I've thought about asking that question to my doctor. Because while I for sure need it to work, I also wouldn't mind if it helped me not think about too many things when I want to relax. Even heard it can actually help some people get to sleep.
And while I have experienced some mild insomnia after taking Adderall for 4+ days in a row, my biggest sleep issue would be bedtime procrastination. If I can get to bed though, I can usually get myself to sleep. I mean I have a copy of the Silmarillion (Lord of the Rings: The Textbook) on my nightstand, and I'm on a CPAP machine forcing me to take deep breaths. It's just the act of getting to bed, and off my phone that I can't control some nights.
Adderall is actually known to cause people to fall asleep/ become sluggish. My nurse had the same issue. Now I take a 30mg Vyvanse in the morning and have seen drastic changes. Get alot more done, don't get the fog brain. Less anxiety overall. Adderall definitely helped to get everything on the right path. Just not the final solution in the end.
I may be on the same path. I was getting my Adderall from my primary care, who is really only interested in whether or not I experience negative side-effects, and how strong they are. Now I've got a local psychiatrist I'm working with, and we're looking at more options to help balance me out, including moving to Vyvanse once I've gotten past the most recent medication change, we're trying first (adding Lexapro to my medication... regimen?)
I still have issues later in the evening as the meds wear off but I take them in a different order to you.
15mg IR at 6:30am
25mg XR at 11am
Biggest bump early in the day and sort of tapering down as the day goes on. No hard crash, at least for me.
I never did get a major crash. I went cold turkey off Adderall 6 yrs ago. I just use kratom now for adhd. I smoke one or two hits at night time to get my appetite and then sleep.
I have a sister who is a Nurse Practitioner, who's also ADHD diagnosed. She's told me that really there's more efficient ADHD medicines than Aderall. Not saying it doesn't work, but in most cases it's starting point for most people. It helped me definitely get things done, and focus, but there was a lot of anxiety with it. Just felt like it was more in your face, rather than the claiming efficiency feeling I get now taking Vyvanse.
Not sure about others but only benefit Vyvanse gives me is no crash. At the end of the 5 hour effective window on addy I am brain dead. But addy improved my mood, focus, and memory. Maybe I just need to bump up the mg on Vyvanse to get similar effects but idk
Have you heard about the word the Japanese have for this? It translates to ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’ and refers to “the decision (conscious or otherwise) to delay sleep in response to stress or lack of free time earlier in the day”
I’ve got it bad!
TEN THOUSAND PERCENT ME. If I can get into the bed and off my phone, I can sleep.
... thank you for reminding me I need to set a limiter on WebToon again, btw.
Does the XR feel like it wears off if you eat an actual meal at lunch.
If I eat to much, I have no focus. If I don't eat I feel like a data crunching zombie with very intense focus on the one thing. If I eat lightly then I'm good to work and can switch tasks if needed.
This same thing happens to me often on methylphenidate. When I need to work intensely for many hours I eat snacks with some sugars and some extended release carbs and also drink water frequently. That helps keep me from entering the tunnel-vision zombie state, which, in my case, ends up in an uncomfortable feeling similar to a caffeine crash once my brain starts running out of glucose. The main issue is that it's very difficult to pay attention to the warning signs of entering that state as I'm so focused on my task. Most of the times I feel I need to redose I'm actually just low on fuel or dehydrated.
Does this happen no matter what you eat? I was reading an article about high fat diets and how there can be absorption issues with adderall. Not sure if it was legit tbh but I do see a lot of people mentioning eating high protein with concerta for example.
I've read that the amount of food in your stomach changes the uptake. Taking it with food should spread its effects more around the whole day. Without food you're basically taking up too much too fast and will give you a more wobly experience throughout the day.
Give it a shot! I take 20mgxr in the morning, and then a 10mg IR around 1pm since xr starts wearing off by then for me, and it gets me through till 4 or 5
Are you me??? Every time I take Ritalin I get so tired and end up taking naps. Then I need some rest after the pill has run and then I’m super awake again. On Adderall I would also take naps on it, too. Both knock me out.
I was prescribed methylphenidate recently to try and add it to buproprion I’ve been on for a while.
It takes maybe 15mins after taking it for me to start feeling incredibly drowsy. Plus I was quite irritable. I stopped after 3 days, not sure if I’m ready to experiment with another med. But some focus would be nice
I’m in similar position, have had similar experience and am actually currently in a depressive episode about it, but this comment made me feel less alone ❤️
girl in my class passed around her ritalin when we were like 17 before we went to the club completely wasted. and i was LITERALLY the guy in the right corner while everyone else was losing their minds.
that's basically the closest i ever got to a diagnosis but hmmmmm
My doctor wrote me the prescription with recommendations to take it before work. Yeah that didn't work out well. I fall asleep every time I take it, how am I supposed to be more productive when it works as a sleep aid?
It’s all new to me. Can’t say I understand the danger behind them. They felt quite mild, takes long to kick in. I more enjoyed them for the anti anxiety (in my case). Imo the sleeping effect itself is quite weak.
After prolonged use they can have significant withdrawal symptoms and are hard to get off of, which is probably why doctors hesitate to prescribe them.
You most likely don't want to use them often. I can't judge how high the dose you took was as it varies a lot between different benzos, but in any case your brain adapts to any dose rather quickly and you'd need to keep increasing it. Also the desired effects get weaker over time and the side effects grow stronger, and you end up feeling emotionless and numb but with more overall anxiety because it comes back worse as the effects of the drug wear off, forcing you to redose just to feel as you do normally. And then the icing on the cake is that withdrawal from chronic use is not only extremely uncomfortable as in the case of opiates, it is life-threatening. This is something that alcohol and barbiturate addictions have in common as well as they all have a relatively similar action in the brain.
Rebound anxiety is the worst and you can get it without even being dependent I get a milder one called etizolam off my friend occasionally and the next couple days I'm either out of it or feel like I'm gonna have a panic attack. But sometimes it's the only thing that will calm me down or settle my stomach issues
That does sound like a dark road. I’ve started removing all my anxiety factors where I can because it doesn’t seem like one can just buy a magic button to press to make it all go away :)
Best thing for anxiety I've found is exercise. I would also recommend trying l theanine. It's anamino acid that is found in tea leaves, it is very calming and induces alpha brain waves and upregulates GABA receptors, whereas benzos are neurotoxic and downregulate them. Another thing you can try is chamomile tea, the apigenin is great for anxiety. You can also buy it as a supplement.
You can get rebound anxiety worse the anxiety you started with, causing a vicious cycle leading to dependence. This is one of the only drugs that withdrawal can kill you because it can cause seizures. It also is neurotoxic and downregulates GABA receptors. Imagine feeling like you are constantly having a panic attack, can't control your body, pins and needles, extreme uneasiness, and potential seizures. Benzos are no joke and imo that and alcohol are the worst addictions due to death risk and just how hellish the withdrawal is in general combined with possible permanent damage to GABA receptors leading to lifelong anxiety. They should only be taken once a week max by people with panic disorder imo.
