Stimulants Adderall and Vicodin Having No Effect

[VariableDescriptor]

Dear Bluelight,

This story begins about two weeks ago, when I was finishing up the last of my Vicodin prescription. I broke my ankle in February and have been taking Vicodin (5/500MG tabs) since then, usually four or five pills at a time, sometimes six. The most recent time I requested a refill on my medication, I got the feeling it would the last time the doctor gave it to me. So when I ran down to eight pills left in the bottle, I decided to take them all at once.

Nothing happened.

This was the first time I had experienced this with the Vicodin, and being that it was my last dose, I was pretty frustrated. No matter though, because this week I got a prescription for Adderall (20MG IR tabs).

Now I've been off Adderall for about a year, after some five years of being on it. Through those five years, it's always gotten me happy/high, made me feel more intelligent, social, capable, and had all the charming effects we know and love. I always had a pretty bad comedown with them though, so I stopped taking them a year ago.

Recently, I decided to try them again, and after getting a script, I went down to the pharmacy and picked up a bottle of 20mg IR pills. In my past binges I had been taking a 20mg pill every hour and a half, and this could keep me going for two or three days, feeling great the whole time. However, to be on the cautious side, I only took 10mg (half a pill). I felt a slight high, and definitely the anxiety and depression that occur with the comedown.

But since then, I haven't been able to get any positive effect from the Adderall. I feel my heart beating faster, and I feel my body temperature rise, but no happiness, increased intelligence, nothing that could be considered positive -- other than that it keeps me awake.

I've taken 10mg, 20mg, up to 60mg (way more than I would have taken in the past) with no success. I've also tried taking a day off, but that doesn't seem to help either. I'm on an antidepressant and a sleeping pill (Sertraline and Mirtazapine respectively), but I've been on SSRIs in the past, and they haven't affected my Adderall. I've never needed to take a break either. Does anyone know what could be going on?

TL;DR
Adderall not making me high, only increased heart rate.
Taking Sertraline (Zoloft), and Mirtazapine (Remeron), but these things haven't affected Adderall's efficacy in the past.

Thanks.

 

[VariableDescriptor]

Bump? I'm getting pretty desperate here.

 

[drewbocop]

Answer: Abusing drugs makes drugs not work very well. You binged on Adderall for FIVE years, took ONE year off, and expect to get high on 10mg?

You were taking handfuls of Vicodin script after script the whole while your ankle was broken, then expected 40mg to get you high?

This is common sense, brother. You're rapidly building a tolerance to opies. You already had a long withstanding tolerance to the speed. You need to take time off, a LOT of time off. (Namely the speed.)

 

[bben]

1) there is a cross tolerance between amphetamines and opiates and really anything that artificially increases dopamine to a high degree. They both cause euphoria through stimulating the d2, and d3 dopamine receptor. Opiate use down regulates d2, and d3 therefore causing tolerance to some of the euphoric effects of amphetamines but not to the adrenaline and NE based effects of amphetamines.

2) you may still be in mild opiate WD, this can make speed less enjoyable.

3) ssris do reduce the pleasure of stimulants in general as do many anti depressants.

4) sometimes with stimulants, it takes repeat dosing to get the euphoric effects as your body sensitizes itself to the substance.


also could you give more info.

 

[VariableDescriptor]

Thanks for the response guys, I really appreciate it.

drewbocop: I should probably clarify that while I had been taking Adderall for five years, and feeling their more pleasant effects even at low dosages, I was only binging for the last four months of those five years. As for the Vicodin, 40mg was more than I was used to taking. I took 8 pills and felt nothing, when the day before (and before that, and before that...), five had felt amazing. This was the first time I had ever been let down by Vicodin. It's almost like increasing the dose made it stop working.

bben: So it sounds like I should put the Adderall away and wait a while to get over the Hydro I'd been taking. I was doing something like sixty 5/500MG pills for a few days every two weeks, for almost five months. How long would it take for my dopamine receptors to be receptive to stimulants again? And I can give an endless stream of information, but what did you have in mind specifically? (BTW: thanks a ton for that last post, most informative thing I've been able to find.)