Hi, I'm new to these boards. About a year ago I was diagnosed with ADHD and my doctor advised me to take 2 18mg (36 mg in total) pills of concerta in the morning each day. The pills helped me concentrate more, improved grades and also improved my behaivour. I was loving this, as anyone would. After a little while I started to abuse it. I would take 6 or 7 pills a day just to get more concentrated. Sometimes I would take as much as 6 in the morning than a couple hours later I would take another 6. Sometimes I would even take 12 at one time. The side effects were loss of appetite, insomnia, unusual tics and abnormal thinking. After all this I got off of the medication. Since then, I've been experiencing depression, still have tics and massive social withdrawal and sometimes paranoia. I am also reluctant to talk because my speech is very disorganized and my thoughts are disorganized. I realize that abusing this drug was my choice so it is all my fault but do you think I should talk to my psychiatrist about this? As each day passes by, my condition seems to get worst and am experiencing many if not all the symptoms of hebephrenic schizophrenia. Do you think I'm over-reacting or I should really take this seriously? All help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Do you think I'm over-reacting or I should really take this seriously?

Hi Johnathan....I think you should take this very seriously because not taking any medication as prescribed and abusing it to that degree can cause serious internal damage. You should indeed tell your physchiatist immediately and you would also be wise to see a medical doctor as well. The symptoms you describe sound rather alarming so act on this as soon as possible. Good luck and keep us posted.

Hey Jonathan

I was taking concerta in the 8th grade and now Im taking adderall.  To tell you the truth I think the concerta might work better.  I rember when i took teh concerta that every once in a while maybe  a couple times a week i would stutter when saying something but it wasnt constant and went away after a while.  I've heard of people abusing adderall and have misused to myself to get a little extra homework done over night and it's not a good thing to do.  I really can't see how you abused concerta though its alot different from the adderall and the concerta just made me feel like i was confident about school and improved my behavior greatly but never even once in the 2 years of taking it misused it.  I can see how it is possible and it is actually possible you did it.  I can tell you the speech problem if you are stuttering sometimes but not often will probably go away mine did.  As for abusing your Concerta Im going to recomend that you tell your doctor who prescribed it to you and how you feel now after abusing it.  Im telling you this because I just got over a drug use probelem with illegal drugs and I have learned from it that abusing and misusing any drug will almost allways cause you more difficulities and I wouldnt be suprised if you began self medicating with another substance.  What ever you do don't use any other drugs and you need to talk to your parents, if you think they will flip out and such you really need to talk to your docot right away.  They might up your dossage or change your medication completly. Im thinking they will change your meds to a different ADHD medication.  Im not sure though but really kid you need to tell someone because it will only lead to worse outsomes than what it was like before you took the concerta.  I know it changes your whole outlook on life when you take it but abusing and misusing is not good.  Im not sure about concerta but i know people who have abused adderall by taking more than prescribed have had heart problem and even heart attacks.  But just talk to your doctor and if your worried your parents will get mad at you dont sweat it, by telling someone your helping yourself from abusing more and if they dont see that then im willing to bet your doctor will explain to them how easy it is to misuse the drug.  I highly recomend that you let your mom hold onto you prescription when you get a new one or as soon as you tell her. 

O man kid, and youve never had any of these problems before taking the concerta?  The thing that actually really suprised me about what you said was you abused it, I know any drug can be abused because you name it I've probably tried it atleast once with the exception of heroin drugs in the hard class and alot of prescription pills.  I was abusing mostly pot over the last 3 years but its escalateed into a couple other things but I wasn't addicted to anything but weed.  But I took concerta for 2 years and never even saw a reason to take more than I was supposed to because I never ever felt the need.  I probably should be on concerta and not adderall right now but I just really don't feel like talking to my doctor about it I'm going to give adderall another month or 2 before I tell him that I think i want to try concerta again.  And the other thing is I really dont know how you got addicted to it... I guess you can get addicted to anything but I never experianced an addiction except if you call wanting to take it because it controlled my behavior for the good an addiction which I guess you could in a way call it that.  But I can tell you I remeber if I skiped a day of taking it I felt like I was in another world like I had no control on what I was doing, I felt wicked stupid if I didnt take it.  But i dont know what its like to stop taking it and not using other drugs at the same time stoping cold turkey because the only reason I stoped taking concerta was because I was smoking waaaay too much weed and didnt like the feeling.  Then I made up  BS lie that it hurt my stomach when all it did was supress my apetite as does adderall.  But at the time I had heard all this hype about snorting adderall so iI thought hey why not give it a try like the idiot I was while using drugs.  I didnt even like snorting them and never took them up until stoping all other drugs 22 days ago.  I can tell you though if you that it is seriosuly time for you to talk to a doctor I thought this was all recent after 3 months you should not feel this way.  And I do believe that if you dont go and talk to a doctor you will most likely get into other drugs which is really bad, especially if you have ADD or ADHD.  When I was using pot I just couldn't stop I loved the way it made me feel, got infatuated with it as an ameture smoker and blew up into a pot expert, I couldnt tell ya what I did in english class but I could tell you anything you wanted to know about weed and I could get it when ever I wanted and I allways had atleast a good amount stashed away in case I ran out.  I'm telling you all this because I was told having ADD or ADHD can make a person become more addicted to things than the average person and yeah I had alot of fun over the last 3 years, partied my brains out all the time but I also got arrested and charged with felony drug charges last November and recently recieved probation until im 18 and it will all be wiped away if I stay out of trouble and the only reason I even got it that easy was because I had no record and turned everything around in school and was honest with the judge and had stoped 2 weeks prior to court because of another arrest, I didnt even learn my lesson the first time.  Believe me Jonathan you probably have an addictive personality just from ADD or ADHD, and just by you telling me you got addicted to concerta and abused it that much really says to me that you do because I used it for 2 years and never did and I loved doing drugs.  I see all the good I can do without drugs and by taking my medication because I am now an A student in just 3 weeks of changing but I wasted alot of time self medicating for no reason because I allways had the meds that i truly needed I just didnt take them the right way and mixed them with other drugs.  Deffinatly make an appointment with your doctor tell them that it is urgent and you need to see him immediatly.  How old are you by the way? Listen good luck write back and tell me how old you are and if you are going to take my advice on contacting the doctor....But really I know alot about abusing drugs and people do it for many reasons. 

Thanks for the reply Jared. I'm 15 years old and in grade 10. The thing is that my parents dont know I abused it and I know they will get extremely mad if I tell them. Knowing the way that my dad is, he may not even want to take me back to the psychiatrist because it costs a lot of money which my family doesn't have at the moment. As for other drugs that I've tried, I smoke a lot of weed. I mean a lot. I drink occasionally, I've tried shrooms a couple times and cocaine once.

