[QUOTE=juliajah]I have been on adderall 20mg for about 5 weeks now. I had side effects and thought it was not going to work but then it all came around. Now I do not get the highs and lows or major headaches and find I can focus without really knowing it all day and evening. I am taking all the caution the site gives of "don't increase unless you need to" and it seems to be working out but it took a few weeks to settle in right. I am not rocking the boat for now....[/QUOTE]
You take 20mg once a day or XR or twice a day with non-XR?
.....And my teen is on Strattera and comments all the time that I have the majic pills and that it doesn't work for him like it does me. Maybe there is something to be said for that. He is doing much better overall so I am not changing him a this time. He just gets tired from it so he takes it at night before bed
I have only been taking it about a week. I haven't noticed any side affects as of yet. But the doc has started me out gradually. I started with 18mg for a week and today I'm taking my first 36mg and crossing my fingers.
I know in the past anytime I have taken anything like xenadrine (or other diet pills with ephedra in them) while I seemed to be in the zone and able to get-r-done......I was anxious and on edge and if people (including my kids) din't move as fast as I thought they should then I got very irritable.
I have never heard of Focalin, but have heard of Ritalin. I know for my daughter the Adderall seems to be the key. She was started on that at four and it worked right away. No seemingly bad side affects. But as new drugs came out her doc wanted to try them. I guess to get her off the stimulant. But none of them worked as good. So I finally said no more messing around with the meds. If you find something that works why not stick with it. The only side affect that I have really noticed with her is insomnia. She doesn't go to sleep until 11pm or sometimes midnight. But then again, she was worse before she had meds where she would be up until the wee hours of the morning. So it's a toss up. Also, if she runs out of meds. How could that happen you wonder. Well, I forget to get them refilled. Imagine that. She has gone a couple of days without them before and I don't know if she suffers from withdrawl, or it's just how she is without meds. But she turns into a she devil. Either very defiant or very emotional.
I have tried both dexedrine sulphate (basically a type of adderall) and stratterra. I can tell you that for inattentive ADHD the stratterra was like walking in tar. Very sluggish and felt tired and would focus on nothing for quite a while. This was on the lowest dose and I stopped soon after trying.
For the dexedrine it gave me energy and very good focusing. My memory came back 100 percent and it was as if I didn't have ADHD at all! It comes and goes but generally it works nearly all the time.
I did have side effects initially (increased heart rate, urination difficulty, appetite gone) but they all subsided within a week or two. It was worth waiting and the MD said they all would either pass or decrease to where they are livable and that was true!
If the side effects are tolerable I would wait and see. At low dose they fade off fast and don't return.
Good luck - and keep working at finding the right med!
I was just recently diagnosed with adult ADD. I am taking adderall now and don't like the side affects. Waht are your thoughts on Strattera? Hey btodd! Adderall is a stimulant. Strattera is not. Strattera is actually an anti-depressant. They market it as a non-stimulant medication for add. The reason is because there was so much controversy about stimulant medication, they wanted to come out with one that was non-stimulant. My doctor told me that in his opinion, it does not work for severe adhd. Some people say it works, but it's a totally different drug than Adderall. The side effects usually subside after a couple weeks. I couldn't sleep at all the first 2 weeks on Adderall, but now, I sleep like a baby. Hang in there! Yea, I'm pretty aware of the differences between them. A while back my family doctor gave me Wellbutrin because he suspected that I had adult add. It seemed to help me but eventually I quit taking it. I see that Strattera is a norephedrine re-uptake similar to Wellbutrin. I just thought that if it worked then it would be a good pick for me. I also have anxiety so the stimulant can cause anxiety as well. Just wanted to get a few opinions from people that have tried both. Pro's and Con's.I got headaches a lot in the beginning and I figured out what was causing them. I was dehydrated and starving. You're supposed to drink A LOT of water while on Adderall. Also, I wasn't eating nearly enough. As you know, Adderall takes your appetite away (mine to the point that the only way I know to eat is by watching the clock) and you have to make yourself eat or headaches will come on and be fierce! As long as you drink enough water and eat enough, the headaches should go away. Good luck!
In my opinion and personal experience, straterra caused too many side effects for me.
Constipation, dry mouth, severe loss of appetite, and bladder retention. (I was proned to UTI infections, so bladder retention was killer for me, i constantly had a UTI while I was on straterra.)
