Hi,

Is anyone else taking Adderall along with SSRI-type antidepression meds?

I've been on Effexor XR + Celexa for a long time and it has at least kept me functional. Just added Adderall 10 mg AM, 10mg afternoon. Unsure of the result yet.

Please share your experiences!

I was put on Zoloft in November. Then started Adderall in February. Seems to be working fine for me.


From what I understand, its pretty common to be taking adhd meds and ssri's at the same time.

My therapist recommended a combination of the two (stimulent and SSRI) to my doctor if my depression didn't ease with stimulent alone. I tried Prozac with Concerta for 3 days, but didn't like the effect, so I quit early.


Also in the book You Mean I'm not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy? by Ramundo and Kelly, it talks about the combination too as well as in books by Brown, Hallowell and Ratey, and others.

Scattered

I never did well on Adderall for an extended period. It made me depressed. I've never taken Adderall WITHOUT an SSRI because I've been on antidepressants forever.

I went back to Ritalin and Lexapro, and I take Lamictal as well. Keeps me sane most of the time :). My doctor and I are considering adding Wellbutrin or Requip, or possibly switching out Ritalin in favor of Provigil. I'll keep you posted :)

Good luck on the Adderall. Many people do wonderful on it.

I've been taking 30mg of Prozac daily for a dozen years.

In November, I started taking Adderall XR.

At first I worried a little about the possibility that Adderall made the Prozac less effective, but most of that was probably due to the week I spent taking the wrong dose (of Prozac - long story).

I've been good with both.

I take 10 mgs of prozac and 20 mgs of adderall. I am really happy with the results!

Hay Folks!!

Great answers. Honestly you seem better educated about ADD/ADHD than my docs.

Long story short, I was deeply depressed for about 5 years. I think I'm coming out of the other end of that, and getting my life sorted out.

Before the depression I was a heavy-duty business analyst. Taking the first baby steps back into that, I'm having problems with self-created distraction, missing details, difficulty completing things.

My theory goes like this. I mught have had some level of ADD/ADHD since childhood, but subconciously developed controls or whatever. AFTER the depression the change is wild -- really, profoundly ADD. Hope I don't offend anybody, but I think of it as a stroke or brain injury, simply because there is such a big difference -- and it scares me to death!!! Serious depression was bad enough, but profound ADD, oh God this could take away everything I have defined as "me." Scared does not get close to how I feel.

I've reached out in several places on this board, but no one has taken on this concern. If you are on an antidepressant and taking Adderall, you might be just the right person to talk with. PLEASE help.... PM me if you like. Thanks, snodfart71

Hi,

Is anyone else taking Adderall along with SSRI-type antidepression meds?

I've been on Effexor XR + Celexa for a long time and it has at least kept me functional. Just added Adderall 10 mg AM, 10mg afternoon. Unsure of the result yet.

Please share your experiences!My daily intake is as follows-

Effexor XR- 225mg (3- 75mg daily, down from 450mg before I was taking anything else)
Wellbutrin XL- 150mg (possibly increasing to 300mg and decreasing Effexor)
BuSpar- 30-45mg (two or three 15mg depending on anxiety level)
Adderall- 60mg (2x30mg)

My doctor has a high success rate with the combo above. My best friend goes to the same doctor and he's on the same meds, although only 150mg Effexor and 40mg Adderall.

I was on Effexor XR at a very high dose of 450mg for a few years. My old MD put me on it and it helped for a while, but fizzled out. My new doc said it wsa only approved up to 225mg, so I was taking way too much. He's been tapering me down 75mg per month until I go off it and the Wellbutrin is going to 300mg. Hopefully that'll take care of everything. It seems to be working quite well, though.


Are you taking regular Adderall and not the XL formulation? How does it seem to be working so far?

What about Adderall and St. John's Wort??

Is that considered safe??

I've been considering taking St. John's, I already take adderall. My dr. is awful for these type of questions.

I live in a small town so I don't have access to a knowledgeable Dr.

there's a thread down in the main medication forum where this was discussed. my opinion is no, it's not a very safe combination on paper, and there is one user on this board who has reported odd and unknown side effects from the combination.

The drug information that came with either my Adderall or Zoloft said not to use St. John's Wort with it. Sorry but I no longer have that info, so I dont remember which!

Have you looked on the Adderall website (Shire pharmaceuticals) ?

20 mg Adderall, 300 mg Wellbutrin every morning works great for me!

based on my own experience, effexor, wellbutrin, and adderall go together nicely.

my regimine was simlilar to that of allfiredup's. (see his/her above post)


this was my daily breakdown:

225 milligrams of effexor xr (75mg/3 times a day)
300 milligrams of wellbutrin (100mg/3 times a day)
50 milligrams of adderall (20 in the am/20 at lunch/10 in the evening)
20 milligrams of valium (5mg/4 times a day)

i refer to the effexor/wellbutrin/adderall combo as "the holy trinity." and as a side-note, adderall is only effective for me when in it's immediate release preperation. the "rollercoaster" effect of adderall xr and it's unpredictable nature actually hinders me more than it helps.

