ADHD

Over the past few years, I have taken 60mg/day generic adderall IR to be functional at work. I don't usually take any when I go on vacation or when I have time off work.

While the drug is effective, the only side effects that I have noticed are a sharp drop in my appetite and minor dry mouth. After the drug has been metabolized, I haven't noticed any lingering effects.

I have had the best results with amphetamine-dextroamphetamine produced by Teva. My pharmacist once provided amphetamine-dextroamphetamine as a substitute for Amphetamine Salts Combo, and I learned that the salt-combo was not as effective, and the side effects were less tolerable. I asked my doctor to specify my preference when writing my prescription. There is some controversy about whether the manufacturer affects the effectiveness of the drug formulation, but I detect a clear difference in my performance.

I hope your doc gets back to you soon. I've been off my ADHD meds for close to a year and it's been hell! So I can relate to your concerns re: suicidal thoughts.

My only other comment is to make sure the symptoms are just associated with the meds because I wouldn't want some sort of heart condition to get missed.

Feel better!

My experiences:

For Adderall:

• Takes 45-60m to kick in
• Lasts about 2-3h. Afterwards I feel down, sometimes tired. It's a slow decline after.
• If I take l-theanine with it the after effects are anecdotally reduced

For Ritalin:

• Takes 45 or less to kick in
• Only lasts about 2h
• Sharp, sudden, decline of feeling down and exhausted. Not nice at all.

I mostly just use Adderall now, and I only take 5-10mg at a time. On days where I feel like I can "do", I take none. I've noticed that the longer I take it without long breaks the higher my dosage needs to be.

I really should take extended release, but complications between it and pseudoephedrine stop me from being able to. And my sleep quality has been better since I started taking it PRN. Though my chores and other things definitely suffer for it.

I am currently on vyvanse myself, originally 40mg down to 20mg (at my request, was lasting too long affecting sleep). Something I've noticed about it in particular is making sure to eat and avoiding caffeine. I get the jitters and heart racing if I don't eat enough, vyvanse also decreases my appetite a bunch and makes me thirsty (I suggest water as the drink of choice).

This is only anecdotal experience, I also talked to my doc about it and it is being monitored. so as others also suggested, talk to your doc about it too, it's more important and cheaper long term to get it correct and handled now than not.

Definitely talk to your doc. (My GP prescribes my meds; the psychologist diagnosed and wrote a letter).

I don't really have noticeable side effects. When I first tried the stuff I started at 30mg then at 40mg I started seeing lots of bright spots and went back to 30. Freaky experience.

I've been on 30mg for years now. My heart doesn't usually race but some days I get a little jittery. I don't recall it being elevated back when I was using an exercise monitor. It probably doesn't help that I drink a double shot latte every morning with my meds. My BP did not seem to be affected by the lisdex last time I tested it on and off the ADHD meds. (I am on BP meds too).

Worth mentioning, I am also on Effexor (venlafaxine) for depression and anxiety, which was diagnosed a decade before adhd-c. Prior to Effexor I was on Lexapro for a few years.

When I was testing dosage, my PA said to increase 10mg every few days until I noticed it helping, then increase until I noticed side effects and then we would go with 10mg below that. Or something like that. Which is how I ended up at 30mg.

I recall that I couldn't tell at first how much 30 helped vs 40 but now that I have more experience with the medicine and self evaluating my symptoms. The difference between 30mg and none is now very obvious.

Although... I have been thinking about trying 40 again so I can re-evaluate, in case I get a bit more out of it without side effects this time. Maybe I will do that next time I'm up for a refill.

Honestly you should talk with your doctor about it. Even if random fellas in internet tell you it's/it's not fine, discuss with a professional.

Taking medical advice from the internet can be meh at best, extremely dangerous at worst

That said, I remember having only extreme moodswitches as side-effect when starting on concerta when I was a kid. Took maybe couple weeks to "stabilize" (or I got used to it)

Call your doctor.

I can't say for lisdexamphetamine itself, but with plain old methylphenidate (ritalin) I found everything was really quite quick to adapt. I take Concerta 18+27mg in the morning and Ritalin 20mg on afternoons when I need it, so a total of 65mg in a day. When I started I had no real side effects but I did have a whole bunch of trauma based issues because here, finally, was the cause of many of my problems and my parents had lied to me about my diagnosis for 13 years. That said, my psychiatrist was gradually increasing my dose and when we tried the 54mg Concerta and the 25mg Ritalin I knew on dose 1 of each I was over my limit. Sweating, rushing, agitation, and generally feeling awful, it was too high a dose.

That all said, completely unrelated to my meds I had a heart infection last year. A bacteria (streptoccocus sanguinis for the curious) ate a valve and my first symptom was a chest infection. I had fever for a couple of weeks, some gout symptoms, coughing, sweating, and eventually I had to drive to the emergency room. It took me 3 rest stops to walk the 100m from my car to the emergency room and I knew I was in trouble. They thought it may be Covid but no, I had bilateral pneumonia and when the doctor listened they thought I must have a bicuspid valve. It turned out most of the valve was eaten away and the little bits of valve left were flapping away, sounding like a bicuspid valve. Further scans figured out the issue and I had an emergency flight from my country town to a larger city to get an emergency valve replacement. Two days after surgery I was up and walking again with a lovely new scar and a prescription for warfarin and a beta blocker. So if you are feeling weirdness with your heart it is probably a good idea to get it checked if you can manage it. I am in Australia so none of that cost me a single dollar, but where you are it may be different.