Stimulants Stimulants

[ponodmitry]

Hello everyone, new guy here. A short story to begin: I was diagnosed with ADHD way back in the teens. I was living in a different country at that time and there were literally no adequate treatment available, so it was left untreated for a very long time. After I moved to US I started to struggle with severe depression and the VA assigned me a psychiatrist, who, after I gave him a family history, decided that it was a good idea to prescribe Venlafaxine, stating that should help with ADHD too. After maybe less then a month I went full hypomanic, obviously without realizing because everything was good you know. Well, lost my favorite job and pretty much majority of social connections, went back into depression. Apparently that was not good enough for the Doc, he was still adamant that I have MDD and maybe BPD, so he prescribes Bupropion on top of Venlafaxine and finally agreed to start me on some Adderall XR, but still won't consider Bipolar. For 5! years I was treated with all kinds of SSRI's SNDRI's to no avail, eventually leading to a suicide attempt, hospitalization and all the great stuff that came with it. Finally they gave me a new guy, a PA who seemed more into my case. He immediately suspected that it might be something more than MDD and decided to take me off antidepressants, but we had to do come down of it gradually. Well, almost made it, but then I had another episode, full mania this time - another hospitalization. So, after 5 years I was finally given my Bipolar, along with antipsychotics and mood stabilizers, which later turned out to be a rapid-cycle one. He was okay with me switching to IR version of Adderall at first. After we maxed out we tried Dexedrine, again all the way to 60. Thing seems to work okay-ish, but as soon as I go down - dextro goes out too, as in doesn't help. Since then i got into pre-pa program with hopes in getting into psychiatry field. I did a lot, and i mean A LOT of research into stimulants. While most of the research make sense, one thing I don't understand, where is my elevated mood? I am on total of 60mg a day right now(dextro), and it's not that it doesn't work- it helps with ADHD to an extend. Its just that for 60 mg I feel like I should be getting more of the effect. Most of the reports keep saying a lot about euphoria and abuse potential, along with other things, but i won't see none, unless I am missing something and it drives me crazy. I am very reluctant to ask for Desoxyn, not because I wont get it, but because I don't really want to mess with Meth. If anyone reading this is also on amphetamines please tell me about your experience, especially if you have something co-morbid with ADHD, thank you!

 

[Jabberwocky]

Sounds like you might genuinely have ADHD. Commonly, people with ADHD don’t get euphoric, tolerant, or addicted to the correct stimulant for them.

I have a similar experience to you in that I had varied diagnoses and was tried on a dozen drugs or more trying to find something that would stabilise my life - which included extensive depression and mania. After many years I got relief from ADHD from dex and as my life improved because I was becoming way more productive and functional on dex my depression generally subsided (I also had ECT for it).

I have been addicted to meth and coke but dex seems like medicine to me. I’ve never developed tolerance to it. Large doses don’t make it more effective. It does not give me any euphoria (though it does give me a sense of being psychologically complete or whole which I do not otherwise have without it.

 

[ponodmitry]

Sounds like you might genuinely have ADHD. Commonly, people with ADHD don’t get euphoric, tolerant, or addicted to the correct stimulant for them.

I have a similar experience to you in that I had varied diagnoses and was tried on a dozen drugs or more trying to find something that would stabilise my life - which included extensive depression and mania. After many years I got relief from ADHD from dex and as my life improved because I was becoming way more productive and functional on dex my depression generally subsided (I also had ECT for it).

I have been addicted to meth and coke but dex seems like medicine to me. I’ve never developed tolerance to it. Large doses don’t make it more effective. It does not give me any euphoria (though it does give me a sense of being psychologically complete or whole which I do not otherwise have without it.

Thank you for your answer! It's very interesting since you actually not the first person who mentioned the correlation between correctly diagnosed ADHD and lack of certain effects otherwise healthy people may experience. My only concern is to how to retain at least some level of attention or even awareness during depressive episodes. And, as funny as it may sound, the only thing that helped before was coke. I was always wondering how come I'm snorting bags of that and not nearly as high as other people seem to be on way smaller doses and never really had major side effects. Then i just stopped after I ran out of money -_-. Helped with school a ton though

 

[plumbus-nine]

Desoxyn isn't so bad as the reputation is, for me low dose meth has a very good anti-ADHD effect and with its long half life it doesn't crash like methylphenidate or amphetamine. Also cause of slight serotonergic effects, it's more antidepressant at the price of a depressive hangover when stopping it.

I too had a diagnostic nightmare with felt like half if all psychiatric DSM-(I)V and doctors always wanting to poison me with antipsychotics which just feel dysphoric and cognitively limiting. Have been many years on antidepressants, me too got initial hypomania - was enjoyable though, when you don't feel it its full on many imho, had that too from dissociatives and lost a big amount of money.

You could try memantine along with an amphetamine. It's still experimental but it seems to slow down or even inhibit tolerance to stims to develop. At least my experience, I got steady effects from 18mg methylphenidate along 150mg of dextromethorphan (another dissociative but memantine is less intoxicating and easier on your heart) for months while with just MPH, I stopped feeling these 18mg after a few weeks.

 

[ponodmitry]

Desoxyn isn't so bad as the reputation is, for me low dose meth has a very good anti-ADHD effect and with its long half life it doesn't crash like methylphenidate or amphetamine. Also cause of slight serotonergic effects, it's more antidepressant at the price of a depressive hangover when stopping it.

I too had a diagnostic nightmare with felt like half if all psychiatric DSM-(I)V and doctors always wanting to poison me with antipsychotics which just feel dysphoric and cognitively limiting. Have been many years on antidepressants, me too got initial hypomania - was enjoyable though, when you don't feel it its full on many imho, had that too from dissociatives and lost a big amount of money.

You could try memantine along with an amphetamine. It's still experimental but it seems to slow down or even inhibit tolerance to stims to develop. At least my experience, I got steady effects from 18mg methylphenidate along 150mg of dextromethorphan (another dissociative but memantine is less intoxicating and easier on your heart) for months while with just MPH, I stopped feeling these 18mg after a few weeks.

Thank you for your answer! At this point I think 60 mg a day is doing a a trick. I don't have any come downs at all and prefer it much more instead of Adderall with its annoying peripheral effects. 2 biggest issues for me are vicious loss of appetite and its duration/peak time. Im pretty scrawny and always had problems with appetite, but this thing takes that to a whole new level. Have to chug Ensure (supplement drink) all the time. The only thing that helps is weed, but I usually start smoking couple of hours before going to bed, because I think its counterproductive you know, stimulant with the depressant at the same time. As for the second issue, I'm thinking about alternating the ratio to like 60%:40%, because I don't need that much boost in the second part of the day, but still, 2-3 hours to peak with overall about 5 hours duration.. And yeah, I decided to ask about Desoxyn as an alternative for the next depressive episode, hopefully that ll do the trick.

 

[plumbus-nine]

because I think its counterproductive you know, stimulant with the depressant at the same time

Not necessarily, it's general opinion yet our body always maintains a balance between excitation and inhibition, releasing antagonistic chemicals at the same time. My ex doc prescribed me alprazolam retard together with the methylphenidate to take the edge off.

Yeah, Adderall containing not just the centrally acting d but also one l isomer of amphetamine will be centrally active - I too found meth to be less peripheral than d-amph, which is strange given that its the main metabolite. Indeed, the latter stages of meth where there's primarily amph working feel more jittery and less euphoric. It'd be nice to have just meth with inactive metabolites.