So I was recently diagnosed with ADD. Great, now is the journey of finding the right medication.

I wanted to take Adderal since I had taken it (yes unfortunatly illegaly) before and it worked great! The only bad thing is I have high blood pressure so my doctor is worried about the side-effect of high blood pressure. (Personally I don't care, I felt normal for once in my life and it was amazing, who cares if my heart speeds up a little bit? I know I know it's bad).

So I sit here staring at my bottle of Strattera scared out of my mind to take it. I've heard soooo many bad things about it I'm a little nervous to give it a try. I'm taking 60mg once a day.

Anyone out there taking it? Are you more loving it or hating it? Does it actually work?

For me, it was bad. Agitation and irritability got worse on the strattera so I had to stop taking it but everyone is different and will respond differently to different meds and dosages...

Andy...

Personally, and it's different for everyone, I love my straterra. I'm also on 60 mg. I had originally worked up to 80 mg, but I was so nauseous I was hardly eating and miserable. Dropping it back to 60 has worked very well.

I take it at night because it causes some drowsiness in me, but I feel much more alert on it, and able to keep going mentally.

Don't be scared. I take 100mg a day-- 60mg in the morning and 40mg at night. I've been on it for five months and I'm happy with it.

Expect a few side effects at first (probably tiredness is the one that everyone experiences for a while. The others are "optional", LOL). They can be rough but chances are they'll be over in a few days to a couple of weeks. I don't feel anything bad when I take mine now, and that 60mg pill in the morning is a lot of Strattera.

A nice thing about Strattera is the smoothness of the experience once you get settled in. I never "come down" or feel it fail on me. I feel great at the end of the day. Sometimes I'll forget to take a pill in the morning and don't get to the pill until a little while later, but that doesn't make a bit of difference. You have to miss more than that before you can feel it.

"Chic",

Strattera works for some but not for others. Don't be afraid to try it out. It won't kill you (unless you take whole bottle, maybe). If it doesn't work out, then there are many other options. Never give up, girl! There are ways to get around the negatives of ADD, and some folks have even harnessed the positives! Whoa-ho, what I wouldn't give to be able to bottle THAT and sell it.

Anyhow, good luck, chickie!

-Banana

How ya doin' tkdchic78? Did you decide what to do?

So I sit here staring at my bottle of Strattera scared out of my mind to take it. I've heard soooo many bad things about it I'm a little nervous to give it a try. I'm taking 60mg once a day.

Anyone out there taking it? Are you more loving it or hating it? Does it actually work?

If you're just starting out on strattera, you might want to talk to your doc about starting with a low dose (18-20) and moving up 10 or 20mg at a time to 60. I did this and it makes the side effects more tolerable. Going 0-60 I suspect you're going to feel pretty wretched for the couple weeks until your body acclimates.

I love my strattera! It took almost three weeks before I started to notice any difference, but there's no way Id give it up now. I would say go for it, but give it a fair chance. Stims generally start workin immediatly or within a day or two, Strattera can take between 2 and 6 weeks. Soldier through the first six weeks, and if it still does not help you, talk to your doc about switching. I started on 40mg for three days, then upped to 60mg for two weeks. Now I am taking 80mg in the morning. Even though its not a stim, it tends to get me going, so I can't take it at night. The only certanty about any medication is that it is going to work differently on everyone. I hope all is going well for you!

For me, it was bad. Agitation and irritability got worse on the strattera so I had to stop taking it but everyone is different and will respond differently to different meds and dosages...

Andy...
My husband started taking Straterra on the 24th of April, and here I sit alone and in the process of a divorce........

One day he was fine.

The next a raging maniac that couldn't see the negative side effects this medication was doing to him.

On the 7th of May he moved out for good after a week of arguing. He was totally negative, angry, anxious and all he could say was it was me.

I have been there for him while he has been on and off meds, anti-depressants, etc. The doctor took him off Zoloft which worked very well for him the day he was put on Straterra. I believe this drug truly caused my marriage to come to an end.

He doesn't seem to care. It's as if he has had all his emotions other than anger blocked off from these meds and there was no reasoning with him. One day he is up and rev'd up angry, the next he wants to reconcile ONLY IF I CAN BE THE ONE to change!

I can't take these ups and downs anymore and he was the one that wanted out, moved out, and said hurry up and get this divorce going........I just can't believe how my life was ruined in a matter of days of him taking the meds.

UNREAL. I feel like I have been living in a total nightmare. I love him dearly, miss him terribly, but can't take the fact that he BLAMES ME when the changes occured AFTER he went off the Zoloft and onto this awful medication!

I was diagnosed three months ago and the doc started with Staterra at different doses with me and I felt nothing mentally, but I was extremely thirsty all the time. I started at 40mg and went up to 60mg. Now I am trying Ritalin started at 30mg a day and now up to 60mg a day. I am a 39-yr. Male.

God, but I hate Strattera. And withdrawal can be a complete nightmare if you've gotten up to a high dose. It takes a minimum of six weeks to go through withdrawal, and two to three months is possible, too. I really have nothing good to say about it. However, I do very well on Focalin (wish I'd only ever taken that!) , and to be fair, some people have done well on S too. It just seems that if it doesn't work, it really does NOT work, and it's so unpleasant and takes so long to get off of it.

