I have been on 30mg of adderall xr for 3 days. Before this, I was on 20mg for 2-3 weeks and 10mg for 1 week before that. I don't think this med is working well for me at any dose. At lower doses, I was sometimes rather irritable or sleepy at this time of day, but no other problems. It worked for a couple of weeks and then just stopped. Although 20mg didn't work so well for me, I really don't like 30mg. I don't know if my side effects are normal, will go away, etc.?

The first day I went up to 30mg, I felt really...keyed up, for lack of a better word. I had too much energy and weird impulses, like wanting to hop around my office. Didn't see any improvement in terms of concentration, and I was just generally all over the place. Yesterday and today have been better in terms of concentration and weird impulses, thank goodness. But I've felt simultaneously anxious and sad for the last 2-3 hours, and I feel shaky all over. This is NOT normal for me at all, medicated or not. In terms of shakiness, I feel like I've had too much caffeine, but all I've had all day was 1/2 cup of tea this morning. In terms of anxiey/sadness, I haven't felt that way at all since prior to my diagnosis (years of feeling anxious about not ever getting enough work done, and sadness about this and whatever else was not going right in my life... you know, the usual comorbid stuff). I didn't feel this way at any time during my lower doses, nor on strattera. Is this unusual, or has anybody else felt like this?

Oh, and it's totally killed my libido. No desire to do anything sexual at any time, much to my hubby's chagrin. He was also much happier when I was taking strattera! (I really DO just need to switch back...)

Yes, I've had this same kind of problem, but it was not strictly the Adderall XR causing it. It's sounds a bit like you may also be bipolar and the Adderall is doing some strange things to your mood. I needed the Adderall for focus and just plain to get things done, but I'm also a bit bipolar and had some of those same mood things going on. After some resistance, I let my P-Doc try me on Abilify with the Adderall XR. He told me Abilify augments the stimulant meds. I've never felt better! You may also be misdiagnosed as ADD and the Adderall is just not the drug for you. I also got some good relief when we added an anti-depressant, but everytime I had another life stressor, we had to up the dose. I take 25mg Adderall twice daily, 60mg Cymbalta in the AM, and 5mg Abilify before bed. The anxiety and trembling are gone, and life feels great again after feeling sad for a very long time. I also no longer obsess over things.
Keith :cool:

JayJay, thanks for your post, but I don't think I'm even a little bit bipolar... I never have the characteristic extreme highs and lows. I think Adderall just isn't the right med for me.

Since I posted that message, I've observed that I feel a bit shaky all day, only feel anxious/sad after noon (about 4-5 hours after I take it, which is once per day around 7 am), and that I also seem to get more random thoughts stuck in my head in the afternoon (stupid things like the same line of song lyrics over and over again, or thoughts like "I'm thirsty"). I read on the amen clinic's website that the amphetamine salts in the 2nd release are different than the salts in the first, and that the 2nd release can "egg on" obsessive-type symptoms in some individuals.

I was previously diagnosed (or misdiagnosed) with OCD a couple of years ago when I sought counseling for "feeling worried after the fact about the non-professional things that sometimes pop out of my mouth in professional situations." I was screened for OCD again when I was screened for ADD, and did not meet the diagnostic criteria. I'm constantly under quite a bit of stress, and this makes me feel at least a little bit anxious or makes me worry about things regularly. This all makes me suspicious that my fairly constant, lower levels of anxious tendencies might be amplified in weird ways by Adderall.

Gosh! That just sounds so much like what was happening to me, and I too was under a great deal of stress at the time. The song lyrics were driving me crazy, and the afternoons were the worst. However, I was not even on Adderall at the time, but was giving Provigil an unsuccessful try. I told a psychologist friend of mine about the song lyrics, and he suggested upping my SSRI. It worked, but Abilify did a better job and I was able to come back down on the SSRI.

Good luck in search for just the right therapy, chemical or not! It can take quite some time to get things right, but I've found it very much worth the effort. I have a life I enjoy again, and I'm more productive than ever - just wish I'd known how to do it 30 years ago! :rolleyes:
Keith aka, Jay Jay

an update on my status and a forewarning to others:

After a full day of feeling rather odd and being totally useless in my office, I finally called my doc, who said to stop taking the 30mg of Adderall-XR immediately. Feelings of anxiety and depression are psychiatric side effects (a bad thing). They'd been getting worse, which wasn't great, either. I've also been essentially useless at home at night -- too tired to do anything other than lay on the couch. But then when I try to sleep, my head won't stop and I just lie in bed for an hour before I finally get some sleep. I can't recall a time when I've ever been this tired for such a long span of time. Hopefully I won't experience it again, although it's probably unavoidable if we have kids someday.

I am supposed to take 20mg tomorrow, holiday over the weekend (yuck), then 20mg on Monday and Tuesday. Then we're coming up with a new game plan... <sigh>. She said something about switching to IRs so I can be productive in the early evening. That would be great, but I think I'm ready to go back to non-stimulants for a while. At least then I can sleep and don't feel like hopping around my office like a rabbit.

If you're prone to anxiety amphetamines will definetly bring it out so thats not all that suprising. Depression seems weird to me but at the same time makes sense because whenever you push one neurotransmitter up another goes down, its how your brain balances things out. So when the dopamine shoots up your serotonin levels will go down and wham you're depressed. I've never heard of that happening but some of us are more sensitive to certain chemical changes than others so its entirely possible.