Hi everyone! I was diagnosed a few years ago in my early 30s, and started taking Adderall along with some different drugs for anxiety as well.
With Adderall and then Wellbutrin, even in small dosages, I notice that my HRV Stress (recorded on a Garmin 945 Forerunner) is significantly elevated for the entire day. When I used to take a midday and evening dose of (instant release) Adderall, it severely impacted my sleep. I also tried extended release taken in the morning, and that caused sleeping issues as well. So did an extended release of Wellbutrin.
Basically, any benefits those medications provide (and it didn’t really feel like it was helping) were offset by the bodily impact.
Has anyone had a similar experience with either of these medications? Any notable co-morbidities or changed metabolism or something that you identified as causing these symptoms? Did Ritalin or Strattera work for you when Adderall did not? I’ve been cycling through other non-stim medications with my provider, but haven’t found anything that provides benefits for ADHD (I’m currently on guanfacine and zoloft, which mitigates my anxiety at least).
Marijuana, fuck pharmaceuticals
Mydayis (dextro- and amphetamine salts) seems to be more stressful on me than Vyvanse. The extended release mechanism also varies things. But hey, there’s a new goddamn shortage every week and we go with what works well enough.
As it was explained to me, you basically got three options: amphetamines, methylphenidates, and the “other stuff” (Wellbutrin, strattera, qelbree, guanfacine etc). This is a purely anecdotal analogy and oversimplification of how stuff works as it was told to me:
Amphetamines (adderall etc) hit the front door in the front of the brain — more dopamine, intense concentrated focus. Methylphenidates (Concerta etc) hit the back door in the front of the brain — more norepinephrine, longer-lasting, more alertness. The Other Stuff is back of brain, like if you turned down the ambient noise of a room.
Long and short of it is that one of these three approaches will tend to work well for an individual with ADHD, but the other two not so much. It’s pure trial and error, and it sucks, but with a decent provider and time (and insurance) you can eventually settle on one at a particular dose. Best of luck!
Sorry if this isn’t what you’re looking for, but my answer is basically “no”.
I can take a 10mg Adderall 4 hours before bed, and fall right asleep. Sometimes, I can take a 10mg Adderall in the morning, and fall asleep at my desk at work, only 30 minutes later.
Adderall makes me feel relaxed and totally unstressed. I’ve never had HRV stress measured, though. What is the experience like, to you, when you are having high HRV stress levels?
Wellbutrin and most other SSRI’s and SNRI’s make me feel a little TOO relaxed. Some of them make me feel less conscious, and a little bit brain fogged. At the time, I described it as if my soul was detached from my body.
To me, methylphenidate (Ritalin) gives the same effects as Adderall.
How about off-label stuff like guanfacine? I have a relative that got panic attacks, difficulty sleeping, racing heart and the like from the traditional meds, but the guanfacine did the trick.
I’m currently taking guanfacine. It works well for me for anxiety and sleep, but has shown no improvement to my ADHD symptoms
Wellbutrin is like a stimulant. Maybe you’d do better the ssri’s?
SSRI’s can cause issues with stimulant medications primarily for two reasons. They increase the effectiveness of the stimulant and they increase the level of serotonin in your blood. Too much serotonin is not good. Look up “seratonin syndrome” and see if you’re experiencing any other symptoms.
Those meds can be taken together but there probably needs to be a dosage adjustment to one or both of them.
Also, if you’re not already, avoid caffeine completely.
I haven’t taken sertraline and Adderall at the same time. But this is good information to know, I’ll look up the symptoms. Thanks!
I had a similar experience with small doses of Adderall. It would improve my focus, but it left me feeling anxious in the evenings.
What helped in my case was consistency. I took the meds every weekday for a month and slowly the anxiety lessened as my body got used to the meds.
I took Adderall for about two years with slowly increasing dosages, so I definitely had the consistency aspect down. If anything it seemed to work well early on, but then started causing issues the longer I took it.
Friendly interjection from Depression Lemmy.
Not so long ago I was discussing my meds with my psychiatrist and expressed to them that it felt like the medication wasn’t so much resolving the problem as it was redistributing the problems.
To my surprise the response was, “We’ll, yeah, pretty much.”
This didn’t help my depression much either. :|
Yeah, unfortunately meds don’t fix ADHD. They’re a treatment, not a cure. Meds are supposed to be used in conjunction with other treatments (such as therapy, as an example) to be most effective. I know, it sucks, but these are the cards we’ve been dealt.
