How do ADHD medications affect you?

Might as well try it, they are free and they can drastically improve your life, personally they have really helped.

I've been taking long acting Ritalin for about 5 or so yrs now. It's been good for me. I can multitask better now at work, if I get distracted I can usually find my way back easier and I am much easier to deal with.

I tried stimulants a few times now. Once when I was 5/6 (Methylphenidate and dexamfetamine trials) and two tries of dexamfetamine and lis-dexamfetamine in the last 12 months. The things I had most difficulties with were eating on time (else I would get nausea, which would take a while to overcome after eating), while cognitive function increased I found it difficult to be "emotionally available". I think for the medication to work it's best it's important to set expectations and to work out the right dose. The expectations might be similar to improved cognition/ working memory, "staying on course" with mundane tasks etc, as opposed to taking advantage of the "excess energy" you might feel at the start. I'm still not sure if stimulants are for me, the eating on time thing is really taxing for me and I don't know what I'm doing for the long term. I'm currently taking Strattera (non stimulant; SNRI) instead, which has improved the "staying on course" expectation in a subtle way. I like to believe that even though there isn't a lot of long-term usage research that it's a better quality of life type decision. I wouldn't buy into the "it's bad for you" perception - if your goal is to have improved cognition etc, then it's proven to be a valuable option. I wish you all the luck, if I had any advice, it would be to remember it's all about pros and cons and your individual biochemistry - you might find it easy or maybe more challenging. But I hope it's a smooth ride for you :)

My experience with adderall is that it suppressed my appetite so much I lost 12 lbs and I’m only 95 rn :( my weight was at 102 and I’ve tried for five years now to get back to that … i can’t do it … messed me up

The first medication I tried made me significantly more anxious, but I felt fine once I stopped taking it, and the one I'm taking now doesn't make me anxious at all. My worst side effect is decreased appetite, but making sure to eat before I take the medication helps make sure I'm getting enough food.

I was fucked up by ADHD medication but it took a lot of really stupid medical malpractice from my entire care team, including my own mother, as a child for an extended time. My mother couldn't be fucked to do anything in the way of actually helping me or understanding my ADHD, all the diagnosis was to her was a reason I wasnt doing the tasks she told me to correctly and all medication was to her was a way to get me to do more chores. The real reason I wasn't doing her tasks correctly for her was that she was giving me a list of 4 or 5 tasks at the minimum and half the instructions were usually inncorect from the beginning. I was on Adderall a long time, it made my disassociation a little worse and what inwas doing during dissociation episodes got a little weirder but for the most part was decent, I improved in multiple areas of my life and felt fantastic for once, until my mom started asking my doctor to increase the dose every time we saw her because I wasn't "following instructions" right. She never did a single life style change or therapy related thing to help me. After my dosage increased so much I started having issues with my appetite, although I was bulimic by this point so I foolishly considered it a win, as well as my sleeping schedule if I took my meds even a tiny but late. I had feelings of emptiness frequently and my energy took a bit of a dip. My mom kept complaining about how I wasn't following instructions. Eventually they switched me to Ritalin and did the same increase routine, by the time I was 15 I was on the max dosage with a smaller fast acting dose I had to take in the morning, bad enough for anyone but Ritalin is bad for people under 22 years old in general. The side effects were horrible, suicidal thoughts, no appetite, a constant weird buzzy/wired feeling that intermingled with constant fatigue, poor sleep even when I could get it, everything felt grey, and I was constantly nauseous or having stomach cramps. It also destroyed my ability to metabolize any kind of ADHD medication and made it significantly worse, they stopped working around the time I was at max dose and my symptoms were significantly worse than they were before i started taking them, I stopped taking them against my mother's shitty advice and realistically behind her back. After a few years as an adult i felt ready to try again but nothing I ever tried had any effect on me whatsoever, even Adderall which had been great for me in middle school was like taking a sugar pill and my therapist mentioned that Ritalin at a young age can have effects like that as well as a number of other issues including worsening symptoms. My friend who had also been on Ritalin at the same time as I was and had similar issues with it later sent me a few articles that confirmed that. The kicker is I'm my mother's second child with ADHD, she's since said a number of things that made it clear she hasn't handled his ADHD well either, including trying to shame me for still having symptoms by claiming my brother outgrew his ADHD. I lost what little respect I had left for that woman when I realized how much shit she put me through just because she couldn't bother to use Google or ask about a specialist and how much she ignored because she knew nothing about the medication she was force feeding me. This was all a bad experience and is most definitely a cautionary tale, but the main thing you should take away from it is that it was that bad entirely because I had absolutely no bodily autonomy or control over my own medication and the people who were in charge were severely misinformed or under informed and only had their best interests in mind. If I had been older I would have fought it, I did tried at the time but obviously that went nowhere because of my age. You're old enough to pay attention to side effects, decide whether a medication is right for you, communicate that to a doctor, and find a new doctor/specialist if your current one doesnt seem to be competent enough.

