Hi all,
I have been taking 36mg Concerta for years. I had no problems focusing but always felt there was a problem with my drive to be social and my ability to socialize and feel natural in social settings.

2 months ago I finally dropped back to 27mg and felt pretty good. I am able to socialize more naturally and feel truer in social situations.

One problem I have encountered with the 27mg Concerta, though, is that I tend to be a little confrontational and attacking. I have had this quality pointed out to me repeatedly when I forget to take my medicine. This is so distinct, in fact, that family members watch for this to determine whether or not they think I've taken my medicine that day.

Another problem I have is impulse control (slightly related to confrontational). I feel like I have less of an impulse control on the 27mg as opposed to the 36mg. Instead of thinking things that I want to say through (and considering how others will feel about hearing me say such things), I just blurt them out and forget to consider how I could be hurting/annoying/offending others.

Finally I feel like my mind is always anxious about these problems on the 27mg and worried that it doesnt have control over them. It feels like my mind is constantly fighting itself for control over these impulses. It almost feels like anxiety and its driving me crazy. Theres a mental tug of war going on in my brain with everything I do.

With these problems, I feel like 27mg Concerta is too little to control my ADHD. Although I have experienced distinct and significant problems with becoming a 'zombie' on the 26mg Concerta and not being able to let the true me out.

My problem: There is no inbetween dosage. A 30mg Concerta would be perfect.

What should I do? Any suggestions? (Also, I have tried switching to Adderall on two seperate occassions have had extremely bad experiences both times.)


Thanks!!

Sounds like 27 isn't much help for you. There are other Methylphenidate drugs that might let you get close to the equivalent of that 30mg Concerta. You could research that or check with your doc.

I'm on Concerta 54, but its not quite strong enough for me. My psychiatrist has let me take ritalin or rubifen along with it just to bump it up. So i take a concerta54 and 2ritalin everyday. Maybe try adding in 1 ritalin or a rubifen (or something similar) to bring it up a bit =).

Or it could be you aren't giving your body long enough to adjust to taking 36mg again? As i was finding my dosage i had to give each dose a few days to see if the feeling changed.

Just see what works. Hope this helps

I agree. My body seemed to need some time (a few weeks) to stabilize on a dose. I also have some ritalin that I can use to bump it up a notch if needed. I find that works great for me :-)

Another agreement here. I was very "racy" when I found my ideal dose on Concerta, and that period passed in time (weeks) and leveled off. Give it time OP, the 27mgs is clearly not enough, IMO.

Crazy :cool:

I had the same problem with concerta. Too little-no focus. Too much-Hyperfocused introvert. To top it off, it only would last about six hours and redosing or increasing the dose made the side effects more prominent.

I've switched to Focalin XR and man what a difference! I'm so much more social than I was on Concerta and even before meds that sometimes I feel too social because I'm not used to it being that way. I think the side effects of concerta made me much more introspective and anxious.

I dealt with that by staggering doses, and later was able to combine them back into one dose. Of course some other meds were added to my regimen that support my Concerta with that.

Crazy :cool:

I had the same problem...36 made me completely anti-social, took away my sex drive, etc. On the other hand, 27 often isn't enough when I need to study...

Solution:

I use 27mg every day, but when it comes time to study, I take 5mg of short-acting Ritalin. This will last about 3 hours or so, and can be repeated if needed.

It works for me!

Joe

I had the same problem with 36mg, at the peak, it was too much but the 27mgs were too little. Doctor prescribed me (2) 18mg per day and told me to stagger them by 2 hours, it works very well for me.

For the last few weeks I was taking concerta 27 mg with Wellburtin l00 mg in am, then again the same cocktail around l pm. Dr had to rewrite the RX because the pharmacist who filled my rx stole, stole 34 of my concertas. I know you all probably don't believe, but it TRUE. That's another Thread I'll share later. Any to get more concerta she had to write and different dosing. She has me taking 2 l8 mg am with Well then 18 in afternoon with well. This morning I felt hyped. Was talkative but noticed the nervous feeling. Then whe I took the 18 this afternoon it got me goind again. Like speed. I prefer the first way, 27 in am and 27 pm. We have to wait till the end of the month because of it being a refill to soon. Do you understand what I am trying to convey. I seem to have lost focus. Sorry.:soapbox: