'kay. So I'm due to refill the dex on the 4th. Still have more than I'd need, but I'm gonna refill it to get that Mallinkrodt kind of generic that someone said was the best one.

So here's what I'm wondering...can this stuff just, like, up and stop working one day, or??? Really not functional today or yesterday. Not compared with how I was...but then, I haven't been sleeping for $hit, either. Sick at night most of the time.

Screw it, I don't know. I'm gonna hop my happy butt down to the drugstore I've never been to (Osco) that has the "good" generic form of Dexadrine and see if it's better. Don't want to up the dose. I'm not a fan of taking medicine, I just don't have a choice in the matter.

If you have some theory as to how/why I could be amazingly bright and remembering things like I haven't in a long time, to slow and confused and half dead (or as I like and have always liked to call it, "done gone and went stupid"--Draga might appreciate that wording, as she's southern) while still taking the medicine exactly as I have been, please let me know.


Chrys

one dude was telling me about how it can cause peaks and troughs. Though you dont take it to stimulate, it is stimulating a gland non-the-less. Eventualy this gland becomes "worn out" and needs time to recoperate from the increased production levels that it is not used to. You could comapre it to a blokes balls after a "hard" day / night, but i dont like comparing my balls with my brain (no blokes brain location joke please). Just a thaught. The guy who explained it all to me is very knoledgable about health, meds and that sort of thing and i trust his judgment on such issues.

Amphetamines and methylphenidate gradually reduce in effectiveness depending on the action of the NMDA receptors in your brain, I believe. Every person is different in this regard. Tolerance doesn't really come from "gland" issues.

Stimulants don't usually just stop working - I imagine that your lack of sleep and other factors are what's dulling you down. You may find that the "rush" you get when first taking stimulants will diminish, and this is normal. This doesn't mean that you are developing a tolerance, rather your body and brain is simply getting more used to the medication. The improvements to focus and such will remain - as long as you get enough sleep! Stimulants will keep you awake, but they are not a substitute for sleep. Hopefully you will be feeling better soon and once you get a good nights sleep (or two) I'll bet you'll find the medication works as before.

KN- Actually, I find the same thing happens to me! One day on dex I'll be able to put the most brilliant sentences together and have people in awe of my summations and the next day I'm like, "I---uh---need the company card---COO approved for me to---in order to make---reservations." I've heard that our monthly menstural cycle could be the cause of this, affecting the metabolization of the meds. Just wanted to let you know that I get the same thing. Am also on generics, Barr.

KN- Actually, I find the same thing happens to me! One day on dex I'll be able to put the most brilliant sentences together and have people in awe of my summations and the next day I'm like, "I---uh---need the company card---COO approved for me to---in order to make---reservations." I've heard that our monthly menstural cycle could be the cause of this, affecting the metabolization of the meds. Just wanted to let you know that I get the same thing. Am also on generics, Barr.
It's like a brain fart in the middle of a conversation, or at the beginning (see cell phone-call related message to Gregster), and your theory makes sense, 'cause we know seizure activity (theorized to be a factor behind my junk, out of many factors) is aggravated by hormones...

Glad to know I'm not alone!

Chrys

Stimulants don't usually just stop working - I imagine that your lack of sleep and other factors are what's dulling you down. You may find that the "rush" you get when first taking stimulants will diminish, and this is normal. This doesn't mean that you are developing a tolerance, rather your body and brain is simply getting more used to the medication. The improvements to focus and such will remain - as long as you get enough sleep! Stimulants will keep you awake, but they are not a substitute for sleep. Hopefully you will be feeling better soon and once you get a good nights sleep (or two) I'll bet you'll find the medication works as before.
Well, I went to bed @ 3:30 last night (this morning, actually, and just got up @ 11:30, so that's, what, 8 hours? It seems like it's getting worse. For example--just a little example of one minor thing among like 4-5 incidents that day--I called my friend & husband the other day about different things as soon as I thought about it. As soon as they picked up, literally, it just disappeared from my mind...I was like..."I called to...uh...ask you..uh...oh, what the f*** was it...crap...it'll come to me...so how are you?" Then out of no where, it popped into my head, and I interrupted them and blurted it out because I knew I'd lose it (the thought) again if I didn't say it immediately. Very, very mild example.

Now, I know that happens to all people from time to time, but it happen(ed)/(s) to me consistently, and I tend to annoy (though they wouldn't tell me 'cause they know it's not my fault) people who don't have free incoming calls just because the hamster in my brain has stopped running (old joke: I.E. "Chrystine's got one lazy @ss hamster--never runs, just lays around.")

I tend to build up tolerances really fast--when I first started taking the tons of meds I take, they'd work for a long time, but after drug-after-drug-after-drug, it seems like I adjust to them pretty damn fast. On some level I guess it could be compared to when an alcoholic has their first drink and then several years later when drinking--it's just sort of normal, then...no real "fun" to it anymore, not effective in bringing on some sort of silliness like it did at first.