I'm on 30 mg of AdderallXR and 150 mg Zoloft and it works well together.
A cup of coffee in the morning doesn't hurt, either. :)

The drug information that came with either my Adderall or Zoloft said not to use St. John's Wort with it. Sorry but I no longer have that info, so I dont remember which!

Have you looked on the Adderall website (Shire pharmaceuticals) ?Omg.

I just tried St. John's and really zonked me out. It also gave me a mild headache.

I was just wishing for my old self to return, the drug has finally worn off.

What a disaster. Never again.

ps. I didn't see anything saying the two mixes were bad, but St. John's isn't right for me.

Yuk. :eyebrow:

Hay folks,

For my kind of depression, Effexor XR 150mg x2, Celexa 40mg x2 has been great. Nothing else worked as well, and two drugs Zoloft and Paxil made me ill or wierd+wired, respecrively. But everyone is different.

As the depresion lifts after 5+ years, I see clear ADD stuff. Focus, concentration and what I think of as mental or intellectual energy are the big issues for me. Spent a lot of time trying to differentiate this from the stuff that goes with depression - tired, unmotivated, very mentally flat. So I'm real clear that what I'm calling ADD, whatever it is, is very different from what I had been experiencing with depression.

Unfortunately my old doc is no longer available. New doctor on first visit agreed with me to go into this as a trial - gave me Adderall 10mg AM and early afternoon. VERY little if any change. Week 2 Adderall at 15mg AM, 15mg afternoon clear change but very mild. Better concentration, easier to get deeply involved in my work for longer periods of time, but no change in my FOCUS. Still easily distracted.

So, next visit with the new doc, I'm going to try to switch off of Celexa for Wellbutrin XL at 300mg - even if I have to taper down then taper on/up; Stay on Effexor; increase Adderall 30mg / 30mg knowing that it might have to go a bit higher.

QUESTION: If Adderall helps with depth of concentration as I think it will, what med is known to help with focus/staying on task? Maybe the Wellbutrin+Adderall will do the trick?

Sorry, but I'm very new to all of this. It's very frightening. Before the depression I was sort of *the* on-task guy.

I'm an economist and business researcher/analyst. Believe it or not the job requires a combination of being able to dive deep into things that might seem boring, but when you begin to see patterns it becomes very interesting. That's half of it. The other half is more creative - being able to find unique relationships and make it all understandable in clear, concise ways.

I'm not an academic so naturally everything is needed yesterday! Staying focused, aware of time, and delivering the goods is a big deal.

Thanks - that's my rant (or cry) for the day. Any ideas, especially about the distraction issues?

-- snod

ps. I didn't see anything saying the two mixes were bad, but St. John's isn't right for me.

Yuk. :eyebrow:Keep in mind that the substance you're talking about doesn't come from a manufacturing process that is regulated. There are very wide variations the end product.

Personally, I am very wary of any part of this industry. I take Omegas, but nothing else and even the omegas are "just in case" because the research is somewhat promising.

QUESTION: If Adderall helps with depth of concentration as I think it will, what med is known to help with focus/staying on task? Maybe the Wellbutrin+Adderall will do the trick?
Not likely. We all have different issues & we all respond differently to meds.

You might find that slightly higher doses of Adderall help with staying on task, but you might not. You might find that Ritalin or another med works better for you overall.

Personally, I find focus & concentration greatly improved on Adderall, but I'm much MORE impulsive & I run at the mouth!


I'm not an academic so naturally everything is needed yesterday! Staying focused, aware of time, and delivering the goods is a big deal.:eyebrow: As an academic, I've got to say you've got the wrong idea of academics! I spent 10 years in the business world before returning to school and an academic career and I can tell you it's just as time-centered (in some ways more) and demanding as any company I've worked for!

:)

Hi barbyma,

Sorry about the 'not an academic' comment. You made me remember being a TA a million years ago. Yes, *that* was worse than anything I've ever done in business, on top of getting my own work done. Uggh. My department had more Nobel Lauriates and past or future Fed Gov's than you can shake a stick (or really large baseball bat) at. Thoes guys really did sit on their rears a lot! Anyway, thanks for the memory <tightly clinched grin>

Yes barbyma, I had not thought of the word "impulsive," but it's perfect!! I get really absorbed in some trivial, no not trivial but *tangential* thing and blow half the day on it.

