• N&PD Moderators: Skorpio | thegreenhand

ADD Questions

peddie

Bluelighter
Joined
Nov 23, 2004
Messages
8
I've been debating whether or not I should put this here or one of the other threads, and I figured I'd give it a shot. If it's moved, my feelings won't be too hurt.

I've been doing some reading on ADHD or ADD or whatever you want to call it, and we all know the 'cure' is to release more dopamine, or block the reuptake. Net result is quite the same. But I have noticed a couple of strange things with regards to ADD and interactions with drugs.

But first, I'm wondering what you guys think of ADD. It's obvious that most people either see it as a biological disorder that needs to be fixed, or a personality disorder that is treated using drugs. I really don't think it really matters, nor do I think either of those really fit the bill, I see ADD more as a collection of symptoms, and the treatment as a way of alleviating those symptoms. And so, because of that, I come to see ADD as a dimensional sort of problem rather than a categorical problem, and much of what people think of ADD seems to be much more categorical, (you have ADD so you can't study rather than you can't study, so you have ADD)

Some of the interesting things I've seen is that a friend of mine who's been diagnosed with ADD and has been prescribed Dexedrine which works but never responded to cocaine and got sleepy with caffeine. Ritalin just made her sick, and meth worked on her in rather small doses to a great a effect. This seemed to me that, for her at least, it's not that she needs to block the re-uptake of dopamine, but reverse the neurotransporters and get the DA out of the synapses. That seems rather simplistic, and doesn't explain a fair bit of what happens; primarily, it's unlikely that she has no dopamine, and so blocking the reuptake should theoretically have an effect, but all it does is make her sleepy. With her, at least, there seems to be a physiological cause to the ADD, that is, some problem at the neural level.

But I still doubt that everyone diagnosed (properly) with ADD would have a problem with their neurons. And so, for those who respond just fine to cocaine and coffee, ADD simply seems to be lower levels of dopamine at the medications site of action (I can't quite remember, thinking caudate nucleus, among others.) If that's the case, then there really isn't that much of a difference between people with ADD and people without. People vary in their amount of neurotransmitters, the location of their brain structures all the time. Being unlucky enough not to have enough dopamine is pretty much on the same level as being too tall for gymnastics or too short for basketball.

With the two types of people who are diagnosed with ADD out of the way, I'm simply wondering, would the drugs prescribed for it generally be best for those who don't feel the effects of cocaine and caffeine like most people would, or does it really not make a difference? I really don't see the harm in using a little methylphenidate now and then for studying, so long as it's not abused. But it seems that there is the general idea that using this stuff when you don't have ADD makes you a junkie. I'm fully aware that most of what most people say really doesn't matter, nor does it make sense, which is primarily why I'm in this forum, looking for a little bit of insight into the use of ADD medication not in the recreational sense, but perhaps not in a clinical sense either.

I haven't really seen any good evidence that Ritalin or anything like it really causes long-term brain damage, but it is too early to tell with the newer meds. Dexedrine has been out for nearly a century, but aside from studies on fighter pilots, I've yet to find anything conclusive. Basically, it seems to me that occasional and responsible use of ADD meds is pretty straight forward, but I find that most people just take it to get the high. Avoiding that then, I really don't see any problems with taking it, especially if you feel it helps, but if it really does cause problems, then it's quite probable that most kids who are even legitimately diagnosed with ADHD or its counterparts would probably end up with the same problems as someone with more 'healthy' levels of dopamine.

Any thoughts on the above, or ADD in general, would be great. I'm been flooded with more than enough 'common-sense' ideas, a little bit of deeper thought would be nice.
 
One of my friends has really awful ADD symptoms and is now on desoxyn (methamphetamine) to deal with those. But it was basically to the point where he couldn't live a normal life like most people, and required drugs to help him get through daily activities... There is no doubt in my mind of the validity for his need of those drugs. However...

ADD, like most psychiatric disorders, varies from person to person in regards to symptoms and the cause of them. Like schizophrenia, people may have similar symptoms but fail to both respond to the same type of drug. We still don't have a perfect understanding of the mind, but doctors try to help people as best they can.

