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Stimulants Why does adderall seem ineffective?

RFar98

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 21, 2010
Messages
57
I recently started taking adderall usually 1 or 2 times per week for the last 2 and a half months or so. It wasn't every week either, but for some reason, I had to take pretty high doses to get desired effects, and sometimes (like last night), i would end up taking a high dose and be surprised at how weak it felt. I always take it orally, and they are IR. I know some of this has to do with tolerance (now) but even when i started, i seemed to need quite high dose. I assumed that it is because I am currently on suboxone (been weaning off for a while now). I'm at 1.5mg/day now, and i'm also on clanazopam 1mg twice a day. When I first started taking them, i thought 15mg would be enough but it turns out even 30mg wasn't helping me that much. Last few weeks i've been taking 45-60mg and usually, id get 2 days worth. the first day i would take them (it would usually be lin the evening to do school work) they would work well and id even get some euphoria. however, the next day, even if i waited a full 24 hours, the same dose was WAY less effective. I started to make sure not to take my klonopin in the evening- instead i would take it when coming down. i'm just confused now, bc i searched a bunch of threads where people said these combos were enjoyable..

At the momment, i'm mainly concerned with the whole issue of when i take it 2 days in a row, the 2nd day is not very effective. Yesterday, i took quite a high dose, more than ive ever taken and im kind of pissed off at myself. i took over 90 mg total and pulled an all nighter. I still have a LOT of work to do, and I do have really bad ADD. I was planning to get on a stimulant after i got off sub. I have had so many struggles with school, mainly a combination of anxiety and ADD. So im just trying to understand if the 2 depressants im on is lessening the effects or not? I did read that acidic drinks will lessen the effect so i make sure not to drink anything acidic, i just drink water. However, last night i did (without realizing) have a greek salad, and the salad dressing is definitely super acidic. I only ate a small amount though when I realized i was going to take the adderall to do hw that night. sorry for rambling. any thoughts are appreciated.
 
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I'm in the same situtation as you. Tolerance to amphetamine develops rapidly. Try taking it every three days for better results. Interestingly, tolerance to methamphetamine does not happen. Not that you should try meth, just saying.
 
^where did you get this rubbish???

amphetamine tolerance does build - but not as quickly as you assume. there is a dosage that you will find that will stabilise you if you had ADHD. there will be no more euphoria, but the focus will remain the same and the effects on your concentration will also remain the same without having to increase your doses.

can i ask - are you genuinely prescribed this for adhd by a doctor, or are you using these recreationally?

if you aren't, you could ask your doc to switch you over to dexedrine. adderall is a bitch in my opinion, and dexedrine is a much easier stimulant to balance yourself out with and find a stable dose that wont need tweaking around with or increasing. I have been using dexedrine for the past year at 40mg a day and have found no changes to the way it affects me at all if i stick to the dosage schedule that i have, 20mg in the morning, 20mg in the afternoon.

adderall for me was a very tweaky, cranky and strange drug. i only tried it once and hated it horribly. the comedown was absolutely horrendous.

the clonazepam will not interfere very much with the adderall in fact it should make it smoother and reduce the anxiety you feel while youre taking the adderal. however, the subuxone may be having an effect - but again, i don't see why. i sometimes take oxy and xanax along with my dexedrine and it doesn't interfere with the dex's effects, in fact it usually makes them more euphoric and powerful along with the opiates and benzos. perhaps you are just naturally quite tolerant to stimulants. have you used them before? do you drink a lot of caffeine etc?

the doses you are taking seem super high to be honest. i dont know how you can manage those kind of doses without having a nervous breakdown or panic attack frankly. i took 30mg of the IR addy and i thought my head was going to explode and i've been taking dexedrine for the past year!

are you taking the generic addy or branded?

i really strongly suggest you talk to your doc about changing to dex tbh. or maybe he could suggest another stimulant. have you tried ritalin?
 
Thanks for the response. No I am not prescribed it, I thought I mentioned that I want to get on something soon, maybe when I get off sub, sorry im on my phone atm, dont have time to see if I wrote that. Anyway i'd been rx'd it, as well as a bunch of other stims years ago. Never dexedrine though, pwhich I always hear is the best but I've never met a single person who gets it in this area. To be honest, I just decided to try it out agaib bc every time I've gotten stims in the past, I couldn't handle the side effects, my anxiety was out of control. But I.thought the sub and moreso, the kpin would get rid of that, which it did, and I'm not saying adderall doesn't work, I'm just so shocked that I have to take these large doses when I have not been using it very long and only 2x/ week max and essentially no history of being on it for any substantial amount of time. haven't been on, nor taken any stims in yrs and I dont do any recreationally. I drink coffee sometimes, don't find it does anything for me so its usually green tea.