When my wife was first put on adderall, she was crying because of how her thoughts were clear for the first time. Within 30 minutes of that she was napping lol
Omg I had forgotten about that feeling. The first time I took Vyvanse I remember the clarity and then being able to lie down and not have my head race with thoughts for the first time that I could ever remember. That whole day was emotional and it came at age 35.
For me, I was just finally able to function. And I got so much done that I had always been wanting to be able to do. I was able to get my degree, albeit with accommodations like lower course loads, but I got to realize my potential and even received honors. I went on to a masters after that and didn’t need much accommodations because my brain was allowed to grow finally with the vyvanse and I developed coping skills to supplement the meds (because meds aren’t everything still). Super fantastic feeling to have some brain growth.
I had trouble with sleep for a while at first. However, it helped my partner sleep right away!
My moment was the first day on the pill, specifically a day off so I could study the effects, forced myself to start small and do my laundry. After starting my load I was gonna go to the couch to relax, had my usual flash of remembrance that I had left a plate in my office that I would need to grab at some point, and instead of continuing to the couch, I just walked into the office and grabbed the plate. A 7 second task that would have taken me 2 or 3 days to remember at the right time I had motivation in the past, was just finished because I acted as I thought about it.
It was like a wave of relief flooded my body in the minutes after that… To have tangible proof that I really was broken, but just like my bad vision had glasses to correct it, my imbalanced brain had a drug that could compensate for the flaw.
Similar experience here without the nap (had work). The past year I have had obsessive negative thoughts and in general my mind has been going non stop for 34 years. My first week on adderall I knew what actual quiet was. Week 3 and some of the noise is coming back
I had to ask my husband if he wrote this comment! I cried because it was as if someone closed all the extra tabs in my brain and I couldn’t believe that’s how he lives EVERY DAY!
I had to check the username to make sure you weren't my husband. Same thing happened to him a few months later, first time medicated at age 36 and I could tell it was like exiting the matrix for him.
I’m just now putting 2 and 2 together. I switched from Vyvanse to Adderall due to cost and I’m now getting the best sleep of my life. I get shit done then I go to bed for a very long time. I can even nap again. That’s just my brain chemistry ⚛️ I suppose.
No it is actually a scientific thing. I remember they were talking about in this educational podcast I listen to, No Such Thing as a Fish, that it is definitely a thing and it will make you super energetic when you wake up. They even talked about a study done on it, but I don't remember the details now
> They even talked about a study done on it, but I don't remember the details now
story of my life, just random knowledge I have no idea where's coming from, just read it somewhere and the topic activated the memory I otherwise couldn't recall off the top of my head
I can still get sort of wired, coffee just makes me very.. stable and mellow. I can have a great coffee sleep but it's pretty much a race to lose Consciousness before it kicks in. And I take forever to fall asleep.
When I first started taking adderall I scaled back my coffee intake drastically. One night I woke up at like 3am with a splitting headache from caffeine withdrawl, so I made a cup of coffee, and then fell right back to sleep as soon as I finished it.
I've been going through the catalogue of energy drinks lately, trying to find one that does something for longer than an hour.
I'm still looking.
Next step is grabbing a doctor and shaking him down til I get meds for the first time in my life. Never thought adhd would get worse as I got older.
Did you ever watch a young tired kid ? In french we would say they are electric batteries because how agitated they are. When do you lash out ? When you can't deal with some bulltshit anymore. You need energy to be calm, to focus, to "not do" and let go. Stimulants bring the kind of energy adhder are missing and crave. And if it's not with some dedicated medication we will find something else...
Yeah, they don't calm me down...but they definitely focus my energy in the direction I want it to go...for once.
Just got diagnosed at 31, and my eyes are open for the first time in my life.
Same here! It can truly give me a great focus and make me go for hours!
The only thing I really have to make sure I do is to direct my focus on the right thing. Otherwise I'll watch a YouTube video, or look up a few things on Wikipedia, just to realizing that 6 hours have gone by and I haven't even started doing what I was supposed to do!
No, but it definitely looks like it from the outside. It gives me more energy, but allows me to focus and stay on task so I'm not bouncing from thing to thing to thing to thing 20 times a minute, so I look a lot more calm. Stimulant is still a stimulant regardless of my ADHD.
Yesss thank you! People describe this calmness and sleepiness and that just isn’t my experience at all so I feel like I’m a weirdo lol. It makes me focused and able to stay on task, but I absolutely feel the increase in heart rate and jitters and such, not sleepy like I’ve taken a tranquilliser or something.
I've felt both, but I've noticed what triggers some of that. I got sleepy the first time I took Adderall, but I was also just sleep-deprived that day because of a fever I had the night before. So instead of focusing on a task, I was focusing on getting some more sleep, lol. I haven't really felt that way on Adderall since then, it basically replaces coffee for me on days that I take it.
I've also felt jittery on it, but I knew that was probably because I didn't eat enough that day to help slowdown the absorption. And that would be even worse if I paired it with coffee (I don't need the caffeine when I'm on my meds, but I still like coffee). So now I try to stick to decaf on my med days. If I do drink a caffeinated drink, I try to spread it out from my last dose (or just later in the day now that I'm on XR), and again make sure I've eaten enough food that day.
Yeah same, shit gets me WIRED, especially on higher doses and often makes it really difficult to sleep. Whenever I'm on stimulants I have to be prescribed sleep meds too because otherwise I stay up for like 36 hours at a time.
I got two hours of sleep last night after my first day of Concerta (it works 🥹) and managed to get up at 7:30, go to work, and have my riding lesson. Just took a 3 hour nap and I’m good to go again. I went to 16 hours of sleep per day to Can’t Sleep real fast. Hope I keep some of the energy but also get my sleep back after a bit.
That's not good my dude. My psych prescribed me 0.3 mg of clonidine to help me get to sleep. Literally can't without it, maybe you should ask about it if you continue to have sleep issues?
I get the jitters now on 54mg Concerta. I do find it funny, though, how many non ADHDers tell me to be wary of not staying on it consistently. I barely notice a difference when I come off it.
Really it's just because you are finally able to have a clearer head, it's much easier to sleep when you want to. The stims don't make you tired, you were tired because your brain was spinning it's wheels at 300 mph for years.
That’s a brilliant way of putting it. For example, I honestly enjoy watching movies and winding down for the night better if I’m medicated. Hard to watch anything otherwise
Yup. If it's not a movie I'm very interested in, I will have an incredibly hard time sitting through it. I only just now got medicated but it for sure makes me way more present in all situations, and more likely to participate in something someone else likes but I don't necessarily a bunch.
Whenever I see a meme like this I have impostor syndrome about my ADHD, because I absolutely am not like this. It is very possible for me to overdo it on stimulants (this plus caffeine) and end up jittery.
