This post has me wondering about aches caused by Concerta. I have attributed my neck pain to being at a desk for extended lenghths of time. My neck and shoulders seem to be sore alot lately. Anyone else experiance this?

This post has me wondering about aches caused by Concerta. I have attributed my neck pain to being at a desk for extended lenghths of time. My neck and shoulders seem to be sore alot lately. Anyone else experiance this?Adam, I take Concerta, I was rear-ended by a drunk and got whiplash, now I have arthritis in my neck, and also have fibromyalgia. My pain is not from the concerta. Your neck could hurt for a variety of reasons; from stress, overuse, an undiagnosed problem, or the Concerta. Stay aware of when it hurts and what you are doing, that way you can pinpoint a possible cause!

When I am at my computer too much, my shoulders and neck can really hurt and my hands too! Try stretching and flexibility exercises. Are you taking any other meds? Do you have any other medical conditions? How old are you? There are so many possibilities. Follow your gut as you try to figure out what is causing your pain. Once you do, you will know if it is the Concerta or something else.

RADD

My aching IS from the Concerta. I work out daily and take measures to move around and not be too sedentary for too long. I am very in-tune with my body, being a very athletic person all of my life.

The aching comes consistently without fail 7 or 8 hours after I took the pill. In perfect synch for when the effects begin to wear off. This is a failry common effect for coming down from stimulant medication, as it happened to me on Adderall as well.

Thanks for all the input. I suspect the pain is not related to the Concerta, but want to see if anyone has thought or found this to be the case. I am 32 years old. I have been at a desk job for about 2 years now. I play darts at a very competive level, and have a small tear in my labrum. I think that my pain is related to compensating for this soreness, coupled with the sitting at a computer screen and driving 2+ hrs to work. But.. the pain came on after the Concerta use. Not before. That is why I ask. Thanks for the opinions.

Adam,

I am glad you found out what is causing your pain and hope you heal well and win many tournaments! It is not easy to know what is going on in our bodies at times and that can be worrisome and confusing. You are wise to stay aware of any changes in how you feel or function and share that with your doctor. That is the only way you will get the optimal treatment for your health concerns. I hope my answer to your earlier question helped you. If you have any questions about what I said, please PM me. I am always happy to clarify anything I say! Let me know if this helps you, I take Ritalin and Concerta. I notice a lot of pain as the Concerta wears off-I have Fibromyalgia. My doctor prescribed the Ritalin partly to help me stay focused in the evenings and to prevent this common occurrence of pain and other symptoms that occur as stimulant medication wears off. Could this possibly be a cause of your pain? A good question to ask your doctor!

SD2001,

I had a very bad reaction to ADDerall-a friend was hospitalized because of her reaction to it. It is interesting to me that even though we all have ADD in some form, we do not all react the same way to the meds. It is frustrating when you have negative reactions to a medication you hope will be an effective treatment! I hope the Amantadine (Symmetrel) works well for you. Please post about your experience!

RADD

I had severe stomach pains and back pain when I first began taking concerta a few years ago. My pains were directly related to the Concerta. It was causing or making worse some type of intestinal/digestive problem. I also had flu symptoms too.

This post has me wondering about aches caused by Concerta. I have attributed my neck pain to being at a desk for extended lenghths of time. My neck and shoulders seem to be sore alot lately. Anyone else experiance this?

I haven’t experienced this particular side effect but we are all different. While I may not experience this specific side effect it certainly doesn’t mean you aren’t.

The first portion is based upon my own experiences with sorting medication side effects from those feelings I simply fail to noticed because I was sooo ADD.. I want to offer suggestions but do not wish to be attacked. So here is the deal if after reading my suggestions one does not find them useful then simply disregard. Please.


I once thought my ADD medications caused my hunger to increase, I was gaining weight. Every time I took my medications I seemed get hungry. To see weather or not it was the medication making me hungry or simply causing me to notice the hunger already present I would eat a meal and then take my medication.

I noticed if I took my medications with a meal I did not get hungry even after the effects of my medications began taking effect. So taking my medications was not cause of me becoming hungry otherwise it would have returned even though I had no need to eat.

What I did notice is I would only feel hunger after my medication began taking effect if it had been several hours sense I had eaten any thing. I came to the conclusion my medications were not the cause of my hunger but the reason why I noticed I was hungry. This is basically what Highfunctioning suggested.