The problem of overprescription lies in the fact that amphetamine-like stimulants generally seem improve cognitive performance and concentration whether you have ADD/ADHD or not. So, kids in school who are doing poorly and have concerned parents can ship their kid to a doctor, the kid gets stuck on something, and his performance improves, and everyone is happy -- regardless of whether the child really needed the stimulants or not.

Until someone can really find some negative effects this is having on society/health/etc though, I'm not sure excess diagnosis like this will stop. One time when I was flying on an airline I overheard two parents talking. The male parent said something along the lines of this to the female parent sitting next to him:
"Well, my daughter was having some trouble in school, so we took her to the doctor's...the doctor said she had ADD/ADHD, and gave her some medication. Now she's doing great in school, and I'm so glad, I was worried about her messing up and falling into the wrong crowd as she got older..."
The female parent then nodded in concurrence with the male.

As long as people have the option of performance enhancing drugs that won't hurt them, they seem pretty open to the idea of taking them (caffeine).

(hope this makes sense, my brain is still recovering from some shenanigans yesterday and I'm a little spacy)
 
Last edited:
Well fristly, I've got to say, I'm not to keen on this kinda mid-90s "low dopamine level" kinda, 'neurochemical phrenoogy' shit... I'm really not keen on it. I think research into psychiatric disorders has been severely retarded by that kind of thinking... For the last couple years they've been big on the linking polymorphisms to genetic disorders, but that approach is serverly limited by the fact that genes on chromosomes are innately linked.

But anyway. Yes, there is evidence that people with ADHD have low dopamine transporter (DAT) levels in the striatum, but there's evidence that their striatum is a bit structurally fucked, so which is cause and which is effect? Transporters are pretty dynamic, all you need is some other neurotransmitter system hyping up protein kinase C, and those transporters are history.

And have we come across a mental disease with a definate neurochemical deficit? Not to my knowledge (could be wrong though).

There are still so many neuroscientists, who think what I just said is retarded, they say shit like "But, methamphetamine increases dopamine, and it treats ADHD, so ADHD must be caused by low dopamine", the same people think schizophrenia must be caused by high dopamine, as dopamine antagonists treat schizophrenia. *sigh*.

Neuropharmacology is in an awful fucking position as I see it. We've got models for diseases that we don't know the cause of... I mean how the fuck can we know if its a good model when we don't know the cause of the disease? And the neuroscientists I just mentioned would say "because the drugs that work in those models treat the disease", but the models they use are so gross that thats not really a surprise (like potassium channel blockers in epilepsy models), and most of the models are developed so that that is the case, but it still doesn't tell you anything about the natural/pathology of the disease.

SO, in conclusion, we don't have a fucking clue what causes ADHD, or pretty much any other psychological disease in my opinion. Some of our treatments are okay, but generally, they're pretty average, and nearly exclusively symptomatic. Our models suck, so theirs shit all we can do about it.
 
BilZ0r said:
And the neuroscientists I just mentioned would say "because the drugs that work in those models treat the disease"

someone should tell that neuroscientist that treating the symptoms doesn't equate to treating the disease.
 
I KNOW! FUCK!

My lab is basically all about epilepsy, and I keep wanting to yell at these guys to stop wasting there time with anti-convulsants. Sure some of these new ones are getting pretty good, but they all still inhibit rapid firing neurons, and rapid firing is part of normal neuronal activity.
 
looks like drugs are becoming the straight-jackets of the new millenium.
 
Personally, as someone who was recently prescribed Adderall for ADHD, I'd like to put in my two cents:

I used to be very much against the prescription of stimulants, especially amphetamines, for ADHD. I felt that drugging people wasn't the answer to problems, and that clearly behavioral and psychological therapy would be far preferred. Part of my opinion was no doubt influenced by the experiences that friends of mine have had with anti-depressants, where it seemed as if doctors were prescribing SSRIs as a panacea when all they knew about the serotonin system was that depression seemed to be linked to low serotonin levels, and that SSRIs increased serotonin levels. Supposedly this would help people with depression, but in my friends, it caused more problems than it solved.