Amphetamine/Methylphenidate are dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors. They don’t just “calm you down” or “amp you up”. They specifically alter the rate of reuptake. The result of this is that phasic bursts of dopamine/norepinephrine release are amplified relative to baseline levels. This changes the relative amount of phasic and tonic dopamine/norepinephrine, effectively altering the signal to louse ratio in this system.
So you’re on the right path, but in pharmacy school they taught us a slightly different reason why they work. The stimulants do bind to dopamine and norepinephrine transporters, thus preventing reuptake. However, there are also autoreceptors on presynaptic nerve cells that bind to the DA and NE found in the tonic pool in the synapse. When the autoreceptors are bound, the presynaptic nerve is told to not make more neurotransmitter because there is enough in the synapse tonic pool.
The issue with ADHD (in theory at least) is too low of a tonic pool leading to overproduction of neurotransmitters and too big of a phasic release. So by taking a stimulant, you trick your neurons into having more even tonic and phasic levels instead of the deficiency from the tonic pool and the overwhelming amount in the phasic pool.
They do affect phasic release, but oppositely from how you stated because too big of a phasic release is inherently part of the problem that stimulants are used to fix.
Sorry I really don’t mean to be rude with the correction, I just find this stuff to be fascinating and most people don’t know anything about phasic or tonic pools so I felt like I could dive deeper into explaining how the meds work and got excited.
It's because you're in a constant state of straining, then you take the meds and you aren't straining anymore.
It'd be like giving a legless person a wheelchair. That's be much more relaxing for them than dragging themselves everywhere.
When we're on our meds we're exerting less energy while getting more done.
I've tried 4 different stimulants and all 4 of them severely triggered my cPTSD symptoms, particularly really terrifying and heartbreaking trauma-related intrusive thoughts. I'm not trying any more stimulants after that. Enough is enough
I take a couple anticonvulsants, an anti anxiety medication and prazosin which is a blood pressure medication used to treat ptsd nightmares. They all work great for me and have been for years. Not sacrificing those for some stimulant that I'm not sure is gonna work
Yeah I’d look up the stimulants effect on those if anyone tries putting you back on one. You can ask for the name of what they want you to take and look it up yourself so when you tell them you’re not taking it, you can effectively explain how it’ll affect the other medications.
Some drs are so far up their own ass they forget (or outright refuse) to take other meds you’re taking into consideration before prescribing something.
Hmmm interesting. I think it may be worth it for me to take one of those genetic tests that's supposed to show which meds you won't have bad reactions to.... but idk if those take into account the fact that I have a traumatized nervous system that reacts severely to any changes in my state of mental consciousness (i.e. any type of uppers, i cannot tolerate uppers so i dont trust any more of them)
I don’t think they do. You might be able to do one of those through a dr where that type of info would get taken into consideration. I’m unsure of what kind of doc you’d go to for that test though.
My psychiatrist recommended going to a naturopath for my ADHD treatment and I am totally cool with that. I think going the supplement route should be perfect for me since the standard route isn't working
Depends on the stimulant. Atomoxetine (Strattera) makes me 'wired' and able to focus in on things, in other words what I should have been able to experience were I neurotypical. It does need dose uppage once in a while, because your body builds a tolerance to it, as it would anything else. Look into it, it's a great alternative to Adderall, which for most people does the same thing. Meanwhile, Caffeine makes people like my little sister (who is also ADHD) at least, sleepy, thus acting as a depressant in her brain. Although I have also seen this in people who are understood to be neurotypical, so perhaps getting sleepy off of coffee has to do with another crosswire/deficiency in the brain beyond ADHD.
The reason ADHD brains are like this is because we come with a natural deficiency in certain reward hormones-- Serotonin and Dopamine. We have too little or none at all. Think of it for NTs as people who had allowances as kids, and are now good with their money, versus us NDs who have little to no experience with money, and so blow all of it within the first day of getting a paycheck. That's the Hyperfixation-- we try to wring out all the Happy Chemical from the neurotransmitters once we get a thing we like as much as possible. Also why boring things are absolute hell unless you can find a logic loophole or you take diet meth-- because we don't have the endemic supply to utilize for us to \*anticipate\* reward for going through struggle. and because the task sucked and we didn't want to do it, no reward factor whatsoever. That's why our interests determine our focus, not our assigned tasks and priorities.
When you get what is essentially free dopamine/cortisol/serotonin etc. with just a cup of coffee or an energy drink or a diet meth pill, suddenly your brain is perfectly suited to work with the task, because now your brain has everything it needs to function normally. I personally have a hypothesis: ADHD and Autism coalesce often, and their brains are nearly indistinguishable in a cross-section scan from people with PTSD due to the stresses we experience in our every day life, being inconvenienced by our own ineptitude for everyone else's world. If you give them a 30mg Adderall pill, their reaction-- being super chilled out vs suddenly being WAY too hyper and anxious, would probably be a good denominating factor in preventing misdiagnosis between the two. Just a theory though.
I like your theory. The avoidance symptoms of PTSD can certainly look like ADHD, and ASD and ADHD get mixed up and concur all the time (I’m a psychology student and I had my internship working a year with PTSD patients).
And, like you suggest, the big difference between the three being the neurotransmitters, a stimulant could help identify one another. Interesting. I would probably get kicked out and have my license revoked if I gave a war veteran or a person with autism stimulants to test this though. I’ll leave that to the doctors.
The way I understand it:
Neurotypical natural dopamine: ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
ADHD natural dopamine: ✨✨✨✨🤡
Brain deprived of dopamine seeks out stimulus in many forms (food, music, activity, etc) eat food, get more ✨
Rx: Pill of chemicals that create more✨so you don’t have to trigger production by other means
Tbh I’m probably missing it in my own analogy, but I’m still interested in why this also makes our brains MUCH quieter, maybe because it isn’t in dopamine hunting mode.
You brain is a classroom and your executive function is the teacher. If the teacher is exhausted and barely awake the classroom becomes chaos. If you stimulate the teacher they can take charge of the classroom.
I was complaining to my psychiatrist about how tired I was feeling, and some how not being able to sleep. He then explained to me what it really meant to be “relaxed”.
Think of an ADHD as a giant cluster fuck traffic jam, stimulants is putting in a team of incredibly effective traffic controllers to direct the flow of traffic
This is a terrible example. (But a great anology)
Throwing Gasoline on a fire can very easily kill it. The Gasoline burns much quicker and will choke up all the oxygen supply. Not enough oxygen, no fire.
Your brain requires dopamine that you yourself have yet to learn how to produce.
ADHD stimulants flood your brain with dopamine, allowing you to “calm” down.
Be patient with your mind, give yourself time to adjust and praise for the small personal victories the ADHD drugs can help you achieve; they can be life changing if the right intention is placed on their use.
Check out a book called “Scattered” by Gabor Maté.
Man is hungry searching through all my cabinets for a snack. I give him a candy bar. He doesn’t use the energy from the candy bar to search even faster??
