[CakeZ]

Hey there, I've got a project to do and I'm looking for some input.
Throughout elementary, middle, and high school, I was prescribed various methylphenidates and amphetamines to treat ADHD. Some of these medications (Concerta, Ritalin, Vyvanse [Lisdexamfetamine], and Focalin) have had effects upon myself that I would have rather not experienced. Focalin impacted my sleep and caused intense anxiety, which paralleled a pre-existing anxiety disorder. Ritalin provided me with intense headaches, blurred vision, visual hallucinations, and a feeling of sped-up or missing time. Vyvanse gave me headaches and made me feel incredibly jittery. Concerta, at the maximum legal dose for a person my age, at the time, contributed to my anxiety disorder, caused paranoid delusions (Audio), minor visual hallucinations, thoughts that I could communicate telepathically, to an extent, and various Paranoid Schizophrenia type symptoms. In an effort to reduce these symptoms, I have reduced my dose, and I now operate near-ideally while using Concerta.

I was just wondering what others experienced, psychologically, while using (primarily ADHD treating) amphetamines and methylphenidates.

[mieu]

Did it only occur to your doctor to lower the dose after you'd already gone through that hell with the other medications? Why would they start you on the maximum dose of anything? Obviously I'm not a doctor, but...*facepalm* That's terribly unfortunate that you had to deal with that, I can hardly blame people for being hesitant to try any sort of medication therapy with horror stories like that...

I've been on the same dose of Adderall for ~7 years (for inattentive-type ADD), and the only side effect I've ever observed that has persisted on that timeline is lowered blood pressure (still within healthy range), potentially due to interactions with my heart rate. My doctor assures me that as long as I maintain a nutritional diet this is not indicative of a long-term effect. Other than that, I have no negative side effects (other than y'know, nasty headaches when I come off of it). The only other 'neutral' side effect is suppressed appetite--if I forget to eat, the lowered blood sugar can cause me to have intermittent palpitations. Easy to manage, don't forget to eat!

[Tahiti]

I've had many prescribed but decided not to bother with any from now on.

I have been diagnosed with ADD, and not ADHD.


There are a LOT of differences between ADD&ADHD, including the misdiagnosis.

Adderall:

Zombie-like
Decreased appetite (I lost weight)
Personality changed (stopped doing what I like)
Less creativity
Heart-rate increase 20-40BPM


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---------- Post added 05-03-2012 at 05:00 PM ----------

	Originally Posted by mieu To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Did it only occur to your doctor to lower the dose after you'd already gone through that hell with the other medications? Why would they start you on the maximum dose of anything? !

Body weight.

[Scrotus]

Did your head hurt in the back, lower right hand sector? (I'm speaking as if I'm looking at the back of your head)

[CakeZ]

	Originally Posted by Scrotus To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Did your head hurt in the back, lower right hand sector? (I'm speaking as if I'm looking at the back of your head)

I don't remember, sorry.

Also, I thought ADHD was just the renamed version of ADD, being renamed in the early 90s.

I don't actually remember what they started me on. I think that my docs assumed I had increased anxiety only, and did not fret much, considering the pre-existing disorder. I didn't tell them about the delusions. They didn't ask about them, and I thought they were actually happening. They were delusions, after all.

[discontinuous]

Amphetamines: fiending.... had a problem with it before, no way a "therapeutic dose" would be effective. Good to really focus on a single task, while remaining aloof to others. Absolute desire to do something, couldn't be caught 5 seconds doing nothing. Tendency for loopyness and losing track of the bigger picture.

methylphenidate: Social patience (lines & stuff), ability to appreciate/follow conversations with a less of an interruptive "X is what you're slowly mumbling, Y is my input" mindset. Increased social awareness and slightly lowered anxiety. Imagination I thought I lost, yet no implicit drive. Greater awareness of big picture, less desire to focus on sub-aspects.

Doing less of both or alternating is better than either but rare.

Couldn't do anything without right now....
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Problem? Say it here.

[Antares]

	Originally Posted by CakeZ To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I was just wondering what others experienced, psychologically, while using (primarily ADHD treating) amphetamines and methylphenidates.

I've been on two stimulant medications: Concerta and Metadate CD. Concerta made me irritable and disagreeable and I would be prone to aggression (I'm normally a very peaceable person), and prevented me from sleeping.