I didn't have a nervous breakdown bc I had bupe and kpin; had I not been on them, or had some, I would have probably been in panic attack mode for hours. My doc has mentioned , very broad and vaguely about add meds and I believe she's under the impression that I reacted so negatively that they weren't of any help, which is true but I have been wondering for a while whether my current meds would remove the negative SEs for the most part but I felt weird asking her about this bc she obviously knows I'm an addict and maybe thinks I'm just trying to get on more powerful drugs. and really wouldn't think she would rx a 3rd controlled substance. However, every time I'm on here, I'm shocked at the stuff some people here are on. Every doc I've had has been so careful and was very hesitant to rx certain stuff. Even this doc didn't put me on kpin until over a year after I was seeing her and we tried various ssris and such for a long time while I told.her how bad my anxiety was at the time- I was fucking up in school .. again and there was so much shame & guilt. And I started at 1.5mg now I'm @ 2 per day for the kpin, and I've been tapering bupe for a while.. like I said, I'm down to 1.5mg. So I guess I will bring it up but I just don't see it happening. Meanwhile I should really not be taking things I'm not rx'd, even though I've been diagnosed by every doc.I've seen since HS, and rx'd different stims, adderall always being the last resort, if we even got that far. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to get high or euphoria, i just legitimately felt it was not so effctive inhelping me concentrate and not have my mind constantly somewhere else, however I will say it works quite well with helpinge me sit still, not fidget and feel so restless all the time while doing schoolwork. sorry for the long post. Also,.idk why it matters if I have generic or not- there's no difference.. but I think they are gen, assuming the brand name says it on the table
 
Ah I see - so you're wanting to use it therapeutically. However, the doses you're taking are very very high but this most likely due to the fact that you're on two potent CNS depressants. As for the prescription issue - I wouldn't worry about that. I was given four controlled drugs and two more regular script from my pdoc when I needed them. I was scribed dexedrine, temazepam, subutex and oxycontin (for a weeks only!!- trying to kick my opiate habit.) along with lyrica and buspar. Now my script is obviously much less, no opiates and therefore less controlled drugs. However, if you're completely honest with her and say you used some old adderall you had and realised tere were no longer any side effects, she may reconsider it and help you taper offf the subs, and monitor the adderall use trying to find a way to minimise the side effects while giving you the most therapeutic value.

I seriously suggest that you talk to her about the meds, and say that adderall is helping now but wondered if you could try and dex instead. Make sure you say you took the adderall out of desperation that you hadn't thrown away from years ago otherwise she will think you're just abusing the stuff. I'm trusting you here and hoping you're not using them recreationally, so you may be able to get then for a legitimate reason.

Have you mentioned to her that you have been diagnosed with ADHD in the past? The cocktail of drugs isn't really a good thing though. The doc should try to taper you off the subs, and then hopefully work with you and the ADHD. I have had substance abuse issues before which my psychiatrist is fully aware of and I am honest to him about it. He got me off the opiates, and worked with my ADHD and anxiety, and was put back on dexedrine, lyrica/buspar and zolpidem. I'm hoping ill be re written a script for temazepam soon as my insomnia is driving me crazy (I have suffered from it for years though, unrelated to the dex.)

Like I mentioned earlier, adderall made me shaky and nervous when I took it. When I tried dexedrine it was completely different, smooth and pure quality concentration and focus. You can ask if you could try it. There's no harm in doing so. Say that you want to come off the subs, and want to focus more on your problems regarding ADD as that's what's troubling you the most. That's the best advise I can give. Dex has been a life saver for me. It's helped me enormously with my ADHD, and allows me to study focus and concentrate and I've maintained the same 40mg dose a day for the past year. To counteract the side effects I suppose you'll be kept on klonopin, or trialled on buspar/lyrica. You may also be put on a sleeping tablet, most likely zolpidem.(ambien).
 
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I don't know, I take clonazepam and methadone, yet Adderall works totally fine for me, and I really never raise my dose above 30mg, and never start any lower than 22.5mg. As I havn't got a prescription to it (though I'm hoping that I will Tomorow), I still manage to take it just about every day (usually 5 days a week). As long as I only dose once a day, I only notice the slightest increase in tolerance. One difference with me though, is that I take Adderall rectally, not orally, which increases the absorption significantly, as well as creates a quicker onset. However, rectal administration is not always as reliable (in terms of consistent effect) as other ROA. For instance, if I'm full of shit, the absorption is going to be way lower than if I'm all clean and vacant down in there. Sometimes I wonder if the fact that I plug regardless of when my last defecation occurred helps keep my tolerance relatively the same (as the absorbed amount of amphetamine is not a consistent or reliable level).
 
znegative i think it doesnt have much of an effect on your tolerance - the thing is, you're maintaining a stable dose and not going higher than your 30mg dose. if you started plugging 60-70mg, you would no way be able to go back 30mg and get the same effects you are feeling now (at least not for a very long time).

it's all about consistency i've found with amphetamines. if you maintain a stable, steady dose and don't fuck around with it, i.e. take 70mg one day, 30 the next, 60 the day after; you'll maintain a steady plateau that won't be interrupted. taking breaks and days off help too, but not to the same extent as just staying stable on a set dose. with amphetamines, if you're looking for a concentration boost and aid with your studies, you can't go around eating 100mg of the stuff recreationally for fun or whatever. less is actually more.

it sounds like the OP has essentially ruined his experience with adderall, like i did, but it is easy to make a come back to normality. take about 3-5 months off the drug and then re-start using it at sensible doses that are stable.
 
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