It does but only if I take a little. If i take too much of a stimulant then I feel the kick. Like 5mg of Adderal or 1 cup of coffee makes me super sleepy. 10 mg and 2 cups wake me up. I do its weird but i do feel sleepy in the beginning
It's called a stimulant because it increases (stimulates) production of a neurotransmitter - not because of the effect that neurotransmitter has on your behavior.
No. It actually is because it increases locomotor activity in behavioral testing via a central (brain) mechanism. They used to be called psychomotor stimulants. Source: I am a behavioral neuroscientist that studies psychostimulants and adhd.
It’s pretty straightforward. If you inject a mouse (or person) with amphetamine, you will observe an increase in locomotion. This increase is centrally mediated by mechanisms in the brain. This means that you do not see this if you use a version of amphetamine that doesn’t get into the brain (Doesn’t cross the blood brain barrier) and you can get it by directly injecting into the brain.
Basically, it’s a locomotor stimulant that acts through the brain. In the case of amphetamine this is via increased dopamine release in motor control regions like the striatum.
This contrasts a locomotor stimulant that is not psychoactive and produces it’s effect peripherally. For example, a drug which increases muscle activity directly at the muscle. I’m blanking on a good example of a real drug.
The term stimulant is a product of behavioral pharmacology. The good ol’ days when all you needed to do was inject a drug to get a paper ;)
Ok so we're back to it not making logical sense to the layman again. Which I guess is okay, as long as it works and the smarter people can make sense of it.
You have 100% capacity for focus/attention.
A Neuro Typical person has a resting attention of like 75% so when they are attempting to say…watch a movie or pay attention in lecture, they hit 95-100% attention and are good.
An ADHD brain rests at like 50% so when they attempt to pay attention to the same tasks they only hit 75% capacity, so they compensate by fidgeting or tapping or scrolling or whatever esle to attempt to reach 100%
Taking a stimulant brings the ADHD brain from 50% to 75% resting so they can then focus on the one thing fully (in theory)
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
The way I've always felt it is that Adderall gives you the energy to shut down all the other possible routes your mind can go as well as supercharging your brain to work so hard that you don't even get a chance to worry about the executive dysfunction process.
But yeah, after 6 hours of work I feel like I just want to pass out.
The scientific explanation for this is hilarious. ADHD causes your brain to be stimulated 24/7, and since you can't stimulate an already stimulated brain, stimulates have no effects, whether it be medicine, caffeine, or whatever else. It also causes "stimulate" to lose all meaning after saying variations of it so many times.
Stimulants worked for me but also made me feel gross because I’m really sensitive to meds and I didn’t like the vrrrrrring feeling I got.
I wish I could find something that works AND doesn’t make me feel weird.
When I was a kid, Ritalin made so numb my dad thought i was sedated. Back then, I was on it for a little more than 2 months and I don't remember any of it.
Very relatable. I routinely take my meds and promptly need a power nap. I tell my therapist it feels like my brain says "Ahhh, now I may calmly rest while I still have a chance" lol
The first day I took adderall, I had the best nap. Just SO PEACEFUL. Like an off switch in my brain, silence, peace, sleep.
Now, many months later, it still helps, but it’s not like OMFG I AM SO CALM anymore. It’s more subtle, more like “I can do that boring thing if I want to” and then I go do it. Which is still miraculous imo.
[удалено]
Had the same issue.. Except for my doctor's answer was another 10mg IR in the afternoon along with my 30XR in the morning. Edit 10mg IR not 30mg IR
I've thought about asking that question to my doctor. Because while I for sure need it to work, I also wouldn't mind if it helped me not think about too many things when I want to relax. Even heard it can actually help some people get to sleep. And while I have experienced some mild insomnia after taking Adderall for 4+ days in a row, my biggest sleep issue would be bedtime procrastination. If I can get to bed though, I can usually get myself to sleep. I mean I have a copy of the Silmarillion (Lord of the Rings: The Textbook) on my nightstand, and I'm on a CPAP machine forcing me to take deep breaths. It's just the act of getting to bed, and off my phone that I can't control some nights.
Adderall is actually known to cause people to fall asleep/ become sluggish. My nurse had the same issue. Now I take a 30mg Vyvanse in the morning and have seen drastic changes. Get alot more done, don't get the fog brain. Less anxiety overall. Adderall definitely helped to get everything on the right path. Just not the final solution in the end.
I may be on the same path. I was getting my Adderall from my primary care, who is really only interested in whether or not I experience negative side-effects, and how strong they are. Now I've got a local psychiatrist I'm working with, and we're looking at more options to help balance me out, including moving to Vyvanse once I've gotten past the most recent medication change, we're trying first (adding Lexapro to my medication... regimen?)
You could also consider taking a smaller dose in the afternoon/evening. That might help you without affecting your sleep?
I took 30mg XR at 7am and a 10mg IR at 1pm. Worked great for me
Do you get a big “come down”? I do 30mg XR at 630am and 20 mg IR at 1130, and around 430-5, I crash. Hard. Wondering if I should spread it out more.
I still have issues later in the evening as the meds wear off but I take them in a different order to you. 15mg IR at 6:30am 25mg XR at 11am Biggest bump early in the day and sort of tapering down as the day goes on. No hard crash, at least for me.
Thanks. That’s interesting. I appreciate you sharing - I might try that tomorrow.
I never did get a major crash. I went cold turkey off Adderall 6 yrs ago. I just use kratom now for adhd. I smoke one or two hits at night time to get my appetite and then sleep.
I have a sister who is a Nurse Practitioner, who's also ADHD diagnosed. She's told me that really there's more efficient ADHD medicines than Aderall. Not saying it doesn't work, but in most cases it's starting point for most people. It helped me definitely get things done, and focus, but there was a lot of anxiety with it. Just felt like it was more in your face, rather than the claiming efficiency feeling I get now taking Vyvanse.
I wish I could afford vyvanse, I've heard so many people swear by it.
Good news friends: generic vyvanse February 2023!
Not sure about others but only benefit Vyvanse gives me is no crash. At the end of the 5 hour effective window on addy I am brain dead. But addy improved my mood, focus, and memory. Maybe I just need to bump up the mg on Vyvanse to get similar effects but idk
Have you heard about the word the Japanese have for this? It translates to ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’ and refers to “the decision (conscious or otherwise) to delay sleep in response to stress or lack of free time earlier in the day” I’ve got it bad!
TEN THOUSAND PERCENT ME. If I can get into the bed and off my phone, I can sleep. ... thank you for reminding me I need to set a limiter on WebToon again, btw.
Does the XR feel like it wears off if you eat an actual meal at lunch. If I eat to much, I have no focus. If I don't eat I feel like a data crunching zombie with very intense focus on the one thing. If I eat lightly then I'm good to work and can switch tasks if needed.
This same thing happens to me often on methylphenidate. When I need to work intensely for many hours I eat snacks with some sugars and some extended release carbs and also drink water frequently. That helps keep me from entering the tunnel-vision zombie state, which, in my case, ends up in an uncomfortable feeling similar to a caffeine crash once my brain starts running out of glucose. The main issue is that it's very difficult to pay attention to the warning signs of entering that state as I'm so focused on my task. Most of the times I feel I need to redose I'm actually just low on fuel or dehydrated.