I also had a tendency to get "stuck" on things. I could not pry my mind off of one thing to do something else. I guess for some people who are extremely distractible that is a plus, but it was not for me, because I had a tendency to get "stuck" on the wrong things, like, playing video games, or computer games, or watching TV. It took GREAT effort, more than usually, to shift my attention to something more mundane, like, washing the dishes.
But, of course, that was just me. I think it affects each person a little differently.
My personal opinion is that Straterra is over advertised. People come off under the impression that it is the one and only best solution for ad/hd, when in reality, for many people other drugs, be they stimulants or whatever, can work just as well or even better.
Just don't think of it as the one and only solution. There are many different other drugs that can help you, maybe straterra WILL work for you, but if it doesn't, there are other good drugs as well.
Oh, I don't know how long you have been on Adderall, but I think that after some time, some of the side effects will wear off. I think headaches are one of those things that go away with time.
And as for taking it and then stopping for the weekend, I'm not sure. For some drugs, you should keep taking it, because when you stop, it causes peaks and valleys, and your brain waves and body side effects every time they are starting to get adjusted to the drug, and you stop it, then there is a sort of withdrawal, and so forth. BUT I don't know whether Adderall is one of those drugs or not, I know that Wellbutrin is.
But let your doc know about your side effects and see what they say...
sonya_h38697.3998958333Adderall is the most intense of all the stimulants, so another option would be to try something gentler (e.g. Concerta). Also, if you are getting a headache, maybe your dose is too high.And as for taking it and then stopping for the weekend, I'm not sure. For some drugs, you should keep taking it, because when you stop, it causes peaks and valleys, and your brain waves and body side effects every time they are starting to get adjusted to the drug, and you stop it, then there is a sort of withdrawal, and so forth. BUT I don't know whether Adderall is one of those drugs or not, I know that Wellbutrin is.
But let your doc know about your side effects and see what they say...
[/QUOTE]OH GOD! HOW COULD I HAVE POSSIBLY FORGOTTEN THE INSOMNIA???
There was one time that I just totally and completely did not go to sleep for something like 48 hours.
I used to just awaken out of nowhere at about 3 or 2 or 1 even, and not even go back to sleep for several hours. And one time, I just sat there staring at the ceiling at bedtime, and listened to my hubby sleeping beside me, and finally I just got up and got on the computer, and I did not go to sleep at all that night. The next time I slept was the next night. We had to get up early that morning to go out of town, so I just somehow managed to not even go to sleep at all.
And it's strange because you never seem to miss the sleep. Well, sometimes you get a little sleepy, but NEVER nowhere near as sleepy as you THINK you SHOULD be for missing so many hours, yknow?
But, I definitely will not be doing straterra ever again.
BUT, i don't want to squash it if it may be something that is good for you. There are many folks who had good experiences on Strattera....
But in all honesty, I don't see very many of them.
Edit: Let me add that the only 2 drugs that I have ever been on for ad/hd was Wellbutrin and Straterra. Wellbutrin, I was on first. At first, there was a little insomnia and a little bit of headaches and a little loss of appetite, all of which went away after about a week.
ON straterra, however, I was on it for 6 months, hoping that maybe eventually the side effects would go away, but they never did. In fact the constipation, (one of the main reasons that I quit) and the insomnia steadily got worse, until it came to a point in which the Straterra was causing more bad effects than it was helping. It never helped all that much, I just sat there getting stuck on things and that was it. I did much better on Wellbutrin SR (not XL) than I did on the Well.XL on Straterra combined. But that's just my personal experienc....
sonya_h38697.6459837963Straterra has side effects . . . all of the drugs do. But not so bad for me that
I don't have any personal experience with Adderall or Strattera. I have just started taking Concerta so if there is anyone who can give me some info on that I would appreciate it.
However, my daughter takes both Adderall and Strattera. Odd I know, and I have never heard of it before myself, but it works. When she was four she was put on 30mg of Adderall (total, that was twice a day) Then she was put on the time release that was just in the am. Then Strattera came out and the Dr. wanted to try it. So we did, and there was a marked difference in her sleep. She would go to sleep better and earlier. However I noticed that with the Stratterar though it helped with her extreme hyperactivity she was kind of spacey and her concentration was gone. So we lowered the Strattera dose and added a small dose of Adderall and it works great. There is not the insomnia that went along with the Adderall, but there is just something in the Adderall that really helps her concentrate and be able to do school work.
I tried straterra for about 6 weeks one time and my body couldn't adjust even on a lower dose. Diareah, big loss of apetite, stomach ache. Didn't seam to help me in any way. Adderall works much better for me and since I too have some anxiety (off or on Adderall) I take Lexapro, it really helps.