Before my depression, which was really deep and prolonged, that impulsive quality kind of worked for the better, because I would find all kinds of interesting relationships that I'd be otherwise closed to. I don't have the same role in life that I had then. Related I think is the desire to "boil the whole ocean" when I work on a project. I used to coach early career analysis about not falling into this trap, and now I find myself drawn to it. As you might know from your work, by time I can SEE that I've way over done something, I've just burned up 2 or 3 days, and I have to re-work the whole project. Not that I mind the extra work, but now I'm "behind the 8-ball."

At first I thought I was just becoming a flake. Then I thought I was brain damaged. Now I know it's a specific set of things that can be managed. I'm sure I'd catch h*** for this, but for me it's nothing short of learning to walk again.

Oh God, to overcome this!! AARGGGH^10!

Loved Adderall but hated every Depression med I ever tried. The good depressions meds were the ones that did nothing the bad ones obviously were the ones that caused problems. The worst for me was Effexor XR the best was probably Celexa. I think Celexa was the only one I got a positive result from but that was only for a month or two then it never helped again.

Strattera was originally developed as an anti-depressant, and for me at least, it was, for the longest time, the only thing that worked to counteract my depression - I had been tried on literally everything, including the MAOI's and ECT ! I took the Strattera, along with Adderall, until I had another bout of depression and needed something more. Lexapro was added to the mix, and the depression resolved within a couple weeks. When I found out that Cymbalta was essentially a combination of Lexapro and Strattera, we decided to give it a try. It works very well at 60mg once a day.
Keith :p

I used to take Adderall for 20mg 3 times a day for a year. Not doing much at all. And I realized I was depressed. My doc added Wellbutrin starting at 100mg in AM and I should gradually reducing my adderall dosage.

So Wellbutrin 100 mg and Adderall 20mg in AM...for 6 days already...

A bit exciting. I have a huge research paper due on monday. I used to procrastinate till the last minute because I can't focus on the reading. But somehow I got the motivation to start on my assignment. I just realized I had been reading these boring scientific journal articles for 3 days. And I have been sitting on my chair for few hours working on the paper. OMG.

And suddenly I cleaned my whole room. And I made my bed 2 days in a row now.

OMG...too good to be true...I hope the med will work on me for real.

I used to take Adderall for 20mg 3 times a day for a year. Not doing much at all. And I realized I was depressed. My doc added Wellbutrin starting at 100mg in AM and I should gradually reducing my adderall dosage. I'm sorry it took a year to discover, but thrilled for you that you've nailed it!

I noticed during my first week on Adderall that it won't work without the 30mg of Prozac I've been taking for 12 years.

In the past few days I've also noticed that I have not been able to do what I need to do and wondered what the chances were of receiving a "bad batch" of Adderall! I have been somewhat discouraged that Adderall wasn't doing its job all of a sudden, then I read your post & it hit me.

I've had a crazy schedule the last week and forgot to take my Prozac at least twice!

Thank you for restoring my faith!

dfac001 -- That sounds really hopeful!! Send some of that mojo my way. I don't get grades for my papers anymore, just a few dollars. Got a big one due Wednesday. Spent the whole blessed day fixing a corrupted Word file, ya know?

-snod

Interesting thing happened on the way to Adderall Hopefulnesss:

On 10mg/10mg of the plain salts, I have not had much effect. But I have noticed a sense of peacefulness during the day. I'd have expected that from Xanex or something, or a good meditation session. Seems odd to me. Anyone else had that experience?

--snod71

my zoloft doesnt do nothin to me when i take My adderal with it. come to think of it If named the list of medicine I have takin all at once it would be long.

I have only had one problem with any med and it almost killed me. It was Cylert.

But I was also 9 to so maybe i was to young? Its funny a lot of places dont write prescrptions for it.

Snodfart71 - I'm an embedded systems engineer - technical lead, specializing in digital video and graphics. I have been hyper-focused all my life and existentially depressed.
At the end of the 90's I started getting super depressed. So I started some anti-depressants and finally settled on Celexa. After a while and some really bad events, the celexa didn't seem to cut it any more, switched it out with Zyprexa which turned me into a vegetable - I eventually got released from my job because of my attitude and slipping deadlines. Liver enzymes got whacked, so I switched to Effexor which never really worked well and I tried all kinds of doses. We added trileptal for manic depression 300mg x 3 a day. I couldn't finish a sentence - no short term memory. Then added Adderal and now switched out effexor and back to celexa. Talk about tangential focus - sheesh. Doing everything but what I was tasked to do. For the last 18 months I've been struggling with getting a job, then getting released after 90 days because it 'wasn't a fit'.
So right now I take 20mg Adderal in the morning, then 10mg in the afternoon. At bedtime I take 300mg of trileptal and 30 mg Celexa. This feels pretty good and I still get mood swings and I can focus. I still cannot get myself to do things that I find foolish or that bore me.