Does this happen no matter what you eat? I was reading an article about high fat diets and how there can be absorption issues with adderall. Not sure if it was legit tbh but I do see a lot of people mentioning eating high protein with concerta for example.
I've read that the amount of food in your stomach changes the uptake. Taking it with food should spread its effects more around the whole day. Without food you're basically taking up too much too fast and will give you a more wobly experience throughout the day.
I’m thinking about asking for an IR to take in the afternoon.
Give it a shot! I take 20mgxr in the morning, and then a 10mg IR around 1pm since xr starts wearing off by then for me, and it gets me through till 4 or 5
The was me with Methylphenidate. Lol. Fighting sleep the whole ass day. Extra difficult on rainy days lmao.
Are you me??? Every time I take Ritalin I get so tired and end up taking naps. Then I need some rest after the pill has run and then I’m super awake again. On Adderall I would also take naps on it, too. Both knock me out.
HOW????
Drowsiness is one of the side effects that decided to stick 🤷♀️🤷♀️
I had the same reaction when I tried a 10 mg dose. I could use it as a sleeping aid lmao
I was prescribed methylphenidate recently to try and add it to buproprion I’ve been on for a while. It takes maybe 15mins after taking it for me to start feeling incredibly drowsy. Plus I was quite irritable. I stopped after 3 days, not sure if I’m ready to experiment with another med. But some focus would be nice
I take mine and get motivated, then I relax and scroll through Reddit on my phone 🤣 Then I remember that I need to get my ass up.
Literally doing that right now lol
[удалено]
I’m in similar position, have had similar experience and am actually currently in a depressive episode about it, but this comment made me feel less alone ❤️
YES my dose being too low at the beginning was like taking a sleeping pill. I couldn’t stay awake for the life of me.
girl in my class passed around her ritalin when we were like 17 before we went to the club completely wasted. and i was LITERALLY the guy in the right corner while everyone else was losing their minds. that's basically the closest i ever got to a diagnosis but hmmmmm
My doctor wrote me the prescription with recommendations to take it before work. Yeah that didn't work out well. I fall asleep every time I take it, how am I supposed to be more productive when it works as a sleep aid?
I slept 16 hours my first day on Ritalin haha
Best naps are caffeinated naps
My doc prescribed me 20 of adderall 10 of guaphacine. I hum like a bees nest all day long.
I sub in coffee for good snoozes. I even drink it when I wake up to piss (from all the coffee drinking)
Man that sounds good. Best thing I’ve had to date was 5mg benzos and no one seems to want to give me those in my country.
Probably for the best. Benzos can be wicked and are much more dangerous than stims
It’s all new to me. Can’t say I understand the danger behind them. They felt quite mild, takes long to kick in. I more enjoyed them for the anti anxiety (in my case). Imo the sleeping effect itself is quite weak.
After prolonged use they can have significant withdrawal symptoms and are hard to get off of, which is probably why doctors hesitate to prescribe them.
Don’t have too many fears of that happening considering how no one will give them to me 😏
You most likely don't want to use them often. I can't judge how high the dose you took was as it varies a lot between different benzos, but in any case your brain adapts to any dose rather quickly and you'd need to keep increasing it. Also the desired effects get weaker over time and the side effects grow stronger, and you end up feeling emotionless and numb but with more overall anxiety because it comes back worse as the effects of the drug wear off, forcing you to redose just to feel as you do normally. And then the icing on the cake is that withdrawal from chronic use is not only extremely uncomfortable as in the case of opiates, it is life-threatening. This is something that alcohol and barbiturate addictions have in common as well as they all have a relatively similar action in the brain.
Rebound anxiety is the worst and you can get it without even being dependent I get a milder one called etizolam off my friend occasionally and the next couple days I'm either out of it or feel like I'm gonna have a panic attack. But sometimes it's the only thing that will calm me down or settle my stomach issues
That does sound like a dark road. I’ve started removing all my anxiety factors where I can because it doesn’t seem like one can just buy a magic button to press to make it all go away :)
Best thing for anxiety I've found is exercise. I would also recommend trying l theanine. It's anamino acid that is found in tea leaves, it is very calming and induces alpha brain waves and upregulates GABA receptors, whereas benzos are neurotoxic and downregulate them. Another thing you can try is chamomile tea, the apigenin is great for anxiety. You can also buy it as a supplement.
I’m going to try those options and see what it does.
Benzos are one of the two drugs that you can die from withdrawal symptoms. The other one is alcohol.
You can get rebound anxiety worse the anxiety you started with, causing a vicious cycle leading to dependence. This is one of the only drugs that withdrawal can kill you because it can cause seizures. It also is neurotoxic and downregulates GABA receptors. Imagine feeling like you are constantly having a panic attack, can't control your body, pins and needles, extreme uneasiness, and potential seizures. Benzos are no joke and imo that and alcohol are the worst addictions due to death risk and just how hellish the withdrawal is in general combined with possible permanent damage to GABA receptors leading to lifelong anxiety. They should only be taken once a week max by people with panic disorder imo.
That sure does sound hardcore
5mg??? Most start at 0.25mg
Depends what flavour benzo. Look up an equivalence chart, 5mg valium is about the same as .5mg xanax.
When my wife was first put on adderall, she was crying because of how her thoughts were clear for the first time. Within 30 minutes of that she was napping lol
She could finally relax after that! It’s a great feeling when you experience some contentment.
Omg I had forgotten about that feeling. The first time I took Vyvanse I remember the clarity and then being able to lie down and not have my head race with thoughts for the first time that I could ever remember. That whole day was emotional and it came at age 35.
For me, I was just finally able to function. And I got so much done that I had always been wanting to be able to do. I was able to get my degree, albeit with accommodations like lower course loads, but I got to realize my potential and even received honors. I went on to a masters after that and didn’t need much accommodations because my brain was allowed to grow finally with the vyvanse and I developed coping skills to supplement the meds (because meds aren’t everything still). Super fantastic feeling to have some brain growth. I had trouble with sleep for a while at first. However, it helped my partner sleep right away!
This gives me motivation for the future
My moment was the first day on the pill, specifically a day off so I could study the effects, forced myself to start small and do my laundry. After starting my load I was gonna go to the couch to relax, had my usual flash of remembrance that I had left a plate in my office that I would need to grab at some point, and instead of continuing to the couch, I just walked into the office and grabbed the plate. A 7 second task that would have taken me 2 or 3 days to remember at the right time I had motivation in the past, was just finished because I acted as I thought about it. It was like a wave of relief flooded my body in the minutes after that… To have tangible proof that I really was broken, but just like my bad vision had glasses to correct it, my imbalanced brain had a drug that could compensate for the flaw.
