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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards

Muscle Twitching after ingesting Concerta

mozbeet

Greenlighter
Joined
Jan 26, 2013
Messages
5
Location
Georgia, USA
Getting to the actual basis of SWIM's question, Yesterday night/this morning at 1 am, SWIM took two 36 mg Concertas orally (SWIM did not alter the pill in any way) in an attempt to get high. SWIM felt this was a good dose because SWIM hadn't become tolerant to the 36 mg pill on its own and 72 mg is still considered a therapeutic dose (SWIM was trying to find a good minimum dose that would produce euphoria so that SWIM could experiment safer with this drug in the future because SWIM knows how tolerance can affect the effects of drugs (had a month long binge on opiates)). SWIM began playing Xbox while he waited for the drug to kick in. An hour later, SWIM felt an intense rush of energy, euphoria, and extremely focused and varied thoughts and though patterns. SWIM was unfocused when playing Xbox though, which SWIM found odd. SWIM then proceeded to research Concerta and other "uppers" (a common thing when SWIM discovers any new drug he strongly enjoys). SWIM could not focus on one thing by itself, but found it was more satisfying to be productive and focus on 5+ things at a time (SWIM's one tab on Firefox turned into 15 or so in a matter of minutes, although they were all drug related :P). This intense euphoria and energy seemed to peak for an extremely long period of time. SWIM would compare the energy and mood to that of a moderate LSD trip. In reality, SWIM peaked for 5 to 5 1/2 hours. As SWIM began to comedown, he felt an urge to redose, but was unsure of how much he would need and if it would be safe since about half of what he had taken was going to continue to be released for another 6 hours or so. Since SWIM is very cautious about his use of pharmaceuticals because of a previous event, he decided to reframe from redosing. This was a good idea. At around 7:00 or 7:30 AM, SWIM experienced a sudden involuntary movement of muscles in his face, mostly around the mouth. Since the drug had taken effect, SWIM had been constantly saying out loud everything he read, thought, or typed. SWIM felt a sense of fear when he realized this. He was afraid he had taken too much, although 72 mg is not near a high recreational dose. This happened again about 10 to 20 minutes later. When SWIM googled this reaction in relation to Concerta, he found that is was listed as an overdose symptom and was considered urgent enough to require the immediate contact of a doctor. SWIM thought it was odd that he experienced such a adverse effect to the drug because the amount he ingested should not have brought on any symptoms of an overdose. I apologize for such a lengthy post, but I felt that most of everything I mentioned was contributory to this post. So my question is; Why did SWIM experience effects associated with high doses of methylphenidate, with such an average dose?

Oh and I'm new to the forums, so I'm not sure whether this is in the most logical place in the forums.


EDIT: Most of it has worn off now, and SWIM was wondering is he could pop a 36 mg Concerta so he can stay awake today.
 
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Hi mozbeet, welcome to Bluelight :). We don't actually use SWIM here, it just looks silly and doesn't offer you any real protection, so if you could edit your post to remove the SWIMs that would be great.

I would personally avoid taking any Concerta today, even if it ends up not being unsafe it could just make you feel worse and exacerbate the side effects, plus the come-down would probably suck.

I wouldn't call 72mg an "average" dose. Different people have VERY different sensitivities to methylphenidate - if I took that much I would feel horrible, for example. And of course it depends a lot on tolerance as well. You didn't say how much you normally take and how much it affects you?

A person can definitely "overdose" on a dose within the therapeutic range. 72mg is not a starting therapeutic dose for Concerta, it is considered an upper limit, only given to people who have developed tolerance to lower doses. A normal starting therapeutic dose would be 18mg, (or sometimes 36mg for people who have already been using methylphenidate).

Symptoms listed as symptoms of "overdose" are not exclusive to dangerous overdose, it just means that those symptoms often occur when someone takes too much, so recreational dosing can often have symptoms associated with "overdose", because you are deliberately taking higher doses than would be needed for a purely therapeutic effect. Even regular therapeutic doses can cause effects listed for "overdose". For example, "euphoria" is listed as a symptom of overdose, obviously that doesn't mean you need medical attention solely because you experience euphoria. Now things like muscle twitching and saying everything out loud are obviously much more concerning, I'm just trying to explain one of the reasons why someone can have symptoms of overdose within normal dosing ranges. Hopefully it makes sense.

TLDR: Basically just because some people can take 72mg without ill effect doesn't mean anyone can or that it shouldn't bring on symptoms of overdose. Please be more careful in the future and give yourself a break for a bit to recover :)
 
It could also be from lack of sleep.It happens to me often,when my insomnia gets the best of me.Make sure you're well rested before doing that again;)Swimmingdancer,you are an excellent moderator;)
 
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It could also be from lack of sleep.It happens to me often,when my insomnia gets the best of me.Make sure you're well rested before doing that again;)Swimmingdancer,you are an excellent moderator;)

Aw, thank you :)

That is an excellent point by the way, sleep deprivation can definitely increase unwanted side effects. Also not eating and staying hydrated. I meant to mention all those things as potential factors.
 
What you have is myoclonic jerking which is a form of a seizure. This is usually caused by underlying neurological disorders but in your case its being provoked by the methylphenidate. This is a common and somewhat dangerous symptom of medications which lower* the seizure threshold.

Decreasing your methylphenidate dosage to one that doesn't cause myoclonus or ceasing your use of methyphenidate are your only options.
 
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Sorry for such a late reply :P I was prescribed concerta 36 mg at the time daily. I'm pretty tolerant to it. I'd been using concerta daily for a month and a half at the time, but have been taking concerta with little breaks over the past year and a half. I'm not quite sure why that small of a dose, barely recreational since i didn't take the pill apart, affected me so greatly. I took a 54 mg concerta yesterday and took apart another 30 minutes later and powdered and parachuted the methylphenidate containing parts, including the coating, and the euphoria I experienced was much less than the time I made the original post. I haven't experienced any negative effects from my recent uses of this drug recreationally, and I find the crash to be much more bearable.
Also, if you have any insight into the extraction of methylphenidate from concerta for insufflation, please look at my other post in the Other Drugs section. and thanks for the SWIM correction as well as the welcoming! This community is so friendly haha :)
 
Today one of my friends that doesn't have ADHD and has never took concentra and took 2 36 mg pills back to back he is having some of the symptoms of and OD such as lack of sleeping ability and blurry vision every now and then and he also is reading everything out loud I know I'm late but I need answers please respond asap
 
Today one of my friends that doesn't have ADHD and has never took concentra and took 2 36 mg pills back to back he is having some of the symptoms of and OD such as lack of sleeping ability and blurry vision every now and then and he also is reading everything out loud I know I'm late but I need answers please respond asap
Get your friend some medical attention if he's still having symptoms.
 
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