Chrys

Amphetamines and methylphenidate gradually reduce in effectiveness depending on the action of the NMDA receptors in your brain, I believe. Every person is different in this regard. Tolerance doesn't really come from "gland" issues.
I wouldn't know. I tend to know about most things: drugs I'm on, seizures, effects of them--but this whole dex thing and what it's supposed to do and why he was inspired to put me on it--has thrown me for a loop I guess.

He tried to explain it all to me, but it didn't make much sense--sometimes his speech itself is hard to understand, and he doesn't ever use layman's terms, so someone with no knowledge of medical science would be totally f***ed, whereas I'm just partially f***, having grown up somewhat in the middle of the medical fied.

I'm a unique case. Supposedly I don't have ADD--I just have seizure junk from brain damage that presents itself similarly to symptoms of ADD in some ways.

Chrys

one dude was telling me about how it can cause peaks and troughs. Though you dont take it to stimulate, it is stimulating a gland non-the-less. Eventualy this gland becomes "worn out" and needs time to recoperate from the increased production levels that it is not used to. You could comapre it to a blokes balls after a "hard" day / night, but i dont like comparing my balls with my brain (no blokes brain location joke please). Just a thaught. The guy who explained it all to me is very knoledgable about health, meds and that sort of thing and i trust his judgment on such issues.
Greeaaat comparison. I get your metaphor thing, though. We use a lot of metaphors in describing my junk.

Chrys

1) Basically, this whole "seems to have stopped working" thing is not just freaking me out--it's freaking darn near everyone out. So let's hope it's temporary, like Gregster suggested.

2)Question: About that "we weren't sure if I had ADD but now he says I don't" thing--does it pi$$ y'all off who really have ADD that I even participate on this forum, then? Hate to use such a phrase, but am I unworthy? Mostly started getting on here just to find out some stuff about the medicine, which has proven to be a very good idea. Thought I'd ask if you guys didn't think I should be here.

Later...just got my new cell phone in the mail (dad put me on their family plan because my pre-paid cost a heck of a lot of money, and they had to buy a different phone to make the change) and I have to program it (and play with it in general, ex., see where I can put the "reminders" that are completely necessary to remember junk w/ me.) My husband hates cell phones--especially with ringtones--and he was in the room when I just set this one with "Mozart Symphony No. 40."

Later...

Chrys

well i cant speak 4 everyone, and im powerless but how were you to know, your doc got it wrong, its his / her fault. From what i know, diagnosis of ADhD is frikin dificult at best anyway. If you do decide to drop the forum, or if your forced to, pm me with your email address. (i could just copy it down now off you profile but im slack, want to go home and dont have a pen or paper with me) so that a "continuation of our comunication" (was feeling semi-poetic) can be, err, performed. Being poetic means im having to look for odd, long words now to make it all read right, so im gona shut up.

KN- Actually, I find the same thing happens to me! One day on dex I'll be able to put the most brilliant sentences together and have people in awe of my summations and the next day I'm like, "I---uh---need the company card---COO approved for me to---in order to make---reservations." I've heard that our monthly menstural cycle could be the cause of this, affecting the metabolization of the meds. Just wanted to let you know that I get the same thing. Am also on generics, Barr.Rofl i was tryng to figure out if i was the only one doing that, one day it all comes together the next i'm as dumb as a post, I just got back from the doctor today to get my refill i was saying the same thing about the generic some days it's lest all day next day wears off at noon or sometimes it's like i doubled the dose it's too much like now took at 2pm it's 1am eastrean a 15mg has my mind flying like i took 50.

edit that's how i found this site looking for an aswer to that.

Well, but that's just it. He said from the start (and I think I said something about it when I first started on here; that I mostly needed some advice about the meds, not really the disorder, since I didn't necessarily have ADD, and it was kind of an experiment) that it might (well, probably) be ADD symptoms that could be treatable with ADD meds, even though they're probably caused by the neurological junk. His theory/experiment was more about the meds than the diagnosis, really. Since he has now openly expressed that he is doubtful that I truly have the disorder, it seems rather odd or perhaps kind of unfair (?) that I participate in a forum specifically meant for people with ADD to help and talk to other people with ADD. Not necessarily girls with brain damage and seizures and memory loss who happen to take ADD meds for it.

Get what I'm saying? He didn't really get it wrong. He wasn't really sure--actually, he was doubtful about it--to begin with, and literally said, "I'm just going to write a diagnosis of ADD on here, ok? That way your insurance will pay for it. Plus, your symptoms parallel ADD in many ways, and did especially during your childhood. So in some ways, if a doctor hadn't looked at your MRIs, they might think your disorganized thinking and lack of short term memory could quite likely be ADD. No one would know that my opinion isn't really reflecting the diagnosis on this form at this point. We'll just try the meds, ok? Since the symptoms parallel, anyway, it might work..."