I felt that treatment for ADHD was similar. It seemed obvious that therapy would be preferable to just giving kids amphetamines. But as my grades continued their downward spiral through high school and college, and continued therapy wasn't working, I found that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get organized. This wasn't a matter of not trying hard enough, there were serious neurological barriers there.

When nothing else seemed to work, I finally agreed to try medication. My doctor and I settled on Adderall (mixed amphetamine salts) after I mentioned that I really didn't want to try Strattera given how new it was (this was right as the Vioxx issues were becoming well-known). I figured I'd try taking it, figuring that the worst that would happen was I'd feel a little stimulated, maybe get high. I found, even after the first dose, that it was like the barriers that had prevented me from becoming organized were just gone. It wasn't just a matter of efficiency or energy or anything like that...for instance, it wasn't just that it helped me clean my room, but that I just "knew" that I needed to pick up my books and organize them by class, rather than just throwing them into a corner. I could write things in my notebooks and not only would they not get ripped out or lost somewhere, but later on, when I needed them, I knew where to look to find them. Some people might have the reaction of "no shit, everyone does that," but these were things that I physically just could not do before the Adderall. Now, I have no doubt that there is clearly something neurochemical involved in ADHD and other executive function disorders.

Someone mentioned that there is something wrong with assuming that because drugs which increase synaptic dopamine seem to alleviate the symptoms of ADHD, low synaptic dopamine must be responsible for ADHD. This is a fairly raw form of analysis, and the cause is most likely to be far more complicated, but how else should neuropharmacologists figure out the problem? I mean, I suppose they could vivisect my brain to figure out where the problem seems to be occurring, or maybe they could just extirpate a small sample, but on the whole, I'd say that's a bit more morally and medically difficult to justify than potentially overprescribing amphetamines.

Sometimes observing the effects of treatment can give us valuable insights into the causes of medical problems. Long before scienctists understood disease transmission, or had even seen disease causing bacteria through a microscope, it was known that close contact with sick individuals would lead to you getting sick. Long before viruses were even remotely understood, or the immune system had been extensively studied, it was known that people who contracted smallpox once never contracted it again. It was also noticed that milkmaids who contracted cowpox, a non-fatal variant of smallpox, never contracted smallpox. Even without knowing what viruses are, or how the immune system worked, a scientist (I want to say Pasteur, but I could be wrong) innoculated a child with cowpox, and then exposed him to smallpox, and he failed to contract it. Thus, long before viruses were understood or studied under microscopes, we had a vaccine for the smallpox virus. Do you think the people whose lives were saved really gave two shits that the scientists involved didn't really understand what they were doing? Should they have decided to withhold these drugs which were proven effective and safe, just because we didn't have a full understanding of how the disease itself operated?

It is popular among armchair psycologists to simply dismiss the use of psychostimulants in people with ADHD as being unnecessary or a case of overmedication. It is certainly true that all people become more productive when put on stimulants, but there is a serious difference with people with ADHD. There is a definite "normalizing effect," where rather than being purely stimulated, some very real organization problems are corrected. Of course, since all most people see is the end effect, kid takes Adderall and seems normal, they assume that there never was a serious problem in the first place, and the medication is unnecessary. This is a bit like seeing a person who takes antipsychotic medication and thinking "they seem normal, they don't need that medication," not realizing that they really aren't seeing what the person is like without the medication.

The best comparison I can think of would be to people with low red blood cell count who must take Epoetin or some similar drug. Epoetin is also used by some endurance atheletes to pump up their red blood cell count and gain an advantage. Would anyone reasonably argue that these patients who need it shouldn't take it because "everyone gains endurance when they take these drugs," not making a distinction between using it to gain the endurance necessary to get out of bed, and those who use it to gain the endurance necessary to win a gold medal? Yes, exercise would also increase red blood cell levels, but should we say to someone recovering from chemotherapy should stop being lazy and exercise, because it works for the rest of us? This is essentially the same as the argument that people make against using stimulants for ADHD.

