#please i just want my concerta back... feel like shit without her...

[dbphantom]

[colorfulgardenshark-blog]

Don’t want to find the original post, but the original poster’s name is in it if you want to go find them. Mostly didn’t want to go find it because if I tried I’d get sidetracked, and if I did that I’d A. not remember what I wanted to add and B. not get done what I need to do today. So, I have ADD, which is just ADHD without the constant bouncing off the walls. I do that sometimes, but not always. First of all, this post is spot on. Completely and totally accurate; I once hyperfocused so bad I didn’t eat for 3 days and barely heard when anyone tried to talk to me. Anyway, I wanted to add a note about prescription medication. The medicine for ADD and ADHD is, in my opinion, EXTREMELY helpful if you can get it (and it’s both very hard (financially) and ridiculously easy to do so but that’s a rant for another day). However, it’s not a magic wand that just makes me normal. So, let’s talk side-effects for every medicine I’ve ever been on. Keep in mind, I am just one person, and these side-effects are not necessarily typical--not everyone who’s been on these has had my same experiences.

Adderall: Ah, yes, Adderall. Every TV and movie perfectionist/studying college student’s best friend. In my personal and scientific opinion, I don’t think it actually does shit to help people whose brains aren’t a little f**ked up get anything done, but again, that’s a different rant. Adderall was the first medicine I was ever prescribed, and I had several problems.  First of all, when you are first prescribed medicine, Adderall is usually what you’re given to start. And it’s a guessing game as to dosage. They start you off relatively low and see if you need more or less. Adderall really f**ked up my life at first, guys. Dropped, like, 80 lbs in 3-4 months. I looked like a skeleton. I have pictures from that time and it was scary. My eyes were sunken, I could see all my ribs, and I looked generally sick all the time. Why did this happen? My appetite when I took Adderall essentially disappeared. And I don’t just mean that I wasn’t hungry; I mean that the thought of eating made me feel sick to my stomach. I could not eat. Eventually, that calmed down, though, as my body and brain adjusted, and I settled into a healthy weight. Appetite was still stunted (as it was on all the medications I took), but I could eat and not feel sick. However, Adderall did cause the most stunted appetite of the five medications I’ve been on. I also experienced heart palpitations occasionally, but it was rare, which is probably why I noticed them so much. Another problem I had, I didn’t actually notice myself, but my sister sure did; it drove her crazy. Apparently, I had a tick: I would blink constantly. Just, every second, I would blink. She once counted how many times I blinked in a minute and it was 57 (for reference, people normally blink 15-20 times a minute). It didn’t really affect me, and I only occasionally noticed (usually only after my sister told me to knock it off), but it’s something to note.

Concerta: Not sure why I switched to Concerta. Could have been a dosing issue with Adderall; the longer you take a medication, obviously the more of a tolerance you build to it, hence why every once in a while you increase your dosage a little bit. My tolerance could have just gotten too high on Adderall and they switched me over to allow it to come back down (because it’ll do that if you’re off it for a while). I hated Concerta. In addition to the stunted appetite (still not as bad as Adderall), I got headaches, I could feel my heart just pounding every once in a while with no real reason for it (AKA palpitations, like with Adderall, but WAY more intense and tbh kinda terrifying), I had a lot of trouble sleeping, if I recall correctly, my hands shook a bunch; I did not have a good time on Concerta. I switched back to Adderall eventually and never looked back. Like, yes, it did its job and I focused and got my work done, but it was not worth it to me.

Some kind of patch: I don’t remember why I was on this one. I wasn’t on it for long; I didn’t like it. It didn’t do much for me. The idea was that the medication was in a patch that you stuck to your hip and it absorbed into your skin. I was on it for about a month; I did not like it. I didn’t feel like it was doing its job.

Ritalin: Okay, now we’re getting into the stuff I’m still on. Ritalin is good shit. It’s a short-acting version of all the other stuff (it lasts about 4-6 hours, whereas the rest of them last about 8-12). I use it when I’ve got a lot of homework and have to work/study late and my original medicine is wearing off before I can get it all done. Does stunt appetite a little, but not much (I’m also on a very low dose so there’s that). Bonus: doesn’t keep me up late if I take it late, whereas most of the others did (not sure about that patch. F**k that patch). It’s also WAY cheaper than the stuff I’m currently on, so I’m thinking it’ll be a good option for me to switch over to completely once I’m off my parents’ insurance. Gonna miss my current one like hell, though. God, I love this stuff.

And finally, Vyvanse: Vyvanse is kind of a derivative of Adderall. It’s made by the same company, and oh my God, I LOVE it. It’s been the best one by far. Least amount of appetite stunting, little-to-no sleep loss, no noticeable ticks or super intense palpitations (sometimes those happen, but these are all stimulants; my heart rate is elevated when I take them). This is the best one I’ve taken. I never want to give it up, and it saddens me that I’ll likely have to (shit’s expensive man. Worth it, imho, but expensive). HOWEVER, this isn’t perfect. I’m sure what I’m about to tell you would happen with all of the medications, but I don’t remember doing what I did on this one nor do I remember it happening on them (except Concerta. F**ck Concerta. F**k Concerta right in the ear). So, over the summer, I basically stopped taking my Vyvanse. I didn’t have a need to, and saving what pills I had left came in handy when I came out to school and had to deal with transferring my prescriptions to a new state (which delayed how quickly I could get a refill). So essentially, for 3 months, I was off the meds. I was and still am taking 50 mg capsules when I did that. It was my 3rd dose upgrade since starting it. Meaning, jumping right back into taking that high of a dose was a BAD idea. Here’s what I experienced when I started taking them again, as best I can describe it: Shaking--my hands shook a lot. Like, visibly. It would have been terrifying if I didn’t know what was happening (it was a super-intense version of what happens when you up your dosage) Vibrating--That’s all I can really do to describe what I was feeling; my whole body was vibrating. My body has never felt so foreign to me as it did when I made the stupid decision to jump right into 50 mg from a tolerance of essentially zero. I should have used Ritalin for a couple days to ease me into it. Jesus, it was so bad. Disconnected--my brain did not feel attached to my body. I felt barely aware of what was going on around me. I was hearing and seeing everything but I was processing very slowly or not at all. Everything was surreal. Palpitations like you wouldn’t believe--holy mother of Jesus I was feeling every single heartbeat. It wasn’t necessarily that I felt it beating fast (though it was going fast), just really, really hard. Zoning out--Like how normal people zone out but super intense in that I couldn’t snap out of it. It was almost an out-of-body experience. There were other things but I can’t remember a whole lot of what happened during those few days of readjustment. Although I guess you could count that as something, too: I don’t remember much of it. If anyone is on medication right now and has never just quit cold turkey and then jumped back in cold, don’t do it. If for whatever reason you stop taking your prescription, please, for the sake of all that is holy, ease yourself back into it when you start up again. Holy shit; I never want to do that again. And to think that before this I thought I might need a dose upgrade. HA.

So, I hope this has been helpful for everyone trying to get inside the mind of someone with ADD/ADHD, both on and off prescription medication. Happy writing!

@sheisalreadyhere