Seems like you could do the same or some thing similar with the soreness :confused:



But.. the pain came on after the Concerta use. Not before. That is why I ask.

Second portion is an idea again not intended for medical advice either it is only a suggestion based upon my personal experience with my feet falling asleep. BTW, Having both of my feet “fall asleep” did not do much for my gracefulness. Again if my response is not useful please disregard.

Could be that when you take Concerta you are able to sit at your desk and focus on the present task for longer periods of time? Thus the sitting still longer than your body is accustom to would cause the soreness, The Concerta increased your focus on the task so you to sat in the same position for longer periods of time than before beginning on Concerta, which is why the soreness did not occur before begining the medication?. This would make taking Concerta kind of like an indirect cause of the increased soreness you experienced.

If this is the case such unpleasant experience of pain in the shoulders and neck could be avoided with pre-planned wiggle breaks or stretching?

These are only two possibilities based upon my own experiences intend as suggestions only.

Any concerns or questions about medication side-effects should be brought to the attention of the doctor who prescribed the medication. Addressing these issues is part of his job and only you and the doctor are in a position to make the final determination.

I have an opinion here. I have severe DJD and degenerated discs (no, I do not discuss this fact of my life often) and I also take a high dose of Concerta. When I titrated up to my optimum dosage, I spent several weeks being very tense and that did create some degree of pain.

I attribute this to my body's adjusting to the initial Ritalin "rush" and it did, indeed, pass in time. Several weeks, mind you, but it did pass.

In short, the CONCERTA did not cause my pain at all. It was my postures and tenseness that caused the pain. IT PASSED. I am still on Concerta and no longer have unusual pain like I did before. My pain now is my "usual" pain :D and I am very glad I had a doc who hung in there to get me up to the proper dose of Concerta.

I'm not speaking about a sharp pain that you can pinpoint. I'm talking about a general overall "achiness" that is concentrated in the back and head.

It's not due to bad posture. It's not due to sitting for too long. I work out 5 or 6 times a week and have been for years. I know my body very very well. There were no other variables than the Concerta.

Even the Concerta product information sheet lists headaches as a "common side effect."

http://www.concerta.net/active/mccus/en_US/html/concerta/utilities/important_product_information.pdf#zoom=100

Ok, as the person who asked the question that produced the response, which was the cause of this misdirection of the thread, I ask all of you, mods, sd2001 and everyone else, please move on. I have ADHD, your losing me, and I'm medicated! I asked for advice, I got advice, I will do with it, what I want. sd2001 had an opinion of the advice. It can be debated till we all turn blue, if it was good advice. Lets lighten up a bit, and get on with the business at hand. Lets not make this personal. Lets not give anyone an excuse to remove a post. I am a senior mod on the biggest dart website in the world. That stuff happens if you dont abide by what is deterimed to be the rules.

My neck still hurts too. Thanks for ALL of the points of view.

Adam, do you find yourself gritting your teeth at all, or tensing your neck, especially when you first sense the Concerta taking affect?

Moderator Note: This new thread is a compilation of posts from another thread, entitled "Concerta update - not good at all".

I got a lot of muscle pain from concerta.
I switched to Desoxyn because of it.
I find I am just sensitive to stimulants and any stimulant can cause me pain, but concerta was the worst by far. You will have to experiment with other stimulants and maybe even mix them like I do. I find focalin to be very gentle compared to concerta, I also take desoxyn with it and they make for a great combo.

Good Luck,

Tom

My neck still hurts too.

Have you told your doctor about this? I mean you may be able to take some thing else that won't do this to you. Concerta is made out of the same stuff Ritalin is and I got head aches from the Ritalin when it first began taking effect. It would usually ease up after about 30 minutes. I thought I was going to have to live this way for the rest of my life. When I finially did say some thing to my doctor after years, I was switched to Adderall and the Adderall doesn't make my head hurt.

The pain was where my neck met my head on both sides of my neck bones, some times it radiated to my shoulders especially on the left side.

Sorry your neck still hurts, but man tell your doctor. Don't do what I did and wait like four years only to find out there was some thing better that didn't give me a head ache.

Its tough because I already have a shoulder issue. The easy answer from both my shoulder and my ADHD people is that its compensation for the shoulder. I think I need to push the issue.