I had a doctors visit yesterday, and he wants to up me from Concerta 18mg to 36mg. He told me I could take two 18mg to use up my supply.

I still have some Ritalin LA 10mg left from the first month. It had a high copay (my insurance prefers Concerta), so I'd like to not waste it.

So I'm wondering if there'd be a problem in theory taking 1 Concerta 18mg and 1 Ritalin LA 10mg instead of 2 Concerta. I know it's the same medicine, just with a different release mechanism.

I know I should ask the doctor this, but he's hard to reach. I guess I'm wondering if there's a good reason to not do this.

I'm just bumping this in case it got lost. Does anybody have an opinion either way on this?

i'd just advise asking your doctor.

i don't know much about the different meds and how they work ... but, if it's a different release mechanism, i wonder if you might risk getting too much or not enough at any given time.

what about taking two ritalin together until they are gone, then proceed as your doctor directed with the concerta???

put in a call to your doctor though. you'll get a difinitive answer you can be comfortable with and i'm *sure* that the doctor will understand that you don't want to waste the ritalin la ...

i'm innatentive type and am taking adderall ... the longer release stuff. haven't been on it long enough to report results though. before this i was taking dexedrine.... but, every 4 hours was inconvenient. my symptoms improved a lot though while i was taking it.

if expense is a big issue, and you pay a percentage of the subscirption, i wonder if the pharamist would fill 1 week or 2 weeks at a time, so, if it doesn't work you don't end up with expensive medicine that you can't use....

The thing is Blue Cross give a big hassle about Ritalin LA. They were happy to cover plain Ritalin or Concerta, but for LA they wanted an exemption form from the doctor, and a $35 copay each time I filled it. Concerta would cost me half that, and I think it works a little better.

The different release mechanism is my concern too. Since he put me on 36mg Concerta, does that mean 18mg Concerta + 10mg LA = 28mg, or does it not work that way? I did try doubling the LA, it seemed to have less effect than a single LA. Weird. But it took longer to wear off.

My doctor sucks, you can't easily reach him, his secretary is useless. Last time I was there, I asked him about adderall, he poo-poo'ed it, saying it wouldn't be any different than Ritalin, even though I see people on here all the time report better results with Adderall, but that's getting off topic.

Maybe the pharmacist might be able to answer this?