i was prescribed ritalin! when i was taking it, it helped a lot with school and such. i stopped taking it for about three months, and then when uni started i was getting daily headaches after each dose, so i stopped taking it. the headache onset was a new problem though. definitely had decreased appetite, but sleep wasn't much of an issue for me

I agree it depends on you as a person my son took methylphinidate and on the in crease he climbed the walls(it was when I knew he didn't have ADHD but trusted our Dr's) amphetamine he was depressed concerta he hallucinated and guanfacine did nothing for him so we took him off it all. My daughter on the other hand methylphinidate works very well for her. We recently started her on a brand new form of it that is immediate release then extended release... She also does concerta. I do extremly well on concerta and due to recent triggering events my Dr just added guanfacine. I don't do well with any anti depressant meds because my dopamine needed boosting not my serotonin so being diagnosed properly really saved me from a serious guessing game.

The ones I take make me stop eating,makes me more angry or emotional and tired

Honestly, they impact everyone differently. Both my younger brother and I are med free because the side effects we experienced weren’t worth it for either of us. It made me feel more crazy on it then it did off of it. He had issues with weight loss and feeling too dulled by it. It’s not that way for everyone, but that’s for you to decide for yourself personally

Adhd meds aren't going to magically fix most of you adhd symptoms. Adhd is a dopamine deficiency. There is no medication that induces your brain to create dopamine. Our brains are not only dopamine deficient, but we also don't have a high storage capacity for it either. Adhd meds make the storage capacity bigger. They do not generate more dopamine. A bigger storage capacity can make a huge difference in the attention span symptom, but the problem is that if you aren't finding ways to produce dopamine, it isn't going to matter if the storage capacity is bigger. Thus, adhd needs to be treated through therapy and adhd meds. The therapy helps you find ways to induce the production of dopamine, and with medicine, it means you have to go scrounging for dopamine less, which means your attention span will be longer. Dopamine is motivation juice. It is what motivates us to perform tasks. You can have very severe adhd and be perfectly functional if you're aware of what induces your brain to produce dopamine. Typically, dopamine is created by doing something fun and active. For me, that's rock climbing or whitewater kayaking. I rock climb 2-3 times a week for about an hour and then once or twice a week I go whitewater kayaking for 3 hours. The kayaking gives me tons of dopamine and paired with my adhd meds lasts about 2-3 days and I keep it going by rock climbing. The best thing you can do for your adhd is to prioritize the activities that make you happy and schedule them in a way that keeps the dopamine alive throughout the week. Adhd meds allow that time between the fun activities to be longer bc the capacity to store the dopamine is bigger, which means you can spend more time doing chores and responsibilities without getting burnt out from a lack of dopamine.

Thank you for this! I had a feeling that the negative connotations associated with them were from those who weren't actually prescribed them

Just remember that everyone is different and you might not get the right medication on the first try. I work as a pharmacy technician and we have many patients that have to take multiple types of ADHD meds to be able to get through their days. Some people talk way too much if they aren't medicated, etc. I was a b@*ch when I was unmedicated. I always had to be right, I got irritated easily. I've been on Ritalin LA for about 4 yrs now (I just turned 49) and there has been a huge improvement in my life. I don't get irritated as easily. If I get distracted I can usually find my way back to what I was doing pretty quickly and easily. Even my wife noticed a difference almost immediately. Just make sure to keep your doctor in the loop about your thoughts and feelings in how you feel the med is working otherwise you may be on the wrong med for too long and be getting no benefits.

The worst that can realistically happen at therapeutic dosage is sudden cardiac death, which is why many psychiatrists will have you go for a EKG/ECG beforehand. The next worst things are higher blood pressure so that's only an issue if high blood pressure already is. Then after that it's insomnia and poor appetite. It can also make you feel upset and all that. When people talk about it messing people up, they are usually referring to the dosages that one would take recreationally, which are a lot higher than someone would be prescribed. These can include psychosis and dependency. When I tried concerta for the second time it did not help me at all, made me cry and be upset more often and made me not want to eat or sleep. However, the day after I stopped taking it, everything was fine again. It will most likely take you a few times to find something that does work for you, in this case I discovered that concerta did not work for me. I am trying vyvanse now and I am not getting upset or anything and it is actually helping so I know that it's probably correct for me (although I do think the dose needs to be altered). If you are following the instructions and dosages given by your psychiatrist, then there isn't too much to worry about.