Since age six till about eighteen I have been taking Dexedrine to help in school and keep little david still. I am now 26 and 2 years of medication changes the only thing that worked well was the same thing I started with. I have been reading books and really got intrested in understanding this disorder. In the process I realised that my mother is most likely where i got it and NO Question She has it. My mother had a heavy drug addiction back in the eightys and early nightys. So her doctor put her on Strattera due to previous addiction. She has now been taking it 6 months and complains that she feels speedy and like she doing some type of speed. I am really confused with this, is this common? She told her doctor and he told her that she should keep taking it since its made a world of diffrence. How can it be stimulating when its a non-stimulant? Do you think she should stop taking it or try an anti-depressant?

Does she acknowledge any benefits from the medication? How do you view her on medications vs. off,and how have the meds changed her life functionally? Unless someone is truly destructive, pushing them too much towards medication is pretty rude and pointless. Doctor's need to respect their patients subjective experience and sense of self, even if it flies in the face of what they view as positive changes!

I'm not sure I've heard much about Strattera making patients speedy. Obviously it is a stimulating compound, and people can feel anxious or keyed up, agitated, or overly stimulated. But a subjective feeling of overstimulation seems to occur in a minority, while most people get tired or groggy, or amotivated for awhile at least.

One problem with Strattera is that it is very subtle and it is difficult for people to characterize how it has helped them, even though it may have helped them a great deal.

Here's something to consider, though: If your mother has reformed herself and is no longer abusing substances, then she should be treated with a stimulant, unless of course her drug of choice was amphetamine. It depends alot on her individual mindset and history. If she is interested in seeing treatment through, and is willing to take an active role, including some basic education on the disorder and the meds used to treat it, then she's a prime candidate. But if she will likely be haphazard with the meds, or is likely to experiment with them, stimulants are out the question.

Many people who have had addictions have done very well on stimulant medications, even if their drug of choice was a stimulant. So many individuals with ADHD have had problems with addiction, and treating the underlying problem will make them less likely to abuse substances further. People with ADHD and histories of addiction should not be banned from taking stimulants. Although non-stimulant approaches may be preferable as first-line therapy for those with abuse histories, introducing stimulants if other treatments have failed, can be a Godsend. It depends very much on the individual circumstance, and in the art of diagnosis, many clinicians can (understandably) err too far on the side of caution when it comes to this issue.

Hope this helps,