Last week as I was coming off the medication, I have found myself excessively chatty (still happening). I noticed people 'casually' looking at their clocks or even saying "Well, I have some things I have to do now..." as my conversations ran on and on. My conversational skills are surprisingly interesting to me. No matter what others think.
Plus I have been quite fidgety. My right leg shakes up and down almost non stop. I should take up playing the spoons. Shaky shaky shaky. I shift in my chair a lot. I walk about during breaks to help me clarify next steps - which is a deliberate attempt to make explicit some working memory improvement techniques I am trying. I think it helps. I talk to myself quietly - "Okay, I must do X, Y and then Z..." and get it straight in my head before launching into a frenzy of productive energy. Were I not to plan it out, I'd likely launch into a frenzy of frenetic, unguided, unproductive activity...
Tomorrow I'm going to my family doctor to follow up on the psych consult I had recently, where the psychiatrist concluded that I should come off of Strattera and go onto Vyvanse. I have become inured to the fact that delays in my medical treatment will likely keep on happening. Heck, it has taken me 40 years to find out I have ADHD, so what's another few years?
Official prediction: I will go to my family doctor's office tomorrow and he will insist that I take a panoply of tests prior to getting the prescription (despite having had heart and blood tests for Strattera just 10 months ago). This will inevitably lead to a delay, and I won't get the Vyvanse prescription until a period in time when everyone will have their own private flying car, when all you will need to eat in a day is a single condensed pill with a glass of synthetic orange juice, and robots will have replaced the need for us to work.
I would rather lower my expectations and be surprised (i.e. get a prescription for Vyvanse immediately following my appointment tomorrow), than have high expectations and be disappointed, despite the fact that I oughtta know better by now.
I hope I'm wrong.
:-)
Cheerios,
Mungo
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your doctor reminds me of mine. i'm waiting for her to call so i can get the show on the road(adhd/depression). too many test and reading she does. I know she means well but im a little miserable right now and im pretty sure an antidepressant will do.
ReplyDeleteI saw my Dr this week and she started me on Adderall and is having me taper off my Straterra at the same time. She wrote the scrip for the regular Adderall - not the extended release, so it would be cheaper for me. I'm taking it with 40 mg of Straterra instead of the 80 I had worked up to. After 7 days on the 40's I step down to 25 mg per day.
ReplyDeleteI'm feeling cautious, so I'm taking the 20 mg Adderall in the a.m., but skipping the lunch time dose. I'm unemployed at the moment so if I'm not "on my game" in the afternoon it's not an issue.
Wow .... after browsing the posts and comments I feel like I've really got a long way to go. I started taking straight up Ritalin--my first foray into ADHD meds--a little over two months ago, and I'm just trying to figure that dosage out. Started @ 10mg, then 20mg, then 30mg, then 40mg ... decided night before last to drop back to 30mg. I've been aggro, impulsively invasive, irritated and just generally bummed out--and this has all been happening since I increased to 40mg/day. So, I'm back to 30mg/day with an appt scheduled with my doc at the end of May. I know he wants to engage with me about Strattera .... but, I've at least found some modicum of relief with Ritalin and would like the opportunity to fine tune that before I go willy-nilly with all these other pills.
ReplyDeleteIs any body out there on the old-school twice-a-day Ritakin regime?
It really IS annoying to have to jump through some of these hoops. Personally, I generally want my GP to have NOTHING to do with my mental health treatment. Psych pros are already playing a game that involves a lot of guesswork and GP's aren't even trained in this stuff. But oh well. I mean I guess at least they're going to become REALLY intimate with whatever is going on in your blood stream :) Good luck!
ReplyDeleteSo, how goes it?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous here again: I have finished tapering off the Straterra and have stepped up from 20 mg Adderall in the a.m. to a second dose of 20 mg at lunch. I have noticed that with Straterra I felt alert right away in the mornings and without it I struggle to get my brain in gear. I'm trying to get up a little early, take the Adderall and go back to bed for an hour. Another change is the mouth dryness - it's much better now that I'm off Straterra.
ReplyDeleteAbout 3.5 hours after my morning dose of Adderall my mind starts "ping ponging" and my work (contract) slows down. I'm hoping at my next apptmt my Dr will prescribe the extended release form of it.
One issue my Dr didn't tell me about - you can't take a proton pump inhibitor WITH the Adderall in the a.m. I learned this from my own research online. The PPI's reduce the acid in the stomach by 95% and thus change the absorption of Adderall in some way.
So now I take Adderall in the a.m. with a few bites of banana, then a few hours later I (try to remember to ) take my Prilosec, then after lunch I take Prozac and the second Adderall. It's a complex schedule and I hope to get to something more simple. This weekend I'll try taking the Prozac with the morning dose of Adderall and see how that goes. I've always avoided taking meds on an empty stomach but I need to get my schedule simplied and with one extended release Adderall in the a.m, with a Prozac, I won't have to remember anything other than the Prilosec before lunch.
On the Adderall I'm doing a better job of checking my work for errors, and still getting it done quickly and efficiently. With the Straterra I could get physical projects done around the house, but was fidgety at the office.
Anonymous, again: I saw my dr friday and asked for the Adderall XR. The regular form of 20 mg Adrl was wearing off right at 4 hours each morning at work, and since I'm working till 7 or 8 every night I was holding off until after lunch to take the second dose. She agreed but said she can't predict how long the XR will work - for some people it's only 6 hours. She gave me another scrip for the regular version also so if the XR wears off long before I can leave work I can take one of the short acting.
ReplyDeleteToday was my first day on the XR and it's DEFINITELY smother acting. I'd love to try Vyvanse but I don't think she's very up to date on all the alternative meds for adults with ADD and I don't want to push. I work too many hours right now to try a new dr.
Good luck to you and your roller coaster. I too have a.d.d. I should be studying but instead I have wandered - this time to your page. God speed to your adventure, health and continued sharing.
ReplyDeleteI began reading but I couldn't stay with it for more than two paragraphs. I will come back and do your blog proper respect later. I am just over 40 - medicated for 15 - and have much to say and even more to learn.
I am in a state of fatigue with the system and their pharmacies. I am doing Ritalin solely. I have had my adventures/misadventures and going to start rambling.
I'll comment more later or perhaps write directly to you. I just needed to be here, right now and to tell someone who might understand.