And they did...well, for a while they did a lot, and now they do sort of, though for the past couple of days I've returned to "stupidhood" (no, people with ADD who are not medicated are not in a state of stupidity, that's not what I'm saying--think major ADD, unmedicated plus Alzheimer's symptoms. That is me pre-dex, in a non-amphetamine state, as I have been since the late teen/early adulthood years when this crap suddenly got worse.) I refer to it as stupidhood jokingly. Humor and cynicism are coping mechanisms for me, and I realize it.

I'll see the guy on Monday. Maybe he'll want to raise the dose. Maybe the lessened effectiveness of the dex is entirely due to lack of sleep. Either way, I think it's a pretty sure thing that he doesn't really think I have ADD, no matter what my insurance thinks.

Either way, whatever, if people get ****ed and want me to stop discussing stuff here, I'll understand. Sure, it's "just a web forum." But it's specifically designated to support people with a disorder that I just don't have, and I respect that, and wish not to waste people's time on someone who doesn't even really have their diagnosis, just takes the meds. That's all.

Chrys

Rofl i was tryng to figure out if i was the only one doing that, one day it all comes together the next i'm as dumb as a post, I just got back from the doctor today to get my refill i was saying the same thing about the generic some days it's lest all day next day wears off at noon or sometimes it's like i doubled the dose it's too much like now took at 2pm it's 1am eastrean a 15mg has my mind flying like i took 50.

edit that's how i found this site looking for an aswer to that.
Yeah...even though I've been in this glitch-mode where the dex is seemingly a placebo all of a sudden for a couple of days or so, it doesn't help that I'm not sleeping, and then sleeping as late as possible, (I'll go to bed at around 3 or 4 and then taking the dex at like, 10 a.m. or noon, thus starting the vicious cycle all over. What can I say? I'm a dumb@ss sometimes.)

knitting did you ever try the time relase??

i got a free month never tried it yet but he siad that's the better of the two actully not thread jack but how much more is the time relase and generic if any knows?? thanks

knitting did you ever try the time relase??

i got a free month never tried it yet but he siad that's the better of the two actully not thread jack but how much more is the time relase and generic if any knows?? thanksI don't know a ton about it; I've only been on this stuff for a month, and came here (to the forum) to find out about the Dex itself 'cause I was all freaked out at first (they chilled me out.) I think someone said the time release ones (they're called spansules; I've been on a lot of meds over the years, and have never heard that word, perhaps it's just something the Dex people came up with--and yeah, I'm on 'em) are supposed to work for four hours after you take them, then release more for another 4, and so on. I think--now, mind you, again, I'm not all that much of an expert on it--that it's supposed to last in total 16 hours.

I don't know if the other non-time release ones would work better; when my doc first wanted to try me on the stuff, he just knew that memory-wise, I'm not real reliable on taking stuff except in the AM and PM--extra doses during the day are just not going to work, 'cause I'll probably forget to take them.

Basically, it kind of makes sense that they last around 16 hours, if that's correct, 'cause if I sleep in and then take them at 11:00 AM, I'll generally be up until, oh, 3 am or worse. That's when I make a zillion posts on the forum, usually; in the early morning hours when I'm bored as hell and have nothing to do.

On the generic situation, apparently dex is unique about it. I got the script filled, came home, and found this forum and joined it. So then I was looking around, and saw an entry that said "Generic Dex Problem SOLVED!" or something, and it turned out that one manufacturer of the time-release spansules is supposed to suck--BARR pharmaceuticals. So I looked at the bottle of the meds I hadn't even tried yet, and lo and behold--BARR pharmaceuticals. The best generic manufacturer of this drug is supposed to be Mallinkrodt; I usually go to Walgreens, and they only carry the BARR ones, but across the street is an Osco, and they said they have Mallinkrodt ones as well as BARR ones.

(Unfortunately, I could get more on the 4th, but when I went there, they said they only had 20 of the Mallinkrodt and would have to order more. :( Called this morning, and they said, "Oh, well we called it in on Thursday or Friday when you were here, but they don't ship on weekends, so you will probably have to wait until Monday or Tuesday." Ugh. Not totally out of the BARR ones, so it's not a dire situation, but dangit...I'm just impatient in nature, and want to see if the Mallinkrodt ones are truly miraculous (not that I think anyone's bluffing about the good mfg. vs. bad mfg. of the generic dex spansules, y'all--I'm talking about the level of superiority, is all.)

Anyway, the time release ones seem to be ok, but then, I can't compare them to the alternative, multi-dose-per-day ones. Maybe someone else could help you with that.

Did this help at all?

Chrys

any infor helps it was one of those i thought maybe :)

Glad to be of service.