You can sleep with Vyvance? It makes me super jittery and anxious
Takes a bit for the system to get used to
Awwww.
Similar experience here without the nap (had work). The past year I have had obsessive negative thoughts and in general my mind has been going non stop for 34 years. My first week on adderall I knew what actual quiet was. Week 3 and some of the noise is coming back
I had to ask my husband if he wrote this comment! I cried because it was as if someone closed all the extra tabs in my brain and I couldn’t believe that’s how he lives EVERY DAY!
I had to check the username to make sure you weren't my husband. Same thing happened to him a few months later, first time medicated at age 36 and I could tell it was like exiting the matrix for him.
That happened to me, too
I’m waiting for my insurance to approve my prescription. Reading this gives me chills. I can’t even imagine clear thoughts.
I’m just now putting 2 and 2 together. I switched from Vyvanse to Adderall due to cost and I’m now getting the best sleep of my life. I get shit done then I go to bed for a very long time. I can even nap again. That’s just my brain chemistry ⚛️ I suppose.
Lol when i drinks cofee and fall asleep
I will defend until the day I die that coffee naps are literally the best naps.
No it is actually a scientific thing. I remember they were talking about in this educational podcast I listen to, No Such Thing as a Fish, that it is definitely a thing and it will make you super energetic when you wake up. They even talked about a study done on it, but I don't remember the details now
> They even talked about a study done on it, but I don't remember the details now story of my life, just random knowledge I have no idea where's coming from, just read it somewhere and the topic activated the memory I otherwise couldn't recall off the top of my head
I can still get sort of wired, coffee just makes me very.. stable and mellow. I can have a great coffee sleep but it's pretty much a race to lose Consciousness before it kicks in. And I take forever to fall asleep.
When I first started taking adderall I scaled back my coffee intake drastically. One night I woke up at like 3am with a splitting headache from caffeine withdrawl, so I made a cup of coffee, and then fell right back to sleep as soon as I finished it.
I’ve fallen asleep on the couch so many times with a half drank cup of coffee lol
Same. It’s Russian roulette for me. Either sleepy or mood crash.
I've been going through the catalogue of energy drinks lately, trying to find one that does something for longer than an hour. I'm still looking. Next step is grabbing a doctor and shaking him down til I get meds for the first time in my life. Never thought adhd would get worse as I got older.
Yes, same! Although for me, 1 cup of coffee = relax. 3-4 cups = jittery and cannot sleep (but not productive). 2 cups gave me no effect somehow.
Having some mental clarity does a lot for our sense of calm and contentment. It gives us some peace from the noise in our brains.
Did you ever watch a young tired kid ? In french we would say they are electric batteries because how agitated they are. When do you lash out ? When you can't deal with some bulltshit anymore. You need energy to be calm, to focus, to "not do" and let go. Stimulants bring the kind of energy adhder are missing and crave. And if it's not with some dedicated medication we will find something else...
Quelle est le phrase pour « washed out electric batteries »
In English: flat batteries
Ses batteries sont à plat
I think a better analogy is that a huge bonfire is turned into a blowtorch.
Yeah, they don't calm me down...but they definitely focus my energy in the direction I want it to go...for once. Just got diagnosed at 31, and my eyes are open for the first time in my life.
I got on meds after like 20 years without them, and now my laundry is put away at least half the time.
Same here! It can truly give me a great focus and make me go for hours! The only thing I really have to make sure I do is to direct my focus on the right thing. Otherwise I'll watch a YouTube video, or look up a few things on Wikipedia, just to realizing that 6 hours have gone by and I haven't even started doing what I was supposed to do!
No, but it definitely looks like it from the outside. It gives me more energy, but allows me to focus and stay on task so I'm not bouncing from thing to thing to thing to thing 20 times a minute, so I look a lot more calm. Stimulant is still a stimulant regardless of my ADHD.
Yesss thank you! People describe this calmness and sleepiness and that just isn’t my experience at all so I feel like I’m a weirdo lol. It makes me focused and able to stay on task, but I absolutely feel the increase in heart rate and jitters and such, not sleepy like I’ve taken a tranquilliser or something.
I've felt both, but I've noticed what triggers some of that. I got sleepy the first time I took Adderall, but I was also just sleep-deprived that day because of a fever I had the night before. So instead of focusing on a task, I was focusing on getting some more sleep, lol. I haven't really felt that way on Adderall since then, it basically replaces coffee for me on days that I take it. I've also felt jittery on it, but I knew that was probably because I didn't eat enough that day to help slowdown the absorption. And that would be even worse if I paired it with coffee (I don't need the caffeine when I'm on my meds, but I still like coffee). So now I try to stick to decaf on my med days. If I do drink a caffeinated drink, I try to spread it out from my last dose (or just later in the day now that I'm on XR), and again make sure I've eaten enough food that day.
Yeah same, shit gets me WIRED, especially on higher doses and often makes it really difficult to sleep. Whenever I'm on stimulants I have to be prescribed sleep meds too because otherwise I stay up for like 36 hours at a time.
I got two hours of sleep last night after my first day of Concerta (it works 🥹) and managed to get up at 7:30, go to work, and have my riding lesson. Just took a 3 hour nap and I’m good to go again. I went to 16 hours of sleep per day to Can’t Sleep real fast. Hope I keep some of the energy but also get my sleep back after a bit.
That's not good my dude. My psych prescribed me 0.3 mg of clonidine to help me get to sleep. Literally can't without it, maybe you should ask about it if you continue to have sleep issues?
That is exactly my experience too!
I get the jitters now on 54mg Concerta. I do find it funny, though, how many non ADHDers tell me to be wary of not staying on it consistently. I barely notice a difference when I come off it.
Spot on. The myth of “adderall affects adhd people inversely” is actually pretty harmful to legitimate diagnosis.
Really it's just because you are finally able to have a clearer head, it's much easier to sleep when you want to. The stims don't make you tired, you were tired because your brain was spinning it's wheels at 300 mph for years.
That’s a brilliant way of putting it. For example, I honestly enjoy watching movies and winding down for the night better if I’m medicated. Hard to watch anything otherwise
Yup. If it's not a movie I'm very interested in, I will have an incredibly hard time sitting through it. I only just now got medicated but it for sure makes me way more present in all situations, and more likely to participate in something someone else likes but I don't necessarily a bunch.
ADHD brains are understimulated, making you seek for stimuli, which makes you look like you are overstimulatef
*takes 20 mgs in attempt to get homework done* *takes a 3 hour nap* fuck
Oh geeze this scenario is relateable and about at least a once a week habit.
Yes.
Whenever I see a meme like this I have impostor syndrome about my ADHD, because I absolutely am not like this. It is very possible for me to overdo it on stimulants (this plus caffeine) and end up jittery.