Sure, these drugs aren't perfect, they're a little too broad in their effects, but what are the alternatives for those of us who are barely organized enough to function in life? Saying that these drugs treat the symptoms without treating the disease is an insult both to the psychiatrists who spend their lives treating this disorder, and those who suffer from it. It is very difficult to separate the symptoms from the causes when it comes to neurological diseases. Increasing synaptic dopamine certainly seems to resolve the symptoms. You could argue that low dopamine levels are the cause, and that these drugs treat that cause. I suppose that the low dopamine itself is a symptom, and there is some deeper cause, but short of brain surgery, how do you treat that? Temporarily increasing neurotransmitter levels is far safer than permanently making alterations to the dopamine neurons, either through surgery or other drugs.

It seems very popular to degrade the use of stimulants for ADHD. Dismissing the disorder as imaginary is ignorant of the very real problems that many people face. Dismissing these drugs as treating only the symptoms, or of being imperfect solutions is all well and good, but unless someone has any better suggestions for treatment, perhaps they shouldn't denigrate a medication that allows some of us to function in way that most people take for granted.
 
Regarding your search for studies involving Dexedrine: Pick up a copy of Lester Grinspoons "Speed Culture: Amphetamine Use and Abuse in America" It has tons of trials and studies done back in the 1930's, 40's, 50's, and 60's in there. Here is a new article that came out today on ADHD,


Children With ADHD Show Brain Differences

MONDAY, Nov. 29 (HealthDayNews) -- Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have abnormal brain anatomy in addition to imbalances in brain chemistry.

That's the claim of a study presented Nov. 29 at the Radiological Society of North America's annual meeting in Chicago.


"Typically, ADHD is described as a chemical imbalance, but our research has shown that there may also be subtle anatomical differences in areas of the brain that are important in this disorder," co-principal investigator Dr. Sanjiv Kumra, a psychiatrist at the Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y., said in a prepared statement.


"We found abnormality of the fiber pathways in the frontal cortex, basal ganglia, brain stem and cerebellum," said study author Manzar Ashtari, an associate professor of radiology and psychiatry at the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Hyde Park, N.Y.


"These areas are involved in the processes that regulate attention, impulsive behavior, motor activity and inhibition -- the key symptoms in ADHD children. They are also known to be part of a bigger circuit in the brain that establishes communication between the frontal lobe and cerebellum," Ashtari said in a prepared statement.


The researchers used diffusion tensor imaging to compare the brains of 18 children with ADHD and 15 children without the disorder.


A second study by the same research team found that stimulant medications used to balance brain chemistry in children with ADHD normalize some of these brain abnormalities.
 
Hyperion. You're right, observing the effects of treatment can give us valuable insights into the causes. You example with cow pocks is right on the money.

But heres another story (slightly modified from the truth), a bunch of workers in a nitroglycerine factory always have chest pains when they are at home, but they never get them when they are handling the nitroglycerine. When they quit the factory, they have chest pains all the time.

In reality, the nitrates are causing vasodilation, releaving these people of angina. Now is the problem a lack of nitrates in the body? No. Is it even too much vasoconstriction (which the nitrates block). No. The nitrates fix problems in the heart by working on completely different parts of the body.

The same is potentially true for antidepressants and stimulants and any number of neurological disorders.
 
Interesting stuff you guys are talking about... The other part that is missing here I think is the role of evolution. Now dont get me wrong, I am not against speed for add and ssri's for depression, I have lived through depression and anxiety and know what add feels like, but.... what if people with structural brain problems continue to pass genes. What is there to be left of us, humans, or we dont give a fuck and do we live just for ourselves and let the future generations worry about deteriorating gene pool. Are we smart enough (we are certainly arrogant enough) to assume we are ready to overtake the role of god/evolution in bettering our generation. Who knows, maybe people with add are superior and more fit people for survival, only natural selection can show that, and boy can it be wrong in the short term too.... Or maybe when a person decides to take some adderall it is the evolution at work, and despite his/her "structural brain problems" he/she is able to recognize the problem and deal with it... Maybe we all develop tolerance to ssri's and amphetamines over the course of generations and these drugs become part of our regular diet...
 
