finding the right dose
Ok so at 27 years old I finally decided to admit what I (and my parents have known for about 20 years) I have A.D.H.D. and my lifetime of not treating it was only allowing it to get worse. I had always been sucessful in life but I found myself having to a tougher time trying to get things done while accomidating my "issues." What's worse is that as bad as I finally realized it was...I now see it was way worse now that I'm on the other side with some medication in me...gah..Anyway...thats not the point...lol
So the dr. started me out on 15mg of Adderall once a day and afer 3 days I figured out that was NOT working. My mornings would go awesome and my 3 in the afternoon my head was killing me cuz it was running off on its own track and my behavior was deteriorating (which is really sad at my age) and I felt awful overall. So I called the dr and he switched me to 20 mg.
With the 20mg I noticed it was staying in my system all day and night..there were no sudden drop offs, however I wasn't getting enough medication in my system. My behavior was fully under control but my mind was not. Since I had tried the other dosage I knew that I could be better..so why couldn't I be better for longer than the 7 hrs the 15 mg gave me?
I went back to see the dr after a month and I told him about the feeling of not having enough medication in my system even though I knew it was still in there. He looked at me like I was nuts. His first idea was to increase my dose to 25 mg but I asked him if it was possible to just take more then one pill a day of a smaller dose. He consulted with another dr and finally said that perhaps I was just a rare case that wasn't metabolizing the pill right...and he put me on 15 mg in the morning and 5 in the afternoon. He told me to call if the 5 in the afternoon wasn't enough. ...and here is where my issue lies...
When I was taking the one dose a day I was finally able to sleep well for the first time in ell...ever. I never realized that my whole not being able to shut my brain down issue was part of my A.D.H.D. On the two doses I'm having issues sleeping now. But on the upside I am definately a more normal functioning human now. I believe that the afernoon dose should probably go up a little because I see myself a little less controlled in the afternoon but I'm afraid that will make my sleeping worse. I also notice something else weird on the double doses...when I was on the single dose I had the whole I don't want to eat thing going on which I know is common. On the two doses I have an OMG I NEED FOOD RIGHT NOW issue..I get like EXTREME hunger that mostly points towards protein. I can deal with the loss of appatite because it doesn't disrupt me but this is insane.
Has anyone else run into issues when trying to find the right fit for them? Any advice? I wantto talk to my dr about it but he always looks at me like I've spouted another head when I talk about this stuff...so maybe some of you have some advice or maybe went through something similar?
It sounds like you need a different doctor. As I was readling your post I was thinking "she needs an afternoon dose" so I really don't understand why your doc reacted like you were crazy! I don't know...I'm definitely not a doctor but that was pretty obvious to me!
About the sleep, have you tried Melatonin at night before bed? I don't know if it works well for adults but it works great for my son.
Its funny cuz he made me feel like a druggie or something when I brought up the issues...now that I've been reading on here I see its NOT just me...Thanks :)I started with 10 mg of Adderall xr but I was taking it at about 5:30 am. Due to my job that's about when my day starts. I noticed that at about 12 or 12:30 I was not as focused and alert. It was a noticable difference and it bugged me because in the mornings I had began working on stuff fine and paying attention, and from the afternoons on it became increasingly difficult to complete the things I had started, expecially since my duty day does not end till 7:30. Not only that, I would sometimes feel increasingly out of energy.I talked to my doctor about this and he gave me another 10 mg of the XR kind to take around 1 pm. Doing this I am fine and usually winded down pretty well by 9pm and I occassionally take a sleeping pill to help me sleep. I was thinking about just asking for a 5mg XR to take in the afternoons instead.
I work with psychiatry, and I have seen quite commonly that the doctors I work for prescribe a good dosage of Adderall XR in the morning, and I have also seen them prescribe a smaller dose of immediate release to take as needed in the afternoon. The immediate release has a short acting life of about 3-4 hours where as the extended released tends to last about 8hrs. My opposition to IR narcotics is that they are easier to become addicted to and be abused as opposed to XR narcotics.
Believe me, I know it sucks when you can notice your mind becoming all cluttered and you start day dreaming and zoning out of conversations. Once you've found that clarity and the ease of thinking, it becomes difficult to handle how hyperactive your mind was originally. But know that Adderall can cause a euphoric feeling at it's peak, which can also make you crave more. Determine what is the lowest doses you can work with through out the day, so that you don't build tolerance so quickly.
And careful how you talk with your doctor. When determining giving patients these kinds of narcotics which are so commonly abused, they also look for what we call "drug seeking behaviors." He may have been making you feel like a druggie because he might have seen a couple "red flags" such as with wanting to up the dose so quickly. If by your next appointment, you feel that he is gearing towards this thought (and you know you are not abusing the medication), or if you feel that he just doesn't know what he is doing, then I would consider finding another doctor.
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