this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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ADHD

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I'm only on day 2, but I feel so able to concentrate, it's ridiculous. I know it's expected to take weeks to start working, but I'm feeling it already. I spent the morning reading wikipedia, catching up with work, and doing laundry that I hadn't done for weeks. Now, I'm gonna go out to eat at a restaurant with a friend and his kids. Is this what NTs feel like all the time, just able to focus without struggle and the motivation of looming despair??

However, I slept maybe 30 mins last night even though I took 12 mgs of melatonin throughout the night, and my male genitals are not working well. I also feel a bit irritable.

  • Did anyone on Strattera have a similar experience? And did the side effects eventually go away?

  • If so, how long did they take to subside? If not, what did you do about it?

  • Did this ability to focus last too?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I started at 40mg some years ago; I did indeed feel superhuman, but my sleep suffered periodically and I had some other side effects -- morning nausea sometimes, especially when combined with coffee.

I found ways to cope: reduce coffee intake, have some plain yogurt in the morning, as the protein seems to help buffer the stomach, medicate early in the morning (6:30am) and exercise hard after work to promote better sleep. Still, it was a drag, and too easy to miss a beat in my routine.

I had to quit taking Strattera for two years while attempting to become a pilot, but it turns out the FAA hates ADHD kids and once that fell through, I resumed at a much lower dosage of 25mg. While I don't feel quite as capable at the lower dose, the side effects are significantly more mild and I generally don't notice them. I still make sure to medicate no later than 7am, as a precaution, but there's no correlation between being medicated and having poor sleep.

TL;DR stick with it for a few days and don't hesitate to ask for a lower dose if you can't hack it. The drug does a world of good for me, and it promotes habits that persist even when I go unmedicated for awhile (e.g. on weekends and often while on vacation).

[โ€“] BackOnMyBS 3 points 1 year ago

That sucks about the pilot stuff, but I'm happy the med works for you and thank you for sharing your experience and advice!