In my experience Strattera has good and bad points. It helps me stay awake and I love it for that. But it doesn't help with clarity or memory. I thought maybe I could try both Strattera and a stimulant but my doctor said no.
The first week of taking Strattera was a nightmare, but once I got used to it, the side effects went away.

For me (first week was 40 mg, and after that was upped to 60mg) the first week was HELL. I probably should have taken something like 20mg because I had EVERY side effect possible - the urinary/sexual side effects ALMOST made me want to quit taking it, but I soldiered on and a month later I feel better and the side effects have dissapeared.

The good thing is that Strattera is 'mild' and just sort of does it's own thing in the background without the negatives of stimulants (the ups and downs, increased heart rate, etc.). The bad thing is that you have to take it EVERY DAY no MATTER WHAT. Because if you miss a dose, the side effects will come back because (from what I understand anyway) the loss of strattera effectively 'resets' your body so when you start taking it again, you start from square one.

The main benefit (for me) is that I can be awake all day - I mean, get like 5 hours of sleep at night and stay awake during the day no problem - which is pretty awesome. If i tried to do that without Strattera I would feel like crap and probably fall asleep at the wheel while I was driving to school or something.

Good to hear the side effects went away. I'm on my first week, and while the value of it far outweighs the side effects, I'm still a little worried.

But overall, I love this stuff!!

Comment from my girlfriend:

She: "It's incredible how different you are"
Me: "So, do you prefer me now?"
She: "Well, I prefer both the before and after. But now it's so much easier "

:)

Guess I was giving her a hard time. Now I'm just happy all the time, it's so fun!

I've been taking it for 9 days, and I feel absolutely terrible. I'm nauseous, my mouth and eyes are dry, I'm tired, I have no motivation, I'm emotionally numb and my concentration is worse than ever. Hopefully the side-effects will reduce a bit with time, but I seriously doubt I'm going to be one of these Strattera miracle cases.

I have dry mouth and eyes too, but otherwise my effects are reverse yours. I'm never tired, I have way more motivation, I'm not emotionally numb anymore and my concentration is much better.

Maybe that stuff just doesn't match everyone's unique chemistry.

31 yr. old female newly diagnosed and started on Straterra 3 weeks ago at 10mg. Still on 10mg. Feeling very woozy during the day. I literally stood in front of my toaster oven for 5 minutes trying to figure out how to turn it on. so far no help with concentration, I'm getting less done than ever and forgetting things left and right! I have noticed a change in sleep. I was having trouble sleeping, waking in the middle of the night with lots of dreaming. Now I have some trouble winding down for bed, but once I'm asleep I am sleeping soundly, a bit hard to wake up in the morning though. I am trying to take the medicine earlier in the morning to see if that helps the winding down thing. I have also considered taking it at night because of the woozy feeling during the day.
It seems that those who have posted here started on higher doses and went up rather quickly. How is this determined? Weight? Doctor preference? I am scheduled to talk to my doctor next week, I guess I can ask him. :-)

Is strattera really similar in experience to the SSRIs? (e.g. prozac, zoloft)

Is strattera really similar in experience to the SSRIs? (e.g. prozac, zoloft)Kinda, but at the same time no - it's actually an NRI - so it's more like Wellbutrin than anything else.;)

Guys, I specifically asked my doctor about this and here's what he told me:

The main reason Strattera has such awful side effects is because most doctors DO NOT KNOW HOW to titrate it and because Eli Lilly is wierd about the sample packs they give out.

The way you're *supposed* to take Strattera is that you start out with 18mg (if you're a child) and 25mg (if you're an adult). That's for the first week or two - then once your body is adjusted, you move up to 40mg and then to 60mg and (if necessary to 80mg or 100mg).

MOST Doctors get sample packs that start at 40mg for one week and the second week up the dose to 60mg. This plays HELL on most people's bodies (it did for me) and thus scares them away from the drug.

Here's why that happens - if you don't have enough norepinephrine to reuptake, Strattera will do either or both of two things. The more likely is that it will start depleting you of norepinephrine, which will be completely counterproductive to what it's supposed to be doing for you in the first place. There's also a chance it might make you more vulnerable to the adverse effects of MAO (Monoamine oxidases). Either or both of those reasons are why people will feel wiped out when they take these outrageously high starting dosages. Then if they go back down to the previous dosage, they still feel crappy and give up.

Well, it takes about two weeks to get over taking too much Strattera. Once again, you have to have some patience the first month or so.;)

It is a one of a kind drug in the United States (the only NRI available) and most doctors do not know yet how it works, the side effects, etc.

It's in the same category as anti-depressants (like Wellbutrin), but it's not an anti-depressant - it's more like a 'mood stabilizer' or a 'mild' antidepressant. It affects ONLY Norepinephrine levels and so it's kinda tricky to work with.

But what the general consensus is - is that if you take the right dosage - and let Strattera build up in your body for about 2 weeks to a month, it should work PERFECTLY.