Hi all,


Does anyone know if caffeine dependance and/or withdrawl reduces any of Dexedrine's effects?

I seem to have lost some of the effects of Dexedrine sometime in the last few weeks. I am pretty concerned because it's been working great for about 6 months now, and suddenly in the last few weeks it hasn't been doing very much.

I did take a one-week break from Dex recently, and during that period I had the great idea of taking "Wake-Ups" to keep me stimulated at work....meaning I was taking between 800-1000 mg of the stuff per day (about 8-10 cups of coffee per day). When I went back to the Dexedrine, I didn't quite have the same stimulation going on, and still don't really. I'm kind of scatterbrained, am having a harder time holding onto my thoughts, even when I'm having really amazing thoughts I'm just thinking about something else like 2 minutes later. Even when hanging out with friends I'm barely piecing the words together from one single sentence they're saying to me. I'm finding myself incredibly "spaced out" in general, like if I wasn't making a concious effort to think and do stuff, I would just be sitting here like a vegetable not thinking about anything at all. I've actually resorted to drinking a cup of coffee or two per day with the Dexedrine so I don't go to work and just wind up having to use my maximum brain power just to keep myself actively doing things.

I would have thought that after taking a break from Dexedrine I would come back to it with more of a response to it. Is this caffeine situation possibly causing me problems?

Caffeine is a psychomotor stimulant that has the same effect as many stimulants. Your body will undergo withdrawal from it if you cut it quickly, despite the other stimulant...while having a new stimulant may slightly reduce the effect of the caffeine withdrawal, the caffeine withdrawal would have negative effects.

"...while having a new stimulant may slightly reduce the effect of the caffeine withdrawal, the caffeine withdrawal would have negative effects..."

Since you seem to know stuff about stimulants, let me ask you this- do I need to go off of my dexedrine as well as caffeine now, in order to go back to getting the stimulant effects? Will the caffeine dependance wear off and I will go back to normal, or by taking my meds am I doing nothing more than feeding a heavy stimulant dependance with a relatively small amount of stimulant?

The stimulant effects don't really go away - you get used to them and the side effects diminish. You can develope a tolerence for amphetamines, but generally when you are taking enourmous quantities - i.e. abusing. I suspect that the feeling you have is more due to caffeine withdrawl. 1 gram of caffeine a day is a lot of caffeine!
Dexedrine and caffeine shouldn't really effect each other when it comes to dependance and withdrawl - they work in totally different ways - so it shouldn't matter if you stop taking the dexedrine or not.
It's pretty common for ADHDers to drink huge amounts of coffee or to take caffeine pills - it's a form of self medication. I used to drink buckets full of coffee until my gut decided that it didn't like coffee, so now my body is "self limited" to 1 cup per day. Not good to mix lots of coffee and prescription stimulants - it's too much stimulation!

I have a double shot coffee most mornings with my dex and have no issues.. and its out of one of the really kick *** coffee machines that use the beans etc ;) Delonghi.. oh i love it. Although my mornings are not the same as 'normal' people. I find no desire to have anymore coffee after that.