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Stimulants Are amphetamines/ritalin for ADHD neurotoxic?

I wouldn't stress about it if I were you. Judging by all the trip reports on adderall and other amphetamines, including my own, I've noticed nothing but positive effects from responsible users when it's taken in safe doses. I wrote about my personal experience taking adderall here. To sum up how it affected me, I am now much more social and it helped me realize just how much I struggled with social anxiety. Also I don't believe you should be worried about it unless you yourself are experiencing any negative effects of it. Of course I don't encourage drug use and I don't believe you should rely on amphetamines to help you in your daily life but I do believe they can help you live a healthier lifestyle when used responsibly.
 
Depends what your definition of neurotoxic is. Many drugs can cause changes in the brain that can be considered neurotoxic however many of these changes are not permanent. ADHD meds have a very good safety profile at therapeutic doses - as the saying goes.. the dose makes the poison.
 
The opinions on this are debatable. I've heard that ritalin is actually somewhat neuroprotective. You have people like Ricaurte saying that even prescribed adderall can be neurotoxic. But alas it's been used for so many decades that I doubt it's substantial at prescribed doses below or at 60mg. Ritalin as been in use for a shorter period than amphetamine, but it's also been many decades. It is also hard to say just what changes in the brain make something neurotoxic. Ritalin tends to be used before adderall, so that may point to it being a little safer; but this also may be predominately that it doesn't have as much misuse potential.

Honestly, determining whether a medication is safe or not may depend more on how extensive and long its use has been than on studies. In essence, we're kind of in the dark ages regarding how the brain works. I was under the impression that there at least aren't many studies published (with substantial credentials) on how toxic stimulants are.

I think that stimulants in general have a great potential to cause damage if abused. If you have an addictive personality, therefore, it is very prudent to stay away from them.

Doctors will generally not steer you wrong. If they prescribe it for you, they have judged that the benefits of having it outweigh the possible negative side effects/potential misuse probability.

Also, there are all kinds of opinions on the internet. If you are to make a decision on whether or not to take a medicine which may be harmful, please take into account a large variety of factors, not just the opinion of one person.

Cheers
 
I know stims have been aorund for a long time but are they really that well researched? I remember last year I came across a rather new study saying ritalin increases oxidative stress.
I mean haven't they tested this during all those years? Ritalin has been around so long. To me this really seemed strange.
We also don't know what happens to the people who have been on stims for years or decades what if they get alzheimers or parkinsons? That's scary.

Or what if, when you try to get off them, adhd symptoms actually get worse or what if you can actually cause adhd by taking stims without having adhd? What if the brain is so used to the
dopamine that you can't go without it anymore? That's also scary.
 
Methylphenidate isnt neurotoxic, shit COCAINE isnt neurotoxic.
neither is amphetamine, except at huge doses.
im fine and ibe been using amphetamine for years.
aside from tolerance, im no worse for wear.
ive got a decently high tolerance now though that wont go away but other than that, i feel fine. I use dexedrine.
ive been on MPH before, garbage.
long as youve got the mental strength nothing bad will happen.
as in, know how to do speed properly and shit and always remember dontfreakout
Even methamphetamine most of the issues are from the lifestyle
other than psychosis
 
two words

Paul Erdos

i think the old maxim "dose makes the posion" applies here too.
 
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Nope, they've been one of the most studied drugs for decades, and have been shown to not be neurotoxic.

However, taking them daily or frequently in extremely high doses is not good for you. But those are not the dosages that the majority of people who are prescribed Dexedrine/Adderall or Ritalin for ADD/ADHD take.

Methamphetamine however, is extremely neurotoxic, and it's been shown many times that meth is extremely neurotoxic.

I know someone who has been on Ritalin since the late 70s, and he's almost 60 now and is in excellent health.
 
But if they are harmless then what about Gillman's stuff did any of you click on that link? I mean I cant imagine that he's just talking nonsense he's a scientist after all.
 
I would think that if Gillman had found substantial evidence supporting the theory that amphetamines, among the other drugs mentioned, are in fact neurotoxic it would likely cause widespread controversy and likely make the news considering how many people across the world take amphetamines on a daily basis because their doctors told them that it would benefit them. But taking drugs is a huge risk in itself I suppose and like Ho-Chi said above, we're still in the early stages of understanding how the brain works and how drugs really affect the brain so I'm sure there's still plenty of negative effects drugs have on us that we're not aware of. I dunno, I suppose by taking drugs we're really just gambling our own physical/mental health to see what the drug has to offer in terms of an experience. But like I said, I wouldn't be too worried about it. But maybe that's just the drugs talking. Heh..
 