Hey Jonathan I must have missed the part about all the drugs you've tried I thought it was only weed. Listen man you are right on my path I was on  only I stuck with weed til 16.  I know shrooms are the funnest thing you could ever do your first time on em all I did was laugh my ass off, but it also took me an hour to make my bed( no exageration), I f*cked around with them for a while and let me tell you after the first like 4 times I kept doin em but everytime I ate em I just wanted the feeling to end, Their no good kid they make your brain swell and bleed, all shrooms are is food posioning,I did them enough times to know that they will make you freak out if you eat too much and kid they will start making you so depressed.  The part about drinking occasionally your exactly where I was I didnt drink much until I turned 17 in novemeber, but when I did I got sh*t faced, I almost died from it last year my friend saved my life I had taken an adderall and snorted percecet, then drank a 40 oz steel reserve which is the equivilant of 9 beers because its triple the alcohol, then I thought it would be a good idea to smoke some weed and I got to my second bong rip and all of a sudden i felt so messed up I cant even tell you it was horrible, I turned green and puked about 17 times I deffinatly should have gone to the hospital but i got it all out of me.  Then about 4 months before my last arrest which led me to stop using everything I decided I loved vodka and was going to drink it everyday and I did I became and alcoholic in 4 months like a serious alky.  I was drinking the vodka every single day not allways to excess but I atleast took about 5 shots with well over 20 bong packs.  With the cocaine I didnt even try it til last october, and I loved it which was really weird because I allways liked being relaxed and messed up but coc made me feel like everyting was perfect and I loved the numb feeling.  I didnt do it again for a about 2 weeks when I went on a 4 day binge...I never even told anyone about it not even my friends because I knew it was really bad sh*t and I just stoped doing it.  Seriuously stay the hell away from cocane, only bad things come of it.  You really should stay away from all illegal drugs and not abuse anything because of your ADHD you will seriously get addicted to almost everything you try and will ruin your life.  I seriously thank god that I never did cocaine again after that 4th day because I know I would deffinatly be in jail right now.  The other thing is im pretty sure that your dealing because your 15 and tried all these drugs, plus you tell me you got a money problem, if your dealing to support your habbit just stop using please listen to me I know what it's like and yeah for the next couple years your gonna have alot of fun but your gonna mess alot of sh*t up too.  Eventually it will catch up to you and you will get caught and the sad part is you just dont see it coming...I thought I was the "untouchable" I allways managed to get away, there were some cops that F*CKING HATED ME..... tried busting me in school so many time yet I allways seemed to get away and everytime I'd right at them and the vice principal and say you'll never catch me I'm too good and just walk out laughing at the fact that I was just searched and almost everytime I had an ounce on me, im not going to tell you how I would pull it off because it will only make thigns worse for and it wasnt the usuall sh*t like in ur boxers, or secret pokets, I had it all figured out, but then the unthinkable happened I got busted hardcore and had 10 min to get away because I knew the cops were coming when we crashed and I was so messed up from 9  vikaden in my system from the couse ofb the day and a ton of weed that I just stood at teh carw ith a friend with an ounce and i half and vikaden in my poket and the cops got there and i got busted.  It was oneof the dumbest things I've ever done.  I wont lie to you jonathan yah the life style seems great when yout living it, allways got money, allways got any drug you want, allways messed up, and allways partying. But guess what the parties over for me now.  If I'm even see at a party it's good bye Jared see ya in 2 years when ya get outa jail and cant get a job cuz you got a felony on ur record.  Save yourself the trouble and just stop using drugs and take your medicine the way you are supposed to.  All the mind altering things I did in high school ruined my life and would have made it suck really bad even if I didnt get arrested because honestly as high of an IQ as I had I could not do school work for the life of me...it was bad enough that i wasnt taking my medicine because when I didnt take it I wasnt keeping up but I was stoned outa my mind all the time.  Seriously take my advice and stop the sh*t it's not like I'm some amature druggie who doesn't know the facts and how it causes hurt and nothing but bad things.  Pot seems harmless but I'm telling you and if you really are  smoking alot then you know you live for that high and you dont feel normal without it and most of that I believe to be from the ADHD giving impulsive tendencies.  just take the amount of concerta the doctor prescribedand see what it does do not mix it with other drugs though, if you feel that your going to abuse it you need to go to the doctor.  I was tihnking of an excuse for you to tell your parents and believe if you dont think this one will work message me back and il give you another one because coming up with excuses was one of the best things i did  when i was on drugs and i used them all....Tell your mom not your dad that you cant talk right and think the concerta is doing it and you want to talk to the doctor befor eit gets worse... im pretty sure she will take you if that one doesnt work tell her you cannot eat anytihng and that your stomach feels really messed up and dont eat a tihng infront of her for a couple days if she doesnt call right away....If she thinks that you are not eating I gaurentee she will make an apointment.  wirte back and let me know if your going to take my advice on the illgeal drugs, I seriously hope that you do because Out of all the drugs Ive done not one of them has done any good for me unless it was doctor prescribed.  Don't follow in my footsteps kid learn from them.