this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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ADHD
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Personally different stimulants have different effects on different people. On Ritalin I am super chatty but cannot focus. On adderall/vyvanse I am not always chatty but I can focus. The generic of vyvanse is supposed to be out soon and if anyone is looking for all day meds but want something a little more gentle than the come up of adderall definitely talk to your doc. Tangent, but vyvanse has an interesting delivery mechanism: its a prodrug that turns into a stumulant in your GI tract. As such, it uses your digesting of food throughout the day to produce more stimulant. One advantage of vyvanse is that it cannot get you high if it is snorted (which helps alleviate the concern of abuse) because it must be made into a stimulant in your body. The big problem with vyvanse for a while has been that it's non-generic and something like $400 a month if paid out of pocket.
Damn I'm so glad I don't have to care about how much my meds cost.
I'm on elvanse (same as vyvanse) and it's the best of them so far but I still get plenty of side effects, I'd definitely wish I could just "fix" things instead of taking stimulants.
I only recently was able to work at a place that got good enough health insurance to afford vyvanse. It was still something that I needed to try the generic, and insurance-preferred drugs first like Adderall XR but once I tried it and mentioned that it didn’t work so well, I could get the Vyvnase Rx filled. $30 copay instead of $10 but well worth it. Generally, the only reason for this is because there’s no generic. So hopefully with the generic coming soon more adhd folks could try this.
I too wish I didn’t have to take meds. I wish my brain just worked the way it should. The thing about ADHD is though you’re already likely finding your own stimulants or stimuli. Kids with ADHD unknowningly self-medicate with sugar. Actually, Dr. Russell Barkley also mentions that if you have ADHD and you aren’t medicated and you want to have your brain work a little better for a short duration, you can sip (he emphases slowly sip) on a sugary beverage such as a soda. Liquified sugar passes the blood-brain barrier faster than solid sugars would in the stomach. Sugar itself lights up similar pathways in the brain as cocaine.
There are other forms of stimulation besides drugs but the intention of the drugs is to provide a baseline level of stimulation so that you don’t need to seek out your own stimulation (or, not as much of it). It’s such a strange thing to explain to people, but in order for me to concentrate on what someone is saying, I need to be doing something else at the same time.
Glad you're getting your meds!
Agree about ADHD people needing to find their own stimulation, one way or another. In my case I learned to use stress. It's my superpower. I can summon a stress response on command, until I just couldn't turn it off.
So a big reason to take my meds is to try to replace that stress response since it's making me crash mentally and physically. Even with meds, I spent most of my life not diagnosed, so it's hard to stop.
Caution about using stress as a stimulant. Sometimes life gets stressful, then you have stress on stress on stress. Or maybe that’s just me
No, definitely. I wasn't clear enough but using stress as stimulant most of my life has left me with long term physical and mental sequelae.
I forget if Vyvanse is available in my country, or if it's only available in longer effect doses here. I've also heard about Concerta (is that the name?) but so far I've only tried Ritalin and it works pretty alright if I'm not overstimulated when it starts kicking in.
I have gotten overstimulated when I went out shopping once while it was in effect. Not a pleasant experience, but definitely a new one.
That's a pretty interesting fact about Vyvanse though. What's the window of effect for the one you take?
Concerta isn't a stimulant. And if adderall isn't allowed in your country, vyvanse likely will also not be available. Both adderall and vyvanse are amphetamines/ mixed amphetamine salts. The other option for stimulant meds is Ritalin which is Methylphenidate. In the US, doctors can technically prescribe methamphetamine but it is very rare if ever prescribed because it isn't as good of an adhd med.
As far as a window for effect, the deug works something like 12 to 18 hours, which is perfect for me because I need it to do housework, work a d housework when I am home.