Warning: Psycosis w/Concerta | ADHD Information

Are you in the habit of eating grapefruits or drinking grapefruit juice, by any chance?

Grapefruit is known to impair the liver metabolism of a number of chemical substances used as medication. If you join a medication trial you may not use ANY grapefruit during the trial period, or even a week before.

But it may also be a case of overdosing due to a less than prudent build-up schedule. With ritalin, it is adviseable to start with one tablet, or often even half a tablet (5 mg) a day for 5 days to a week, and then add half a tablet after 4 hours, and so on. So if you start on 36 mg concerta (same active ingredient: methylphenidate) straigt away, your initial dose is 7 times as high as with a prudent initial ritalin dose.

Miss Molly38723.6335069444 Every person has a chemical imbalance, unfortuately some do not do so well on the mainstream medications.

 I hope you can move past this and find a solution for you. I wish you the best of luck.

 ps, quite a few have the voices thing. we just write it off. It is us, and we know it. Thoughts and feelings coming to words. Mostly during a dream sleep. we sometimes talk in our sleep or blurt things and wake ourselves up. Uttering nonsense.

 I have been too tired to talk and start rambling and doze off, while talking nonsense. The wake up rambling more nonsense.

I did all of this while un-medicated.
bugzappers38729.8471180556I asked my doctor to switch me from adderol because of the severe mood swings.  He put me on a genaric concerta.  Am I going to still have the same mood swings.  I am a laid back person - the angry additude scares me.  I have left the house several times to avoid having the kids see me like that.concerta is chemically different. so the answer would be that you will have no angry attitude. But you could be the person it does not act different for. Start on a low dosage of anything you take.

 I take adderall xr, 10 mg, once every two days.

 it seems to work better that way.
bugzappers38729.8491666667That must have been scary, glad you are doing better now.Today was my first day on it.  So far I like it.Good for you. PLEASE keep us informed on how you feel, daily if you need to.

You sound like a strong and patient person, LIVEADHD.  I hope all goes well for you from this point on. 

My son had taken Concerta for only several weeks and started having unusual experiences.  He came to me twice with complaints of (while awake) dreams rushing through his head and not remembering what occurred during that time.  Another time after that, he was acting very sluggish, saying odd things, forgetting what he was doing, and while eating, slumped to the side with food falling out of his mouth.  His doctor took him off Concerta, and my son has complained of nothing like this/hasn't had unusual behavior since.  His doctor had also noted that one of Concerta's possible side effects was psychosis.  I guess meds act differently on different people!

hey liveadhd

can i ask --- what did it feel like to be hearing voices?  i only once heard a voice and it was when i was under extreme pressure and stress and it sorta 'woke me up' but didn't feel like it was in a dream.  i actually looked around the room as if to say "who said that?"

and then i went to my flatmate at the time --- who was awake already and said "did you just try to speak to me?"

but she hadn't.  it's just that it is very rare to come across someone else who has heard voices (in fact, i don't think i ever have - except looking up stuff on the internet but i couldn't find much that related to my experience) but i still want to know WHAT i heard, where it came from?  was mine also a result of too much stress leading to a minute psychosis?

i have had semi-psychotic episodes before but never with hearing a voice in that same way - so this just didn't feel like a psychosis as i understood them to be.

this particular experience was a 'one off' voice - almost like a command.  it woke me up and it just confused the bollocks out of me.

i just wondered what it felt like for you --- could you tell they were definitively INSIDE your head?  or what?  thanks!  cj

Wow, thanks for sharing this with us.Just to let anyone who is interested know.  I took 36mgs of Concerta for 6 months and was thrown into a complete Psycosis for the past month. My body was building up the concerta and I did not know it.  They said, it is suppose to leave the body in 12 hours, mine did not.  I built the drug up and it brought out side effects that I was hearing voices.  I thought for sure I had schitz symptoms,  I drove my car to the emergency room on Dec 30 th and checked myself into Behavior Health and I met a caring Physciatrist and he explained to me that this drug can build its self up in the body. (It doesn't always leave in 12 hours) I never felt a come down effect while I was on it.  He had to put me anti-psychotic (Seroquel) to lower my dopamine level.  Better yet to even me out.  I will be on them for 2 months and then he will taper and add in Wellbutrin and he also added in Klonopin for major anxiety.  I am just letting people know, and am not at all against stimulants, this is just a weird side effect that can happen to few people.  Good luck to all of you..... LIVEADHD38721.4616087963

chjones and all, thank you for your support.  I have been trying to stay off this sight.  The voices were not violent, they only had loving thoughts for me.  Better then anything bad happening.  I have taken my son off of the concerta that was prescribed to him.  We have a appointment with his doctor and I will explain to her what has happen to me.  (With the psychosis) He will not be on a stimulant again.  It seemed when he was on 27 mgs of Concerta he did ok, not great but, OK.  But, when I raised his Concerta to 36mgs he became mad.  I was never mad, I just was just filled with love.  Don't ask me, what that is all about, but, I have excepted it.  My physciatrist, believes in meditation, and wants me to relax, and will add in the wellbutrin on Jan 20th and keep the anxiety medicine.  But will remove the Serequel, he is only using that to lower the dopamine levels.  Who new this could happen.  I hope all continues to go well at this point.  All I can say, is I had a great time feeling that love......LOL But, new there was something else going on.....The concerta gave me a huge chemical imbalance.  I freaked everyone out. 

I started on 18 mgs of Concerta MISS MOLLY, and was worked up to 36mgs for the past 6 months.  I hate grapefruit, but, that is a interesting tidbit. Thank you for your concern.

 

Chjones, the voices were nice, and I felt I was in another world....Kind of cool, but, I realized it was false.  I will keep you posted and you can e-mail me privatly if you wish.  I forgot to mention thru my experience I lost 20 lbs and have gained back 5 of the pounds.  I guess that was a added benefit.  I have not been this small since high school.....LOL Dr.  had no real concern of the weight loss just that I have to gain a few of the pounds back. Thanks for caring Chjones, my son is in the program that helps with homework, which takes alot of stress of off me.  He now has all C's and B's.  So thats a plus that worked out for me.  By the way, he is showing such progress that he has been allowed to stay in the program thru the end of 8th grade.  Remember he is in the 7th grade now.  But, he will not take concerta again.  Thanks for caring about me.....I have felt alone with this....and just decided this morning to check to see if anyone responded to my thread. Thank you..... 

 

 

LIVEADHD38726.4236111111Bumping up for others to read.  Scary thing.

 

Went to my Son's doctor for him to have Wellbutrin added to his meds......

Guess what, I had a better chance of winning the lottery then what I received with the Psychosis......The doc said, maybe the chances of this happening was 1 in over 500,000 people.  My psychiatrist will not label me as bi-polar or schitz, just a weird side effect to the medicine.....(Concerta)

I never got mad......

Who new, this could happen........

Auntie, it was very scary....I am not getting along to well on it.  The first two weeks seemed to be ok, but now I am still having mood swings.  Not near as bad as before, but I am irritable on a switch.  I am going in on Friday for my monthly check.  I am considering telling him that I want to try attend.  I don't know what to do, but am about ready to give up.My son is taking 10mg of Adderall XR and says he hears voices. Anybody else experience this with Adderall? Was it temporary. He said yesterday and today that he didn't hear any voices.