Adderall for ADD and sleeplessness

[Santana28]

I'm pre-med but I have ADD ....I know most people are pretty divided about Adderall but it totally changed my life..for the better.

i have never gotten a prescription for it since i'm pursuing a law enforcement career... but my husband was on Adderall for a short time and found that he slept better at night on it. So i started taking one at night before i went to bed to see how it would work on me. It was AMAZING... i have had lifelong sleep issues (can't fall asleep for hours, get 12 hours and still feel exhausted, etc) - i slept like a BABY on that stuff. i would fall alseep in 15 minutes and even with 4 or 5 hours of sleep i would wake up feeling refreshed and alert.

i tried to get a doctor to prescribe it to me for sleeping issues, and she flat out said she didnt believe me because i guess most people report that it causes SLEEPLESSNESS. but i have an overactive brain that needs the stimulation. i dont know... but those few months were the best most rested months of my life. i miss it.

[Parallel]

i have never gotten a prescription for it since i'm pursuing a law enforcement career... but my husband was on Adderall for a short time and found that he slept better at night on it. So i started taking one at night before i went to bed to see how it would work on me. It was AMAZING... i have had lifelong sleep issues (can't fall asleep for hours, get 12 hours and still feel exhausted, etc) - i slept like a BABY on that stuff. i would fall alseep in 15 minutes and even with 4 or 5 hours of sleep i would wake up feeling refreshed and alert.

i tried to get a doctor to prescribe it to me for sleeping issues, and she flat out said she didnt believe me because i guess most people report that it causes SLEEPLESSNESS. but i have an overactive brain that needs the stimulation. i dont know... but those few months were the best most rested months of my life. i miss it.

Whattt? That is realllly weird that Adderall helps you sleep because everyone I know that takes it including me actually has a harder time falling asleep and staying asleep since it's a stimulant.

[polysylvester]

Whattt? That is realllly weird that Adderall helps you sleep because everyone I know that takes it including me actually has a harder time falling asleep and staying asleep since it's a stimulant.
My son took it for a while but it made him nervous and seriously reduced his appetite. His mom is his doctor (literally) and didn't push it even though it seemed to help him in school. He said he felt wired when he took it. It is my understanding from what Dr Mom said that if you don't need Adderall it will have the opposite effect on you and put you to sleep.

[Santana28]

My son took it for a while but it made him nervous and seriously reduced his appetite. His mom is his doctor (literally) and didn't push it even though it seemed to help him in school. He said he felt wired when he took it. It is my understanding from what Dr Mom said that if you don't need Adderall it will have the opposite effect on you and put you to sleep.

i really have no idea about how or why it worked the way it did on me... it knocked me out in about 10-15 minutes like a light. keep in mind it generally takes me between 2-4 hours to fall asleep as it is. my mind becomes most active at rest, and generally to make myself fall asleep i will sit online and inundate my brain with useless information until i start to pass out. if i just go lay in bed, i can stay awake all night.

the sad thing is, my doctor didn't believe me and thought i was just trying to score a prescription for some other nefarious reason. which sucks, because life is so much more enjoyable when you can actually get enough rest to make the most of it. ::sigh:: good luck all you future doctors.

[vad1981]

i really have no idea about how or why it worked the way it did on me... it knocked me out in about 10-15 minutes like a light. keep in mind it generally takes me between 2-4 hours to fall asleep as it is. my mind becomes most active at rest, and generally to make myself fall asleep i will sit online and inundate my brain with useless information until i start to pass out. if i just go lay in bed, i can stay awake all night.

the sad thing is, my doctor didn't believe me and thought i was just trying to score a prescription for some other nefarious reason. which sucks, because life is so much more enjoyable when you can actually get enough rest to make the most of it. ::sigh:: good luck all you future doctors.

Huhh...I'm actually a lot like that - I routinely have 2-3 cups of black coffee and go right to sleep, in fact I stopped drinking coffee after lunch because it makes me MORE sleepy, now I drink green tea instead - it doesnt seem to have that effect on me.

[raharu]

My son took it for a while but it made him nervous and seriously reduced his appetite. His mom is his doctor (literally) and didn't push it even though it seemed to help him in school. He said he felt wired when he took it. It is my understanding from what Dr Mom said that if you don't need Adderall it will have the opposite effect on you and put you to sleep.

I agree. I was on adderall and all of the above was true for me. I was wired, had zero appetite, and it certainly did help me focus. But it is understandable that someone who didn't need it would see the opposite effect. I think this is also seen in many young children; psychiatric medicine will have the opposite intended effect... although I don't know if this is for the same reason.

[Sean O]

It is my understanding from what Dr Mom said that if you don't need Adderall it will have the opposite effect on you and put you to sleep.Nope, it's the other way around: people who don't need Adderall (or any other ADD drug) will get jittery and nervous from it. For those who do need it, it gives you a very calm kind of alertness and focus, but not drowsy or sleep-inducing in and of itself.

I actually have ADD (inattentive type), and am taking Adderall for it. I take one pill in the morning and it lasts me for most of the day, but I also take a pill of Dexedrine (very similar to Adderall - usually people who will eventually be put on Adderall are initially put on Dexedrine) at night, because it really does help me fall asleep, even though it's a stimulant.

Anyway, the main reason ADD drugs can actually help people with ADD fall asleep is because the right dosage has the effect of settling/organizing your mental activity, but without the bodily high, i.e. the feeling of being "wired". ADD is essentially when a person's brain is in a constant state of multi-tasking, to the point where forcing oneself to not mentally multi-task actually requires a lot of effort in and of itself, and is hard to maintain for long. This often translates into problems falling asleep, since the mind can keep racing around and create a lot of "chatter" that makes it harder to relax and doze off, even though the body is tired. Medication can help with this because it gives you more control over how many different things you give attention to. If you want to do some mental multi-tasking, you can, but if not, then you can push the chatter out of your mind and focus on only one thing - or focus on nothing, and let yourself relax enough to fall asleep.

As for why people with ADD don't get physically wired from meds, it's basically because people with ADD have different "baseline" levels of brain activity and "available" dopamine than people who don't have it. The meds bring you into a new equilibrium, one that's more "normalized", so to speak. Of course, even people who genuinely have ADD can get wired off of medication, but that's only when the dosage is too high. With people who don't have ADD, however - i.e., who don't need the meds in the first place - pretty much any dose is too high, and thus, it makes you wired.

[vuthryx]

Adderall is a bit of a double-edged sword I think. I know a handful of people who are quite addicted to it. The most extreme example I know of is a friend of mine who makes perfect grades and is quite productive but thinks he can't do it without adderall, so he takes both his and his girlfriend's prescription and literally sleeps once every 2 days. It helps me with energy levels and thinking clearly but it's also kinda fun and I think that's the scary part.