Can anyone comment on this stuff here? I am really concerned about it. Gillman actually makes me feel bad for taking stimulants against adhd. This is really great...
What if this stuff causes long term damage and then you end up with parkinson's or other diseases? :(

http://www.psychotropical.com/why-most-new-antidepressants-are-ineffective-4

This commentary is about the intra-neuronal storage of monoamines in vesicles.
The vesicular monoamine transporter (VMAT2) is responsible for actively taking up all monoamines (i.e. dopamine (DA), serotonin (5-HT), norepinephrine (NE), epinephrine (EPI) and histamine (HIS)) from within the neurone into the storage granules (vesicles) ready for release into the synapse, which is a nerve-impulse-dependent phenomenon.
It is important to know about recent developments of knowledge concerning this transporter because some of the drugs used in psychiatry effect VMAT2 and there is evidence that such drugs can produce neuro-toxic effects. Such effects are relevant in the damage caused by the street drug ecstasy, and also, probably, by the therapeutic drug amphetamine, and perhaps others. Methylphenidate has recently been shown to cause loss of dopaminergic neurones and to potentiate the toxicity of MPTP (1). So, there are some interesting and potentially serious and consequential issues revolving around the mechanism of action of such drugs and the consequences of their therapeutic use.
There can be few things more worrying than the possibility, even if remote, that a drug given therapeutically to children, over long periods of time, could possibly lead to Parkinson's, depression or dementia in later life.
 
glab said:
I always thought in therapeutic doses they are safe. But now I read something at a website of a psychopharmacologist
who says amphetamines and ritalin are neurotoxic. Now I'm scared. Does this mean I should rather not take anything? :(
I thought ritalin was soooooo well studied and safe. But he says it's not safe.

http://www.psychotropical.com/why-most-new-antidepressants-are-ineffective-4
Click to expand...


I'm familiar with Ken Gillman, and I can only say, read what he says carefully.. there's an obvious problem with lack of citation and cherry-picking. I don't think he's anti for the sake of it, (Breggin is someone who's got his shit together for example), but.. Ken Gillman.
 
Okay, but even if he just cites the stuff which he "likes" then this doesn't change the fact that there are obviously studies which show that stimulants are neurotoxic, right?
Then what do we do with those studies?

I'm really confused about this. To me it seems as if there are basically studies which support anything. There are studies saying stimulants are good and there are studies saying they are bad.
It's the same as with veganism. Vegans quote their studies and non-vegans quote other studies. This is really discouraging. It makes everything looks totally unclear.
 
You nailed it.. studies are set up to benefit whomever ordered them done. Classic example is when they come out with a new antipressant, touting that it was superior to placebo and duloxetine, and then they do a phase 4 trial against trazodone. What the f, right? I encourage you to look into pubmed/nih papers which are under a lot more peer scrutiny. If you ask ten doctors, you get ten answers. Lamotrigine's effective for depersonalization. This study said it wasn't. Tegretol is effective in alcohol withdrawal.. wait, no it's not.

I was fortunate to end up with a neurologist who frankly told me, in his words 'We really don't know shit about the brain yet.'
 
But this is scary. Then what if amphetamines cause desensitization of the dopamine receptors and everybody who took them for a while is totally fucked up?
 
glab said:
But this is scary. Then what if amphetamines cause desensitization of the dopamine receptors and everybody who took them for a while is totally fucked up?
Click to expand...

Yeah more and more studies are coming out in support of that, especially with VMAT and TAAR discoveries. I actually switched off dextroamphetamine for that reason, and purported depletion of monoamines. I looked around and found a couple of half-assed papers that claimed methylphenidate downregulated D2 receptors, but they were so poorly written I was surprised they were accepted for review. I would still -assume- anything that reaches homeostatis/steady state plasma is going to start down/upregulating something or another.. after all, the brain does what it needs to do to respond to the toxin you are introducing and when it has achieved this, it's homeostatic, and that's when a drug 'works'.

Kinda bullshitty. I would personally like to stop taking any drugs that can't simply be used PRN, because after a lot of years of this shit, there is so much garbage in my/our heads it's going to take awhile to un-fuck... but it will happen with time, believe that.
 
I don't know anything about the VMAT stuff. Is this permanent? Or does it recover after a while?
Could this be prevented by cycling d-amph like 5 days on 2 days off?

Or could you take a break for a few weeks where you take ritalin instead of d-amph?

I also don't know if I should worry about this now. I mean these are all future issues. But having adhd is a present issue.
Having adhd and getting nothing done is also unhealthy.
 
Yeah it does suck to spin your wheels.. from what you can read on BL, taking breaks, not binging and making sure you eat right (protein!) and sleep should keep you on an even keel. I think there is something to monoamine depletion because after a week of heavy use, for example, there's about 3 weeks of nasty depression for me.. and it supposedly takes 3-4 weeks to restore proper levels of 5ht, DOP, NE. I really don't know about downregulation.. a bunch of legit studies are out saying that if you -are- actually wired ADHD (tons of people with scripts are normal, cmon) long term amphetamines actually improve frontal lobe function through neuroplasticity. If you aren't, take a look at what methamphetamine does after long term use.. not pretty.

The VMAT stuff is kind of troubling to me, though. I'm trying to keep on top of it.
 
I cannot prove that I have adhd but I have been to 2 doctors and filled out questionaires and they both thought I have it and I also had really high scores on the questionaires.

I don't know if you can compare methamphetamine (especially abusers of it) with people who take dexamphetamine in therapeutic doses. Isn't meth much more unhealthy than dex?

And what do you mean with heavy use? How much do you take per day?
 
Meth gets a bad rap. It's not that bad, they make a pharmaceutical version of it. Most of the street stuff isn't manufactured in the cleanest conditions and usually isn't made from the greatest precursors. The media loves to hate on meth more than just about any other substance. I'm not really into meth at all, but I find it's a cleaner, calmer version of amphetamine. The methyl group mainly increases intensity and duration. I find it to work better than amphetamine for actual ADD.
 
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