I have been on Metadate for only two days, and like Concerta, both gave me psychedelic highs on the first day and I became noticeably more aggressive on Metadate as well. I also noticed a mild loss of appetite on the first day. After that, though, I just feel more alert and "present" to everything around me and the negative effects seem to have disappeared. My appetite is still lower than before, but that's ok, because it was VERY strong before the medication and I think it's actually a good thing. I still eat my usual fill of calories, just at slightly different times.

Maybe it was just a shock to my system on the first day? My attention is entirely under my control, and I can snap "in" and "out of it" very easily, and every stimulus I see is enhanced, and it quieted down my almost uncontrollable inner voice. I shouldn't be too hasty after two days, but I feel like metadate is working for me. I feel powerful and confident in a way I have never been before. I do feel "jittery" and restless when the medication is working. Just that I HAVE to do something. Anything. I walk fast, talk fast and become very easily amused. I have no trouble falling asleep either.

Just as a side note something that REALLY irks me about those damn kids with ADHD is that they SELL their stimulant medication. Not only is that illegal and gives the buyers unfair advantage (not just over non-ADHD people, but us as well), it destroys the public opinion of those with ADHD. I think these people should be deprived of stimulant medication for as long as it takes to grow the fuck up and stop messing it up for the rest of us.

[Subgenius]

Originally Posted by CakeZ To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Hey there, I've got a project to do and I'm looking for some input. Throughout elementary, middle, and high school, I was prescribed various methylphenidates and amphetamines to treat ADHD. Some of these medications (Concerta, Ritalin, Vyvanse [Lisdexamfetamine], and Focalin) have had effects upon myself that I would have rather not experienced. Focalin impacted my sleep and caused intense anxiety, which paralleled a pre-existing anxiety disorder. Ritalin provided me with intense headaches, blurred vision, visual hallucinations, and a feeling of sped-up or missing time. Vyvanse gave me headaches and made me feel incredibly jittery. Concerta, at the maximum legal dose for a person my age, at the time, contributed to my anxiety disorder, caused paranoid delusions (Audio), minor visual hallucinations, thoughts that I could communicate telepathically, to an extent, and various Paranoid Schizophrenia type symptoms. In an effort to reduce these symptoms, I have reduced my dose, and I now operate near-ideally while using Concerta. I was just wondering what others experienced, psychologically, while using (primarily ADHD treating) amphetamines and methylphenidates.

Don't you get the speedy effect if you don't actually have the disorder?

[masterpeach]

I was diagnosed with ADHD 13 years ago.
According to people who knew me prior to my medication with methylphenidate back then, the substance altered my personality from over-excitable, multi-input/output-channeled to over-focused and somehow "muted".

I myself didn't notice this change so much, but as far as I can remember rebounds affected me a lot (cravings, anger issues). On the positive side, I didn't need as much caffeine and sleep as I usually needed without medication.

After 1 year I stopped taking it, and my doctor prescribed me an antidepressant that worked far better.

Note: As far as I know studies have shown that the brain of people with ADHD grows more slowly and unevenly (esp. the frontal lobes). The negative effects of this are usually evened out around age 30.

[CakeZ]

	Originally Posted by Subgenius To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Don't you get the speedy effect if you don't actually have the disorder?

Not if you are over-medicated or over-dosing. It all depends on the style of the medication as well.

[Snowdragon]

I've been on Methylphenidate since I was a child. I can easily focus my mind on the task at hand rather than my mind being in a million different places, I'm not as impatient and not as forgetful to name a few.

I'm used to the side effects (stomachaches are the worst). I remember being mesmerized by the motor of the bus engine while on this stuff.

[Antares]

	Originally Posted by CakeZ To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Not if you are over-medicated or over-dosing. It all depends on the style of the medication as well.

In my case I got the speedy effect on the first day- on 10mg. I was surprised. I've since upped my dose, but I never had it again. Pity. I missed it. I think my brain was just shocked.

	Originally Posted by Snowdragon To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I remember being mesmerized by the motor of the bus engine while on this stuff.