Last edited:
Amphetamines have been available to the general public for 72 years, so I don't think that they really alter the next generation of people born. They aren't passed down through the gene pool. ADHD is a product of how you're raised/educated, imo. Some people don't have the attention span or brain capacity of others, and that's most likely genetics. I don't know anyone who doesn't have ADHD, going just by the DSM-IV, but amphetamine helps some people pay attention more than others. If I was never given any medication I'd be completely fine, I take Dexedrine because it helps .

I was the ADHD-type kid: hyper and overtalkative, but my parents refused to give me any medications for it. I don't blame them, because it's not right to give 8-year-olds Adderall or Ritalin. I never even took the stuff until my senior year of high school, but once I did I found something I liked and made anything more interesting including school. I'm not saying that it applies for everybody, but not taking any medication proved to be fine for the first 17 years of my life. I may have gotta better grades in school, or I may not have. Either way, it would have inhibited the natural brain growth/development that probably happened to many people I know who were medicated as kids and now have a lot of problems. I don't know anyone who took Ritalin in elementary school and is in college now, or did well in high school. I don't think ADHD should be applicable for not kids, only adults who can choose whether or not they want to take the medications.
 
ADD/ADHD is at least as real a diagnosis as PTSD or HPPD in my opinion.

Perhaps some historical information will simply my explanation of ADD/ADHD and their pharmacological treatments. In the 1930's, scientists studying hyperactive children found that they could pay attention longer when given amphetamine. This is not an anomalous finding, though, because anyone can pay attention better when given amphetamines; however, for hyperactive, impatient (usually male) children, paying attention even slightly better can have a significant positive impact on grades and classroom behavior.

Whether prescribed Ritalin and Adderrall given to children leads to later drug, especially stimulant, abuse later in life is debatable, but I imagine it can trigger an addiction prone person to become an addict. But that's not to say that they might have become an addict anyway.

As for neurotoxicity, I'm pretty sure Adderrall is more neurotoxic than Ritalin. Why they let kids have speed but not me is beyond me.
 
The medicines for ADD may work favorably in certain circumstances. It is however a matter of some importance, not to abuse these treatment programs. PS I have never tried ritalin. I have heard alot of conflicting stuff about it. One guy in Peru that has access to cocaine at arms length actually preferred it. Other people have sworn that all it does is prevent them from sleeping. But I have also heard that the seizure threshold is not particularly high, I guess this put me off trying it a bit.
 
I have done a lot of Ritalin but under ideal circumstances prefer methamphetamine or cocaine. Methylphenidate's benzylic R-CO2Me functional group gives it a short half life when compared to traditional amphetamines. The removal of that functional group from the synthesis of methylphenidate would lead to the synthesis of 2-benzylpiperidine which, I have a strong feeling, will be much longer lasting than Ritalin (methylphenidate).
 
Da Funk of Brain Spunk:add

Well take your messy accumulated 411 driven around the realm of mental health and behavioral disorder and delete it, for much of the statements and documentations locked on the frustrating issue are misleading, and/or false. Some may say its only transended into a controllable form with the use of drugs, much of them still in the research phase, and a large percent of patients with a psuedo-confident feeling as to the administering of pharmi-speed...or amphetamines, stimulants, eh, or uppers. And it may be a crazy thing to just out and speak, that these are all negative associations with small potential for success in long term retromense. Why I stand to deliver?
*I was diagnosed at a young age with ADHD (the hyper one) and was put on tofranil and prozac, alas did not fullfill taking both drugs, due to my pill-swollowing 'blocker-phobia', and did not see a difference in the one drug, tofranil, and i never really even took the prozac, but anyhow, years later, after failing high school, desolated by jailtime, and having brought a new life into our crazy world, I had really seen the blight of evil height, and eventually made noticed the light in the right, and recently I set forth to be retested and analyzed for adult ADD, and it came to be, I was one of the make, so i got a prescription to adderall XR, and i thought it would be smooth sailing from then on. But since i had recently been a senseless and foolish speed freak, doing meth every week, I was succeptible to an easy addictive low, not being able to take only one a day, like it was labeled, and i began to eat like candy, and it took one overbearing flusteration of body and mind to see what i have done so wrong.
I used to take a friends script to Adderall Tablets, 20mg and eat a couple at a time, and such, then it drifted deeper into darker grounds when i was fully associated with tweak lifestyles, and making a circle of friends that were all in my same ill ways, and the climatic event was the rxed adderall for my add, but i have reasoned with my inner mentalist, and figured out a safer and natural approach to treatment. and that is a formula that i have compiled but yet not made into effect. curious??? w/b ya, rasta rasta!
peace kiddz
Cryo
 
so you are saying that herb has become your medication of choice?
 
