PsychonautRyan
Bluelighter
In the spring semester, I was taking 30 - 60 milligrams of DXM and 500 - 1000 milligrams of magnesium every night, and I was prescribed both Adderall IR (20 mg.) and XR (15 mg.). So after a few days of doing this, I noticed that the same dosage was making me feel much more jittery, anxious, hyper-focused on everything, and a combination of fidgety, restlessness and agitation. I was only getting about four hours of sleep a night, sometime even only two or three, and then there were one or two nights without any sleep, anyway, this manifested into full-blown paranoia, where I thought that people in the hallway or class were talking critically about me, or seeing a black van or a cop car and thinking I'm being followed.
I saw my psychiatrist two weeks ago, when I was off of Adderall for almost a month, and felt like myself again after a week-and-a-half of withdrawal hell. I told her about the increased social anxiety and the side effects described above (I decided not to tell her about the paranoid episodes). So she switched me to Vyvanse, but then when I found out that it wasn't covered by insurance, she gave me a script for Concerta, and we dropped my Adderall IR dosage to 10 mg, as well as prescribing Buspar for the anxiety.
I wasn't able to get the Concerta filled until yesterday, so I had to ration out the Adderall IR for two weeks. During that period, I discovered that after taking DXM two or three nights in a row, I felt the same effects of agitation, restlessness and fidgetiness from just 10 mg. of Adderall, as if I were taking a much larger dose, because it was up-regulating dopamine pathways, instead of just reducing or preventing the build-up of down-regulation, so I was over-sensitized to that dose.
Earlier, I had assumed that taking the Adderall for prolonged periods of time was causing the negative side effect. I didn't disclose DXM to my psychiatrist at our last appointment, for fear that it would be construed as abuse to reduce tolerance. At our next appointment, could I just say I 'forgot' to tell her about it, and convince her to return back to Adderall XR, or just stick with methylphenidate-based prescriptions?
I saw my psychiatrist two weeks ago, when I was off of Adderall for almost a month, and felt like myself again after a week-and-a-half of withdrawal hell. I told her about the increased social anxiety and the side effects described above (I decided not to tell her about the paranoid episodes). So she switched me to Vyvanse, but then when I found out that it wasn't covered by insurance, she gave me a script for Concerta, and we dropped my Adderall IR dosage to 10 mg, as well as prescribing Buspar for the anxiety.
I wasn't able to get the Concerta filled until yesterday, so I had to ration out the Adderall IR for two weeks. During that period, I discovered that after taking DXM two or three nights in a row, I felt the same effects of agitation, restlessness and fidgetiness from just 10 mg. of Adderall, as if I were taking a much larger dose, because it was up-regulating dopamine pathways, instead of just reducing or preventing the build-up of down-regulation, so I was over-sensitized to that dose.
Earlier, I had assumed that taking the Adderall for prolonged periods of time was causing the negative side effect. I didn't disclose DXM to my psychiatrist at our last appointment, for fear that it would be construed as abuse to reduce tolerance. At our next appointment, could I just say I 'forgot' to tell her about it, and convince her to return back to Adderall XR, or just stick with methylphenidate-based prescriptions?