I was fascinated by the way the afternoon sun (high latitude; a lot of sun right now) reflected off of the grass, and the sound of faraway waterfalls and the rhythm of the ecosystem (birds, crickets, etc). I've never done illicit drugs before but I conjecture this must come pretty close to it. It's like having a surround sound system in my head all the time. I experienced every sensation so intensely. But that mode never came back.

[GrlSailorAngele]

I took adderall at the same dosage for 11 years, with minimal negative side effects. Then, as a result of the nationwide drug shortage, I was switched to Methylphenidate, which was horrible. It gave me massive headaches, anxiety, jittery-ness, and an overall inability to focus on anything at all. After a couple months of misery, I was switched back to my usual meds, and all is well in the world...although it doesn't work as well as it once did.

[dvdhrns]

I'm not diagnosed nor prescribed, so no help there.
Concerning this:

	Originally Posted by CakeZ To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Also, I thought ADHD was just the renamed version of ADD, being renamed in the early 90s.

ADD is Attention Deficit Disorder and ADHD is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The official disorder is ADHD. The term ADD is often used, though, for those showing symptoms of lack of focus but who are sluggish and appear slow to process as opposed to bouncing off the walls.

[Thinktress]

I've been on adderall for ten years. My son has been on it for 18 years. I literally have no side effects (except that other people find me less flighty and more cogent). I take the short acting 20mg because its CHEAPER, lol Also, I don't take it unless I'm going to work or school, so the short acting is just fine.

Some people have this unpleasant refractory period with the short acting doses (of both ritalin and adderall) and time release works better for them. My son takes the extended release adderall for that reason. He had no problems with appetite or sleeping, and neither do I (no sleeping probs that I don't also have off of adderall, anyway). His growth in terms of height and weight was right on target.

They tried to prescribe ritalin for him at the beginning, but I'd heard about adderall and I researched it and I wanted it for him. Some of the other meds they proposed had the potential ability to harm, I think, the kidneys, and you had to do continual bloodwork.

For him, adderall is a night and day difference in his ability to just stay in one place long enough to focus on something. He went from being suspended from first grade (before) to completing an advanced diploma and becoming the President of student government at his college. He has chosen to continue taking adderall as an adult because he feels he functions much better with it.

Personally, I have also tried vyvanse and provigil, but adderall works better than they do (for me). Speaking of psychotropics, I also take 20mg of cymbalta daily. We have both add and adhd on both sides of my family. We are LOADED with it. When I was little, my brother had ADHD as profound as my son's, but my mother didn't believe in medication. So we ALL had the same nutritious but very bland diet, and no sugar, no food coloring, no preservatives, no additives - entirely whole foods - the entire time I was growing up. It didn't help my brother at all in terms of his ADHD (although we still all have very low cholesterol), and I watched him fall farther and farther behind and become completely socially isolated by his inability to control his activity level. When my son had the same issues, I wasn't going to let that happen to him.

When my mother saw how well my son did on medication, she reversed her opinion completely. My brother's daughter also has ADHD. She's on adderall.

Everyone has to do what's right for them though. And I think kids should be, not the decision makers, but definitely an active part of the medical process when deciding on meds, etc.

---------- Post added 05-08-2012 at 10:12 PM ----------

	Originally Posted by GrlSailorAngele To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I took adderall at the same dosage for 11 years, with minimal negative side effects. Then, as a result of the nationwide drug shortage, I was switched to Methylphenidate, which was horrible.

Somehow, I always managed to find a pharmacy somewhere with adderall in stock during that shortage, but it was a lot of trouble. I ended up going without sometimes because I was too busy to call around to all of the pharmacies.

I've never tried ritalin, probably because I've just never heard anything great about it. Nobody has ever told me, "Ritalin changed my child's life." But adderall DID change my child's life.

---------- Post added 05-08-2012 at 10:25 PM ----------

	Originally Posted by Subgenius To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Don't you get the speedy effect if you don't actually have the disorder?

Not really. Maybe the first few times you take it. There is a change in appetite and sleep pattern for the first week or two until your body gets used to it.

What is true though is that regardless of whether or not you have add or adhd, adderall will improve your focus for things that require attention to detail (like taking tests). This is one of the reasons there is such a black market for it on college campuses. It's one of the reasons the military gives it to pilots.

