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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards

Can you get RLS from therapeutic doses of ritalin/amphetamine?

glab

Bluelighter
Joined
May 3, 2015
Messages
182
Sometimes when lying in bed I get some RLS but I have already been having this prior to taking ritalin and dexedrine.
But I wonder could taking ritalin or dexedrine in therapeutic doses cause RLS or make it worse?

Would you be concerned if you got RLS occassionally? Should I go to a neurologist because of this?
But I'm not really keen on taking additional drugs for RLS. I don't even know if dopamine agonists would mix well with
stimulants for adhd.
 
Sometimes when lying in bed I get some RLS but I have already been having this prior to taking ritalin and dexedrine.
But I wonder could taking ritalin or dexedrine in therapeutic doses cause RLS or make it worse?

Would you be concerned if you got RLS occassionally? Should I go to a neurologist because of this?
But I'm not really keen on taking additional drugs for RLS. I don't even know if dopamine agonists would mix well with
stimulants for adhd.

It's listed in the monograph as a fairly common side effect (agitation, akathisia). However, I -have- RLS, really bad, and methylphenidate knocks it out of the park better than any painkiller or neuropathic drug, amphetamine does the same. I think this is a 'varying mileage' thing. MPH also is sedating to me and I can go to sleep any time when taking it, which is -not- the case with amphetamine.

I wouldn't personally be too concerned if it happened occasionally. It's absolutely due to a dopamine dysfunction. I have had it since I was born, and other family members as well. If it's really aggravating, maybe talk to your doc about low dose Lyrica.. it's quite effective. Stay AWAY from drugs approved just for RLS, like ropinirole (Requip), which made me and everyone else who took it so nauseated they couldn't stand it, and it didn't pass after a decent trial.
 
Hello, how much MPH do you take for the RLS?
I guess if you take a huge dose before going to bed you get trouble falling asleep.

My concern was that maybe the stimulants itself could cause RLS or make it worse maybe by causing tolerance or downregulation of dopamine receptors.
 
I don't actually take it for RLS, it's just a bonus effect of it.. 80mg of IR (20x4) for 8 years or so.. but I don't think the dose is really going to matter, it's how your body reacts to it and all that - everyone's different (I have the liver of a horse. I can't take any CR/ER/XR meds.. they last about 1/3 as long as they're supposed to.)

MPH hasn't been shown to do any downregulation or depletion over long periods of time at therapeutic doses.. it's really a pretty safe med if you don't abuse it. Amphetamines, unfortunately are a bit more tricky there.
 
80mg is the max dose for adults right?
What do you feel from 20mg IR? I have also chewed 20mg Ritalin LA. Sometimes I would feel kinda jittery and have a higher pulse and on other days I would feel nothing.
But I didn't feel like it helps me with concentration or that it makes me calmer.

Does the liver play a role when it comes to MPH? I thought it's not metabolized by the liver but differently.

I asked my pdoc about getting one of those tests where they try to find out if you're a fast or slow metabolizer. But he didn't know anything about these tests.
And there are also so many different liver pathways. I don't know if it would make sense to test only 1 like CYPD6.
 
80mg is the max dose for adults right?
What do you feel from 20mg IR? I have also chewed 20mg Ritalin LA. Sometimes I would feel kinda jittery and have a higher pulse and on other days I would feel nothing.
But I didn't feel like it helps me with concentration or that it makes me calmer.

Does the liver play a role when it comes to MPH? I thought it's not metabolized by the liver but differently.

I asked my pdoc about getting one of those tests where they try to find out if you're a fast or slow metabolizer. But he didn't know anything about these tests.
And there are also so many different liver pathways. I don't know if it would make sense to test only 1 like CYPD6.

Yah, it's, or I am an ultrarapid CYP2D6 metabolizer. I'm not exactly sure how the liver processes it, but I think you're right, 2D6 is not clearly involved, or rather.. they don't know or don't care enough to check it. It's weird anyway because the bioavailability is so poor orally, it's unusual.

There are some tests but they are kind of esoteric and you probably have to see a specialist and it's a big pain.. you can check 2D6 yourself by timing your response and dose to codeine, so I have read. I tried it myself and it confirmed it.. 150mg, opiate naive, almost no action, <1.5hr duration. It's a prodrug for morphine so it's a good theory.. I can't say how accurate it really is.

20mg just mellows me out and stops my thoughts from racing.

60mg is the monograph's maximum, many docs use 80, mine has used up to 120.. it really just depends. 120 is definitely pushing it, but sometimes that's what it takes, especially if there's not any obvious downside. I've celinged out pretty high on a lot of stuff and the docs didn't seem concerned (paxil 100, gabapentin 3600, effexor 450 (that one is not smart to push farther), etc..
 
I drank like 22 drinks of vodka a day for like 7 months once, and my liver enzymes were totally normal. Genes I guess.. or a mixed up name on a chart.
 
Does this mean that alcohol doesn't hurt you or does it still hurt you? I also don't know if liver enzymes really tell you that much. My father has a fatty liver and his enzymes
are still normal.

And do you tolerate a lot of alcohol? I don't really tolerate very much. But since I drink alcohol every day before bed in order to get tired
my tolerance has increased which sucks. I just want to get the buzz. In the past 1 beer or 1 glass of wine was enough but now I need more.
I wish I could somehow reduce my tolerance so that I could get the buzz with as little alcohol as possible.
 
Oh, it hurts you.. hurts you indeed. I don't drink any more.. that episode forced me to change a lot. Now if I drink it feels so dirty and toxic anyway.
 
I also wish I could get off my pre-bed alcohol but without it I have a hard time sleeping. I don't want to lie in bed and then need a long time to fall asleep.
I wish I had a sleeping pill which causes the same buzz and which also kicks in as fast as alcohol does and which can be taken on a daily basis.
I feel the alc almost immediately.
 
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