I started on 20 mg XR and it didn't do anything. Went 30 and wow I felt great, energized and felt great for the first time in my life. Now I have gotten worse. The pills do nothing for me, they give me extreme tension and headaches and now my focus, concentration and the ability to articulate my thoughts is nearly impossible. I unable to function at work and I feel like I communicate like a complete idiot. I am worse now that before I started.
Has anyone experienced this and what do I do? I am now getting depressed, feel completely unorganized, don't want to talk to anyone with fear of sound completely stupid and crazy. I have always been in complete control of my life, ambitous and driven in my career. I am in a mangement role and my life is spiraling out of control because of my lack of focus and concentration and not be able to articulate my thoughts.
I have tried Cymbalta, Lexapro, Paxil and Effexor XR to help with depression before they diagnosed me with ADD. Nothing is working. How do I get my memory, concentration, focus and my life back.
I am desperate. PLEASE HELP!!!
Dana
Hi Ioria,
At my last appt. last month, my psych added instant release adderall to my already 30 mg of Adderall XR. Didn't do anything for me but make me more irritable.
I see the psych on Tuesday and asking to switch to something else. I am generally a very happy, go out of my way for anyone type of person. This drug can cause me to be happy and down right unbearable within seconds. Anything can trigger it and it's so not me.
Got to find the magic pill but I am so tired of trying so many different meds. You get to a point and wonder were you better before all the meds but can't seem to remember.
Keep me posted on your progress as I am very interested in learning how everyone else responds to medications.
Take care and keep your head up!
Dana
Hi msoliz,
Welcome to this forum. I am pretty new to this board as well. I just joined this past January. I feel like you too. Can feel pretty good most of the day in regards to energy level. Then around 6:00 it's like I hit a brick wall. I used to be a clean freak and always on the go. Now I could care less if the house is neat, laundry is done, etc. I veg in front of the tv and could care less about anything else. Talking on the phone in the evening is out of the question. I don't want to talk or speak to anyone as I am just miserable and don't want to talk about this to my friends or family so I just shut everyone out.
Since most of my friends are married and have kids (I'm 38 and have a loving boyfriend of 7 years and no kids - unfortunately had a hysterectomy at 32) and my family all live out of state so it's easy to shut everyone out. My boyfriend is very supportive and working through this difficult time but we each have our own home so it's easy to seclude myself.
Nice weather is around the corner, thank god as I live in Chicago, and I want to be full of energy and happy once again. I just want to love LIFE again as I am sure everyone else wants the same!
Keep me posted on your progress!
Dana
Hi Beargirl. I see you posted the same message here as you did in the message board help section. I replied but wasn't sure if you remembered to check it, so I'll just paste it here. Good luck. KIDD
[note: I ain't no doctor]
I learned something important when I began taking Adderall XR. Before then, I had run the gammit on anti-depressents. After a 5 year bout of almost constant depression that included months of being locked down in a hospital mental ward with the certainty that I was beaten. I got so disenchanted with my life and felt totally helpless in changing the direction of it. I remember seeing the movie 'One Flew Over The Cookoo's nest' and watching Jack Nicholson get ECT [electro-convulsive therapy], and I thought that was barbaric as hell! An electric lobotomy! No way in hell I'd let them do that to me if it was real. Well, turns out it was real, and still is a real option today. Oh, they don't know exactly what it does other than send electrical waves through the most complex organ in the human body-the brain- via two electrodes placed stratigiclly on the forhead, scrambling the nerve-thought highways so violently it causes convulsions which is why they first sedate you so you don't get hurt and put a rubber stopper in your mouth so you don't bite your tounge off. But just to give you an idea of how far down I had gone, I opted to have a go at it with the hope that it could relieve me of the depression since all the chemical avenues failed. After a sereis of 12 sessions over a 2 month period, I became numb, almost void of any emotion whatever, I believe it to be the darkest time of my life. So bad I went back for more with the hope I would end up dead or at the very least go into a vegitatative state and be mindless, but it only drained my personality and made me numb and dumb.
Then he tried me on Adderall after a visit in which I was able to describe my extreme exaustion, frustration at my inabillity to carry a train of thought and my lack of interest in things that used to interest me...like living. I went just as you described beargirl. I was amazed at 20 mg... for about 2 weeks, then came the frustration and certainty that this stuff ain't working no more. He then put me on 40 mg- (20mg- twice daily), good for a week or so then up...up... eventually to where I am today, 90 mg- (60 mg in the am, 30 mg in the pm) Just as the other times, all went good for a week or two. Then one night while writing which I do alot as you can see by this brief explaination of what Adderall did for me... I was writing a meditation for a book I've dreamed of writing for a while now and in an explaination of how easy it is to focus on trouble to a degree that it increases my suffering, I diagnosed my problem. It wasn't that the Adderall stoped working, but as a result of my new abillity to carry a train of thought, whatever I trained my thoughts on consumed me. If I could get bummed out about stuff without being able to concentrate on it, imagine how much more bummed out I could get if I could focus on the agrivating circumstance that was bumming me.
This then has been my course. When I feel out of place among people I should be at ease with, or feel I'm being slighted in any way...(real or imagined) I need to talk to a friend or anyone who will truly listen. Not that they will have the answer I seek, but 9 times out of ten, the answer comes from my lips, an answer I would not hear if it were to stay locked up in my vault of flying troubles. My thinking is the key to my happiness, and if I get my thinking machine up to optomal levels, I better use this new gift, not sit back and wait for it to kick in. If I use that method, I'm an east target for misery. Once I been hit, I lock onto it and go into maximum overdrive on that sucker. The mind is a fantastic mystery. I can keep it in the now and do quite well regaurdless of what the challange may be, but it can take me back 20 years to regret yesterday, or shoot me 20 years ahead to project the misery I can expect... with certainty.
Be patient Beargirl. Take some time to focus on even the slightest reason to be happy and meditate on it, and do what your doing right here, talk about..or write. If we don't have the answer, I'm sure... with all certainty, that you'll write the answers down, if you haven't already. go back and check... I be watching you.
Focalin is a methylphenidate, but only the more centrally active form. It is reported to have fewer side effects than regular methyphenidate. It may be that you need a combo to reduce anxiety/irritability and increase focus. It may be difficult to get to the right meds for you, but you have to keep at it.Thanks for the replies.
My meds are prescribed by a psychiatrist. I have become extremely irritable while on Adderall. Is there another stimulant that won't me so miserable to be around? I have always been so happy go lucky and hate myself in my own skin.
Any info on Focalin? Is this a better med?
Hey Dana - I have the EXACT same problem with communicating that you described, which started shortly after I started taking Adderall. It seems my thoughts move on before I can ever finish one sentense. In my case, taking more medication only made things worse. I'm going off of it this week.
I also have the same exact horse situation as you. Losing interest in somehting that has been a big part of my life.
I'm opening a new topic Adderall SOS to seek help on some other adderall issues. but i'll check back if you wanna talk more.
Hi Dana,