrated. My primary care physician would like me to try Contrave during this time. Anyone have experience with Contrave?

My doctor offered it and I turned it down. I went to drugs.com and a lot of people complained about nausea, headaches, constipation and sleepiness. It sounded miserable. I would rather work harder to lose weight.

Also, it would have cost me $75 a month with the coupon.

Neither of my insurances cover it and because I have Tricare (secondary), I'm not eligible for the coupon program. Costs $267 (more than the Tricare monthly bill).

If I'm reading your ticker right, you've only got 81 pounds to lose. If you take a diet drug and lose significant weight, is that possibly going to keep you from being approved for surgery? What I'm trying to say is this---most diet drugs DO work, but they're a temporary solution. Most of them you can't stay on long-term.

Contrave is a combination of Bupropion, AKA Wellbutrin, and another med. I took Wellbutrin for years as an antidepressant (I have bipolar) and it's also used for smoking cessation.

I actually gained a little bit of weight on it, like I have with most other psych meds I tried, and once my dose got above 150mg, it made me really jumpy and anxious. That may be because of the bipolar, though.

I began my journey this past July (when I attended the required seminar). I took Contrave for 3 months earlier in the year. I should have saved my money; Contrave had absolutely no effect on me.

Decided to go ahead and give it a try.  Slight bit of nausea if I miss a meal.  I find that I am not grazing or snacking between meals and am actually able to say no to items I would previously lose any fight with.  My blood sugars have improved and there has been some weight loss, but I'm currently at my big plateau (past 6 years I get down to around 240 and bounce back), but survived Thanksgiving and am creeping slowly down.  Current behavioral issue is making sure I go to bed at a reasonable time for when I get tired, the snacking starts up.  If I can bust through the plateau I would consider it a win, but otherwise $267 a month for Contrave could be better spent.

Actually broke through my 240 plateau and fighting to get past 232.  I dropped my Tricare which now allows me to purchase Contrave at $75 discounted instead of full rate.  A1C has dropped from 10 to 5.7 through the holidays, major win.  I think my body is adjusting to the medicine, because I've found myself occasionally slip back into an old habit or two then spend a few days working back to where I was before the slip.  If I can get my weight down further, I no longer qualify for the surgery for three years based on my insurance, so at the sink or swim point.

Contrave does have a decent safety profile and has been proven a "safe" alternative to surgery. They have a program called "Scale Down" where they have phone support, send you a Wi-Fi scale and have other lifestyle tips to help with your journey. Be sure to ask your doc for samples... Contrave, being a new drug, is very heavily sampled so getting your hands on a month of samples should be easy! Heck, try for 2! :) 

Lastly, they have "Contrave Complete" which is a savings card making the Rx affordable even with (or without) insurance. 

I have quite a bit of information on Contrave if you have more specific questions. (I work in pharma and that's one of the products I work with).