I did not understand more than two sentences he wrote, except single words within many of the incoherent sentences. Kids dont need to be on any medications...period. None. I know the whole history amphetamine, the studies using Benzedrine to treat Minimal Brain Dysfunction, etc...So what? Dr. W.R. Bett also said that there were some 39 different uses for amphetamines in the 1940's. Almost everyone I know who was drugged as a child (like age 8-14) ended up doing badly in school and not going onto college. Psychoactive medications, except in extreme cases, should be used only on adults and teenagers old enough to choose to take them. I chose to be prescribed Adderall by nagging my mother at age 17 until she went with me to a psychiatrist (had never been to one before that time in my life), where I got him to write my first script for it. Same goes for my brother, except he went by himself in college. I chose to have him change my doses, change me to IR from XR, and chose to have him change from Adderall to Dexedrine. The ONE time a doctor ever forced me to take a medication they didn't work (long story, I had been up for awhile on Dexedrine and went to my doctor acting all odd) . I stopped taking them, went to a new doctor and got back on the medication I felt works best for me. Little kids can't do this stuff, they're like animals...they don't know what's going on and can't tell doctors what their problems are. It all comes down to teachers and parents that are too lazy to deal with hyperactive kids. Luckily I had parents that did, but most don't drugs never make up for bad mentors. All it does is push off problems and exacerbate them. They also affect social development. Hell, I get all spaced out and over focused on Dexedrine at times. I think back and remember all the kids on Ritalin in like 3rd grade who acted like that ALL THE TIME. They were made fun of, anti-social, and that caused a lot of damage later in life. They couldn't say "Hmm, it must be the amphetamines I'm taking that change my behavior and make me unable to talk all day long". Their parents just say "Come here, it's time to take this pill it will make you better"....it's deceiving.

Mental health isn't as easy as taking a saliva sample, running a test, finding a problem and giving the medication. Most doctors aren't that intelligent, they just took the time to go to medical school. I have had some damn good doctors, but it's impossible for them to take enough time on all patients to know everything. They can't watch you 24/7/365 and read your thoughts. They go by what you (or somebody else, who may or may not know you...like a teacher) tell them.
 
Last edited:
First time posting, long time reader.

I was recently prescribed Ritalin (roughly 5 months ago) and even more recently (2 days ago) Dexedrine. I am currently researching because my biggest fear is the long term side effects. Currently I only take it on average probably once every other day (5-7.5mg). I have a low tolerance for stimulants. Anyways enough about me, let me share my experience and bump and old thread for discussion.

To those who think ADD is bullshit or environmental I suggest you do some more research. I won't go into it further, because I feel your researching will do that for me.

Personal experience: I was diagnosed ADD when I was very young. I've always had trouble concentrating in school...even if I was interested in what we were learning. Reading was the hardest part, by far. I could write papers under EXTREME pressure (I'm talking pulling off 18 page papers in under 3 hours). Studying for tests was almost non-existent..I simply couldn't contrate enough to do any quality studying unless it was in an interactive group setting.

Luckily I am gifted with my writing and I have an excellent memory in many respects. This allowed me to get by on very good grades for papers and usually C's for tests...luckily it averaged out to low B's. My parents never wanted me on the meds because they didn't like the idea of a child being medicated like that...a child should be able to develop naturally unless the problems get extremely serious.

My car has always been a complete mess...to the point where I would often only be able to fit 1 person in the sedan, because the backseat was literally filled with clothes, trash, papers, blankets and other random shit...sometimes no one could sit in it except me. It looked like a car a homeless person owns. My room was worse - I'll leave it at that. GPA prior to treatment through my academic career was always between B- to a B, as I mentioned earlier. In terms of paying bills, I was always late...and not because I didn't have the money. Oh yeah, and I was late to absolutely EVERYTHING and always lose my keys, wallet, etc.