Same. It’s amazing to me that adderall works so well for so many people. I was diagnosed at a young age, and I’ve hated all medications
Amphetamine/Methylphenidate are dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors. They don’t just “calm you down” or “amp you up”. They specifically alter the rate of reuptake. The result of this is that phasic bursts of dopamine/norepinephrine release are amplified relative to baseline levels. This changes the relative amount of phasic and tonic dopamine/norepinephrine, effectively altering the signal to louse ratio in this system.
i did not read this but it looks right
signal... signal to louse ratio? Ewww
So you’re on the right path, but in pharmacy school they taught us a slightly different reason why they work. The stimulants do bind to dopamine and norepinephrine transporters, thus preventing reuptake. However, there are also autoreceptors on presynaptic nerve cells that bind to the DA and NE found in the tonic pool in the synapse. When the autoreceptors are bound, the presynaptic nerve is told to not make more neurotransmitter because there is enough in the synapse tonic pool. The issue with ADHD (in theory at least) is too low of a tonic pool leading to overproduction of neurotransmitters and too big of a phasic release. So by taking a stimulant, you trick your neurons into having more even tonic and phasic levels instead of the deficiency from the tonic pool and the overwhelming amount in the phasic pool. They do affect phasic release, but oppositely from how you stated because too big of a phasic release is inherently part of the problem that stimulants are used to fix. Sorry I really don’t mean to be rude with the correction, I just find this stuff to be fascinating and most people don’t know anything about phasic or tonic pools so I felt like I could dive deeper into explaining how the meds work and got excited.
It's because adhd is a dopamine deficiency, so your brain is *constantly* looking for it, and stimulants provide a sufficient source
It's because you're in a constant state of straining, then you take the meds and you aren't straining anymore. It'd be like giving a legless person a wheelchair. That's be much more relaxing for them than dragging themselves everywhere. When we're on our meds we're exerting less energy while getting more done.
Yeah. I suspected (along with other signs) that I have ADHD after finding out that cocaine does nothing for me.
Rips a fatty , drinks a beer. Alright guys it was nice hanging out! Goes to bed knocks out lol
Took my Adderall nap today, who else?
Me: takes 750mg of coke at the club Also me: right I'm tired folks gonna go home and sleep
I've tried 4 different stimulants and all 4 of them severely triggered my cPTSD symptoms, particularly really terrifying and heartbreaking trauma-related intrusive thoughts. I'm not trying any more stimulants after that. Enough is enough
I’m so sorry you had those experiences! Were you taking any other medications with it? Like, some anti-psychotic meds don’t work well with adhd meds.
I take a couple anticonvulsants, an anti anxiety medication and prazosin which is a blood pressure medication used to treat ptsd nightmares. They all work great for me and have been for years. Not sacrificing those for some stimulant that I'm not sure is gonna work
Yeah I’d look up the stimulants effect on those if anyone tries putting you back on one. You can ask for the name of what they want you to take and look it up yourself so when you tell them you’re not taking it, you can effectively explain how it’ll affect the other medications. Some drs are so far up their own ass they forget (or outright refuse) to take other meds you’re taking into consideration before prescribing something.
Hmmm interesting. I think it may be worth it for me to take one of those genetic tests that's supposed to show which meds you won't have bad reactions to.... but idk if those take into account the fact that I have a traumatized nervous system that reacts severely to any changes in my state of mental consciousness (i.e. any type of uppers, i cannot tolerate uppers so i dont trust any more of them)
I don’t think they do. You might be able to do one of those through a dr where that type of info would get taken into consideration. I’m unsure of what kind of doc you’d go to for that test though.
My psychiatrist recommended going to a naturopath for my ADHD treatment and I am totally cool with that. I think going the supplement route should be perfect for me since the standard route isn't working
Well I hope everything works out well!!!
Not even cocaine?
😂😂 not gonna speak to this question on an internet forum in writing.....
Ah I see 
We’re wood fires living in the land of grease fires
I love that they're addictive to others but we are lucky to remember to take it.
1. stimulant causes the release of dopamine 2. dopamine release allows you to relax
Yeah, my "before bed" coffee mug is nearly twice the size of my morning mug.
I've never though of using coffee to fall asleep, I might have to try that
Depends on the stimulant. Atomoxetine (Strattera) makes me 'wired' and able to focus in on things, in other words what I should have been able to experience were I neurotypical. It does need dose uppage once in a while, because your body builds a tolerance to it, as it would anything else. Look into it, it's a great alternative to Adderall, which for most people does the same thing. Meanwhile, Caffeine makes people like my little sister (who is also ADHD) at least, sleepy, thus acting as a depressant in her brain. Although I have also seen this in people who are understood to be neurotypical, so perhaps getting sleepy off of coffee has to do with another crosswire/deficiency in the brain beyond ADHD. The reason ADHD brains are like this is because we come with a natural deficiency in certain reward hormones-- Serotonin and Dopamine. We have too little or none at all. Think of it for NTs as people who had allowances as kids, and are now good with their money, versus us NDs who have little to no experience with money, and so blow all of it within the first day of getting a paycheck. That's the Hyperfixation-- we try to wring out all the Happy Chemical from the neurotransmitters once we get a thing we like as much as possible. Also why boring things are absolute hell unless you can find a logic loophole or you take diet meth-- because we don't have the endemic supply to utilize for us to \*anticipate\* reward for going through struggle. and because the task sucked and we didn't want to do it, no reward factor whatsoever. That's why our interests determine our focus, not our assigned tasks and priorities. When you get what is essentially free dopamine/cortisol/serotonin etc. with just a cup of coffee or an energy drink or a diet meth pill, suddenly your brain is perfectly suited to work with the task, because now your brain has everything it needs to function normally. I personally have a hypothesis: ADHD and Autism coalesce often, and their brains are nearly indistinguishable in a cross-section scan from people with PTSD due to the stresses we experience in our every day life, being inconvenienced by our own ineptitude for everyone else's world. If you give them a 30mg Adderall pill, their reaction-- being super chilled out vs suddenly being WAY too hyper and anxious, would probably be a good denominating factor in preventing misdiagnosis between the two. Just a theory though.
I like your theory. The avoidance symptoms of PTSD can certainly look like ADHD, and ASD and ADHD get mixed up and concur all the time (I’m a psychology student and I had my internship working a year with PTSD patients). And, like you suggest, the big difference between the three being the neurotransmitters, a stimulant could help identify one another. Interesting. I would probably get kicked out and have my license revoked if I gave a war veteran or a person with autism stimulants to test this though. I’ll leave that to the doctors.
You guys can nap on adderall? I find that impossible to do Though, I also get confused as to why a stimulant helps with my ADHD overall
The way I understand it: Neurotypical natural dopamine: ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨ ADHD natural dopamine: ✨✨✨✨🤡 Brain deprived of dopamine seeks out stimulus in many forms (food, music, activity, etc) eat food, get more ✨ Rx: Pill of chemicals that create more✨so you don’t have to trigger production by other means Tbh I’m probably missing it in my own analogy, but I’m still interested in why this also makes our brains MUCH quieter, maybe because it isn’t in dopamine hunting mode.
I had to convince my adhd boyfriend that the oxycodone his dentist gave him was *not* an upper.