My understanding though, in terms of some type of "fun drug" effect is that ritalin is the easier/more popular drug to abuse (as well as being more dangerous), although I'm sure people abuse adderall as well.

[sappho celeste]

Originally Posted by CakeZ To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Hey there, I've got a project to do and I'm looking for some input. Throughout elementary, middle, and high school, I was prescribed various methylphenidates and amphetamines to treat ADHD. Some of these medications (Concerta, Ritalin, Vyvanse [Lisdexamfetamine], and Focalin) have had effects upon myself that I would have rather not experienced. Focalin impacted my sleep and caused intense anxiety, which paralleled a pre-existing anxiety disorder. Ritalin provided me with intense headaches, blurred vision, visual hallucinations, and a feeling of sped-up or missing time. Vyvanse gave me headaches and made me feel incredibly jittery. Concerta, at the maximum legal dose for a person my age, at the time, contributed to my anxiety disorder, caused paranoid delusions (Audio), minor visual hallucinations, thoughts that I could communicate telepathically, to an extent, and various Paranoid Schizophrenia type symptoms. In an effort to reduce these symptoms, I have reduced my dose, and I now operate near-ideally while using Concerta. I was just wondering what others experienced, psychologically, while using (primarily ADHD treating) amphetamines and methylphenidates.

My experience is quite different from yours. But then again my body seems to react the opposite from most people. For example, caffeine slows me down. If I have too much of it I end up falling asleep.

I was diagnosed with ADHD, PTSD, anxiety, and depression at an early age. The ADHD medications actually helped with my anxiety and PTSD. At some level even with depression. Moreover I was able to perform well in school and was placed in honors. My body reacted well to the medications. I was less impulsive, more calm, and focused. And my creativity wasn't even hindered at all! Go figure.

I am now a young adult. I have stopped treatment for these symptoms when I turned 16. Since then I have trouble sleeping. On occasion I would experience paranoid delusions (probably from PTSD), and hallucinate sometimes (as a result of my lack of sleep.) I've also heard about the blurred vision thing from ADHD patients who are on medication. I can't really tell if the medications have that affect on me though because my vision is already impaired to begin with.

[Terennnash]

Lets see, starting when i was 26 up till now at 28:

Concerta, i started at 18mg, and worked my way up to 36mg one day, 18mg the next:
decreased appetite(good thing for me because mine was over the top to begin with)
Decreased interest in video games without concrete ends - like only shooters and MMO's.
Increased creativity and "vision" - finding inspiration in random shapes etc - never drawn so much in my life.
Increased clarity of thought - those rare days where i could perfectly verbalize the cacophany of my mind became common place.
Decreased anxiety - more willing to be social, less anticipatory angst over stuff.
Quality of sleep: better than before concerta
Overall effects: positive.

Then, my workplace closed down, and i had to swap to
generic adderall, 20-40mg/day for cost reasons:
first two weeks - zombie mode - just kind of spaced out.
Then:
Decreased appetite during peak efficacy, followed by rebound hunger when the drug wore off.
Increased concentration - laser focused/edge of a scalpel - perfect for left brained activities - math, statistics etc
Changes in vision - reading on a monitor for more than 2 hours would cause my vision to feel blurry - eye strain - SUCKED!
Decreased interest in the arts - lost my vision/inspiration
Sleep quality - crappy. sleep for 3-4 hours a night, wake up, wide awake, and have to go back through the going to sleep process. This led to a dopamine deficiency and that fried feeling.
Overall satisfaction: LOW. Compared to my experience on concerta, this was fucking junk.

Then: new job, new, much better insurance. doctor swapped me back to concerta.
I had put on some weight, and given the previous dosage, we started the dose higher, 36mg from day 1, and within 2 months - 54mg.
Anxiety - way up, to the point i had trouble sitting near people at work.
Anxiety pretty much ruined any other benefits etc. I stopped taking it, and within 2 days my anxiety levels were back to normal.

Now:
Adderal XL - 30mg
Sleep: perfectly fine.
Anxiety - seldom experience any. Then again, my affect is pretty flat all the time, consider is anhedonia.
No changes in vision
No changes in conginitive functions(art vs video games with no end)

Overall: Meh. its ok. What i wouldnt give to go back to the concerta days when i first started taking stuff, and for the possible responder - yes, i plan on getting back to that one day.