Does Contrave make you feel sick?
Bottom line
Yes. Nausea is listed among the common adverse reactions on Contrave's own FDA label, published 2025-11-17. It is worst in the days after each dose increase, and Contrave reaches its maintenance dose at week 4.
No clinician has reviewed this page. Label and trial statements are quoted from the FDA label or the trial cited beside them. General guidance is marked as such, and every price carries the date it was verified. That is sourcing, not medical review. What we do and do not check · Who checked the price
Last updated 2025-11-17 — the FDA label this page quotes. Read and dated by Alex Seot.
Does Contrave make you feel sick?
Yes, and it is on the label rather than only in reports: nausea appears among the common adverse reactions in Contrave's FDA prescribing information, published 2025-11-17. Listed means it was seen often enough in the trials to be printed, not that it happens to everyone. Contrave is not a GLP-1 and does not work by slowing the stomach, so the explanation usually given for nausea on those drugs does not apply to it. Its label lists nausea among the common reactions without tying it to a mechanism. It clusters in the days after each dose increase. Contrave steps up on a published schedule that reaches the maintenance dose at week 4. Most people see a few rough days after each step and a settling in between, not one long stretch. Once you are at 2 tablets twice a day and no longer stepping up, the trigger stops recurring. What helps first: smaller meals, eaten more slowly. It stops being ordinary at a specific line: vomiting that will not stop, severe abdominal pain, or signs of dehydration — none of those is ordinary nausea, and each needs a clinician the same day.
How long does Contrave nausea last?
Tablets, twice a day. Each row is a step up, and the days after each one are when this tends to arrive.
| Weeks | Dose |
|---|---|
| Week 1 | 1 tablet in the morning |
| Week 2 | 1 morning, 1 evening |
| Week 3 | 2 morning, 1 evening |
| Week 4 and on | 2 morning, 2 evening |
What helps with nausea on Contrave?
- 1Smaller meals, eaten more slowly.
- 2Not taking a dose with a high-fat meal — the label's own instruction, because fat sharply raises how much of the drug is absorbed.
- 3Raising it with the prescriber before the next dose increase rather than after it.
This is not a GLP-1: it is naltrexone plus bupropion, and its boxed warning and main serious risks concern mood, seizures, opioid use and blood pressure. Its most common side effect is still nausea: in the trials 24% stopped because of an adverse event, against 12% on placebo, and nausea was the most common reason, at 6.3%. Anyone on long-term opioid treatment, including buprenorphine for addiction, cannot take it; for a short course of opioids it is paused, and lower opioid doses may be needed.
When is nausea on Contrave serious?
Vomiting that will not stop, severe abdominal pain, or signs of dehydration — none of those is ordinary nausea, and each needs a clinician the same day.
Separately, Contrave carries a boxed warning. Bupropion raises the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior in children, adolescents and young adults. The label carries that as a boxed warning and tells prescribers to watch for mood changes, particularly in the first months and after any dose change.
Other reactions on Contrave's label with a page of their own
Would switching drugs help?
Nausea is on 11 of the 13 FDA labels tracked here, so the other labels are worth reading before assuming a switch avoids it. What a switch does change is what you pay, and Contrave is $99 a month at the maintenance dose here.
Every alternative to Contrave, with each one's verified price and the date it was read →
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The listing, the schedule and the warnings are read from FDA prescribing information for CONTRAVE, published 2025-11-17; the notes on why it happens and what helps are general guidance, not label text. Information only, not medical advice — a symptom that worries you is a call to your prescriber, not a search result.