I take 54 mg. Concerta. For me, it lasts about 8-9 hours. I take the pill in the morning before I leave for work. It wears off when I have about four hours left in my work day. I have to be certain to take my 30 min. break at exactly nine hours after I took the pill, because I experience that coming down/rebound problem.

I feel AWFUL. I no longer want to be at work and have a very strong urge to get in my car and drive home. For the remainder of my work day, I perform very lousy and I think I'm greatly suffering because of these last couple hours. The feeling seems to subside before I leave work and throughout the rest of the day.

It has got almost unbearable. I try drinking coffee and pop, I have heard these help but I hate the taste of both and even with drinking them it does not affect me. I see my doctor to try and get a short acting medicine next week, but he seemed against it last time?

Is there anything I can do, besides medication for now, that can help me deal with this awful depressing rebound?? Thanks..

Sorry, I do not know what to do for now, but...If your doctor does not want to give a short acting form, you might ask for 27mg or 36mg 2x a day and overlap them for full day coverage (and might help with rebound as well).

My husband doesn't have crash/rebound issues like a lot of people here do, but when his Concerta quits working it simply QUITS. One minute he's fine and organized and centered - and the next he's confused and foggy and forgetful and scattered.

So, his doctor has his dosage schedule scattered throughout the day. He takes 36 mg in the morning, adds an 18 mg when he goes to work. Right before his first 36 wears off, he takes a second.

The 18 wears off when he gets home, but the second 36 stays in his system until he's asleep.

I've heard of various dosing schedules that can keep you medicated throughout a whole day. If your doctor refuses to consider helping you with that, I'd encourage you to find one who will.

Thanks for your responses. I'm seeing my doctor in the next few days to see about spreading my doses - I would now, but I don't have enough pills and I heard that cutting them reduces the efficacy or causes them to not work at all, so I don't want to risk losing a whole 54 mg pill.

One funny thing happened.. I've heard that many ADHDers use coffee, pop, energy drinks etc. to better handle rebound. I hate the taste of all three for the record.

I tried drinking coffee (with nose plugged). I noticed no difference.

I tried drinking pop (with nose plugged, I almost puked..). No difference.

I could not stand the taste of Red Bull so I didn't get past a single swallow..

I was walking in Wal-Mart and noticed a product called Power Edge.. it's these sugar free energy sticks you mix with a glass of water. I bought a pack and brought them home. It was nighttime and my meds had worn off a few hours prior. After about an hour of b.sing around, I decided to try it. I sprinkled a packet into a large glass of water and drank 1/4 of it.

Within half an hour, it was like I had taken a small dose of Concerta. I had the urge to do my homework. I would say it had this effect for about an hour, and I had more difficult sleeping.

I would say I'm pretty alert to having the placebo effect vs. not having it. I wondered why this happened with this powder and not coffee, pop, what's the difference? I looked up the ingredients and found no correlation between anything and ADHD that the other products had. However, I searched for one ingredient, phenylalanine, with ADHD and discovered some interesting information. Some sites say that a shortage of this can lead to ADHD? Strange. I'm looking more into it..

I am currently drinking a large glass of water and the effects are very good. This is so weird.

selby-

I have the same problem with concerta and it wearing off too soon at work. I'm only on 27mg titration right now but I am definately feeling the efficiacy... and the rebound when it wears off. For me it lasts about 7-8 hours depending on how much I eat and how much water I drink. (eating seems to shorten... drinking lots of water seems to extend).

I also asked my doctor if it would be possible for me to take overlapping doses... He said that it was important for me to get accustomed to the drug and figure out the proper dosage before we started to experiment with alternative/overlapping dosages.

I also work 12hr shifts(nites) and have found that taking a No-Doze when I wake up... helps me to focus enough to get through the first 4 hours of work, and I take my dose of concerta. (sometimes I wait a little longer if I have something to do after work).

I have also reversed the order and gotten pretty effective results as well, usually if I have something important to do before I go to work that requires concentration. I'd be carefull of using anything you have to mix though, expecially those that come in powdered form that have several active ingredients. It's hard to imagine that you would be able to get the same mix consistantly.

That's why I use No-Doze... It's a caffine pill that I've found affects me for about 7hrs before it wears off. It has no other active ingredients and it's a solid pill so it is pretty much consistent every time I take it. This allows me to plan my day pretty easily without having to worry about insomnia.

Oh I'd also like to mention that "cutting" a Concerta pill... would be a bad idea. From what I understand... the pill is actually a hollow indigestible shell filled with a substance that reacts with gastric juices to "pump" the medication out of the shell at a consistant rate. The initial boost you get from taking the pill is the methylphinidate coating(that covers the hole in the shell). If you were to cut a pill open... and manage to swallow half, then I would guess that you would get a heck of a rush... and would probably be more than happy that when it wore off in about 3 hours.

Oh... I'd like to say that I'm just guessing about how long it would take and how it would feel... but I don't think it's something I'd like to try. And, that I am not pushing you to take the No-Doze brand of caffine pill... It's what I take and it works for me. If I happened to have a generic brand or another name brand caffine pill on me when I needed it... I'd probably be singing its praises instead. Oh... and I love coffee... so pill form is my second choice but I usually get carried away and drink too much...(YUM!)

Anywhoo... :D Hope this helps!

Thanks for the advice. Does No-Doz have long term effects on the heart or anything? I mean, I'll try anything that works, don't get me wrong.. I spoke to my doctor briefly yesterday and he wants me to go up to 72, but I feel comfortable with 54. So I'm going to take 54 a while longer and keep taking Power Edge and try No-Doz when it wears off.

I just don't want to start taking something that could have long-term negative effects on my body..

No-Doz is simply caffeine in a pill form. I took it all through high school ~1g a day, and that is like 5x the amount you would be taking if you took one. It may cause heart arrythmias in a few people at high doses, but there is no evidence that it leads to heart disease. If you have any heart conditions whatsoever it isn't recommended that you use caffeine at all. I'd imagine it would be the same case for ADHD stimulants, so taking 1 caffeine pill a day shouldn't hurt.

I bought No-Doz and took a pill and I felt sleepy... I took another one three hours after that and still felt tired. Normal? :(

Everyone reacts differently to caffeine, just like with the adhd meds. If you have allergies, you might want to try a decongestant (some of them can have stimulant effects but I would not suggest it if you have no allergy issues).