Now with drug treatment difference is amazing. Maybe part of it is psychological (I'm sure many people would claim), but I can't argue with results. As a side note I am currently 23 and still in school. My grades are now all A's this semester. Over the past 5 months I have learned to genuinely enjoy reading now...a joy that has greatly contributed to my personal happiness. I am not late nearly as much (never for important things anymore). Over these 5 months I have also transformed my room and car into clean living space. I am paying my bills on time as well.

This may not seem like a big deal to many, but this was literally impossible for me to do before. It wasn't within my ability, honestly. I would maintain a clean room or car for maybe a week and then it would go back to it's original state. I no longer lose my keys or wallet (well hardly ever). My life has really just completely changed around. My life wasn't out of control or anything before, but treatment brought me from mediocrity to excellence. Not to sound boastful but I have found incredible joy in being able to understand complicated philosophy books because NOW I CAN PAY ATTENTION TO THEM! I no longer need sparknotes or cliff notes, at least not nearly to the degree I did before. Not only that but I feel even when I am not on the drug that I am more focused now that my brain actually knows how to focus.

Everything almost seems too perfect to be honest, hence my wanting to research these drugs. A strange side effect from taking ritalin/adderall is I have less of a desire to use rec drugs or alcohol. Not complaining because I would sometimes go a little wild with these, but I just don't understand why exactly. As I said my current drug regimen is quite below what your average ADD patient takes, I try to only take it when I really feel I need to (so as I said 5mg-7.5mg on average every other day or so...sometimes go up to a week without it though, sometimes take it everyday for a week).

Any long time users of these meds who did NOT abuse them that can share their experience. I ask for this because I have heard MANY horror stories off of erowid and other sites, and friends, but they are always from people who abused them or started at a very young age.

Sorry for the long post, hopefully this will stimulate some more conversation :)
 
I'm sorry I can't post much here since I am leaving soon but yeah I totally agree. I don't know exactly if I have ADD or not but I have tried someone else's meds and Strattera is definitely not good nor do you feel normal on it. It feels so bad and unnatural and I really would never take it. Adderall helps but I get emotional some on it and I wouldn't want to use it all the time. Only when I needed to work or study intensively or needed a focus I don't normally have naturally. It just keeps me awake so if anything I need a lower mg dosage. 15 mg is much for me. You might be right, herbals or natural things may always be the best cures or medicines. I hate all these useless guinee pig drugs they are releasing nowadays. It's all about money here and not wasting dud research. They are as you said the newest straight jackets and destroy people and their bodies in the process. My poor brother has taken various kinds already and I have warned my mom which only did a little good or had them put him on another. My friend had the same thing happen but I had more effect there and got him on something amphetamine related. Maybe it was Dexedrine or something like that but I can't remember exactly and he was on Adderall before that.
 
I will never forget the day I started ritilan. I was 14, it was april in my second year of high school. I was in my maths class, the teacher and I had a sort of unspoken understanding that as long as I wasn't too disruptive I could sit there and do nothing, which usually I couldn't do. I just had to cause shit, make smart arse comments etc and I would end up outside usually about half the time.

On this day as I looked around the room at everyone quietly getting to work on some stupid maths problem (I still hate maths)I thought "Oh well, I may as well do some work" and with that I opened my exercise book with a grand total of one and a half pages of half harted work I had compleated in 2 months and did my work! For the whole class!

Afterwards the teacher pulled me aside and with the most suspecious wary vibe you could imagine asked me "Ok, whats going on?"
I told him I was on a new medication and he visablly relaxed and said "Keep taking it!!"


When you have ADHD it feels like your skin is crawling when you have to focus on something you are not absolutely passionette about.
I was up the head masters office at LEAST once a week, after Ritilan, almost never.
I was more relaxed, happier, it changed my life and it fucks me off to the extreame when people poo poo ADHD because I suffered so much.

I still do

Which brings me to a related question but not wanting to hijack this thread I will open a new post.

Peace
 
Top