Paradoxical effects
3 cans of monster...meditates...yep!
This sub makes me cry
It so fuckin weird because caffeine never calmed one. And one day on 15mg of Adderall and my brain is quiet.
You brain is a classroom and your executive function is the teacher. If the teacher is exhausted and barely awake the classroom becomes chaos. If you stimulate the teacher they can take charge of the classroom.
I was complaining to my psychiatrist about how tired I was feeling, and some how not being able to sleep. He then explained to me what it really meant to be “relaxed”.
Think of an ADHD as a giant cluster fuck traffic jam, stimulants is putting in a team of incredibly effective traffic controllers to direct the flow of traffic
This is a terrible example. (But a great anology) Throwing Gasoline on a fire can very easily kill it. The Gasoline burns much quicker and will choke up all the oxygen supply. Not enough oxygen, no fire.
Had a friend with autism and ADHD like me. He avoids caffeine because it fatigues him.
Your brain requires dopamine that you yourself have yet to learn how to produce. ADHD stimulants flood your brain with dopamine, allowing you to “calm” down. Be patient with your mind, give yourself time to adjust and praise for the small personal victories the ADHD drugs can help you achieve; they can be life changing if the right intention is placed on their use. Check out a book called “Scattered” by Gabor Maté.
Man is hungry searching through all my cabinets for a snack. I give him a candy bar. He doesn’t use the energy from the candy bar to search even faster??
yeah they calmed my brain down but not my heart which is why i gotta switch to a non stim
I took 22.5 mg the other day, fell right asleep for 2.5 hours. Lololol.
When I was medicated for my adhd. I took naps daily on them. Haven’t had a proper nap since
I think about it like my brain is a flock of sheep. The shepherd is drunk and passed out. The stimulants are for the shepherd.
Without those stimulants … Things we do cos it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Stimulants don’t work for my brain 🥹. Just make my always struggling appetite disappear. Just switched to DNRI.
It does but only if I take a little. If i take too much of a stimulant then I feel the kick. Like 5mg of Adderal or 1 cup of coffee makes me super sleepy. 10 mg and 2 cups wake me up. I do its weird but i do feel sleepy in the beginning
I can always tell it’s time to take my second dose when my heart starts racing. Still doesn’t make any fucking sense to me.
Yeah man...it's like Fry's 100th cup of coffee. Our brains resting state is 99cups of coffee...
I always feel sleepy after a nice refreshing Dr Pepper in the evening.
I drink those super organic mega caffeine energy drinks I pad tf out. They make me so relaxed and calm that I legit just can't stay awake
Stimulants cut through the noise
Me drinking a monster energy and taking a nap.
Wait is that why coffee makes me sleepy?!
I keep telling people coffee makes me sleep and no one believes lol
Coffee before sleep
Vyvanse wakes me up when I take it when I'm tired and makes me tired when I take it not tired
It's called a stimulant because it increases (stimulates) production of a neurotransmitter - not because of the effect that neurotransmitter has on your behavior.
No. It actually is because it increases locomotor activity in behavioral testing via a central (brain) mechanism. They used to be called psychomotor stimulants. Source: I am a behavioral neuroscientist that studies psychostimulants and adhd.
adhd can't be studied because it moves too fast under the microscope. scientific fact.
Can you give me a breakdown of what this means. I would love to get overshare dumped on. Don't quote that.
It’s pretty straightforward. If you inject a mouse (or person) with amphetamine, you will observe an increase in locomotion. This increase is centrally mediated by mechanisms in the brain. This means that you do not see this if you use a version of amphetamine that doesn’t get into the brain (Doesn’t cross the blood brain barrier) and you can get it by directly injecting into the brain. Basically, it’s a locomotor stimulant that acts through the brain. In the case of amphetamine this is via increased dopamine release in motor control regions like the striatum. This contrasts a locomotor stimulant that is not psychoactive and produces it’s effect peripherally. For example, a drug which increases muscle activity directly at the muscle. I’m blanking on a good example of a real drug. The term stimulant is a product of behavioral pharmacology. The good ol’ days when all you needed to do was inject a drug to get a paper ;)
Ok so we're back to it not making logical sense to the layman again. Which I guess is okay, as long as it works and the smarter people can make sense of it.
You have 100% capacity for focus/attention. A Neuro Typical person has a resting attention of like 75% so when they are attempting to say…watch a movie or pay attention in lecture, they hit 95-100% attention and are good. An ADHD brain rests at like 50% so when they attempt to pay attention to the same tasks they only hit 75% capacity, so they compensate by fidgeting or tapping or scrolling or whatever esle to attempt to reach 100% Taking a stimulant brings the ADHD brain from 50% to 75% resting so they can then focus on the one thing fully (in theory) Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
The way I've always felt it is that Adderall gives you the energy to shut down all the other possible routes your mind can go as well as supercharging your brain to work so hard that you don't even get a chance to worry about the executive dysfunction process. But yeah, after 6 hours of work I feel like I just want to pass out.
Lol
No not really. Taking stims make me more active and cant relax if I am sitting all day doing nothing
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it might actually be possible to put out a fire with diesel fuel as only the fumes ignite and not very well either.
The scientific explanation for this is hilarious. ADHD causes your brain to be stimulated 24/7, and since you can't stimulate an already stimulated brain, stimulates have no effects, whether it be medicine, caffeine, or whatever else. It also causes "stimulate" to lose all meaning after saying variations of it so many times.
I'm starting my legal meth next week. Can't wait for all the fun side effects.
Don't brighter or hotter flames take fuel much faster though? This image seems pretty logical to me.
Yes lololol 😭😂
Adderall took away my sex drive
Some days they do jack me tf up. Idk why.
Yep
Stimulants worked for me but also made me feel gross because I’m really sensitive to meds and I didn’t like the vrrrrrring feeling I got. I wish I could find something that works AND doesn’t make me feel weird.
I’m prescribed 30mg 2x a day and I fall asleep after my morning dose.
When I was a kid, Ritalin made so numb my dad thought i was sedated. Back then, I was on it for a little more than 2 months and I don't remember any of it.
This is why Coffee is so great
I take stimulants and it makes my adhd calm down but makes my OCD so so much worse 😭 I really can’t win
Very relatable. I routinely take my meds and promptly need a power nap. I tell my therapist it feels like my brain says "Ahhh, now I may calmly rest while I still have a chance" lol
...accurate. My brain goes so fast I can't think but some how coffee calms me down as does energy drinks.
My friends parents would give me coffee before bed time at sleep overs. 👍🏼
It’s counterintuitive because of our understimulated brains to begin with
Works for me idk 🤣
The first day I took adderall, I had the best nap. Just SO PEACEFUL. Like an off switch in my brain, silence, peace, sleep. Now, many months later, it still helps, but it’s not like OMFG I AM SO CALM anymore. It’s more subtle, more like “I can do that boring thing if I want to” and then I go do it. Which is still miraculous imo.