All,

This is my first post on the forum.

My Psychiatrist and I are trying out new medication for my Adult ADD.

I have been taking 20mg of Methlephynedate 3-4 times a day for 15 years now. I am getting to the point where I feel like I need to take the 20mg every 2-3 hours. Since my new job is requires me to work 10hrs a day, it is time to either take the current medication 4-5 times a day or switch.

So, I am on a quest to find a better medication for my situation.

I've tried Stratera...Nothing at all from this! 1 month
I've tried Concerta 36mg once a day. I did this for a month. No luck!
I've tried Ritalin LA 20mg (Once Daily)along with Methlephynedate 20mg (three daily) with very little luck.

Currently, I am now on Ritalin LA 40mg (once daily) and Methlephynedate 10mg (three daily). With this, I do well in the morning, but really crash in the afternoon.

Has anyone experienced something similar?

Or had better results with something else?

Seperately, has anyone ever taken 25mg of standard methlephynedate 4 or 5 times a day.

I know that regular methle/ritalin works for me, but I'm not sure if I should take this many pills a day.

Am I alone here?

All,

This is my first post on the forum.

My Psychiatrist and I are trying out new medication for my Adult ADD.

I have been taking 20mg of Methlephynedate 3-4 times a day for 15 years now. I am getting to the point where I feel like I need to take the 20mg every 2-3 hours. Since my new job is requires me to work 10hrs a day, it is time to either take the current medication 4-5 times a day or switch.

So, I am on a quest to find a better medication for my situation.

I've tried Stratera...Nothing at all from this! 1 month
I've tried Concerta 36mg once a day. I did this for a month. No luck!
I've tried Ritalin LA 20mg (Once Daily)along with Methlephynedate 20mg (three daily) with very little luck.

Currently, I am now on Ritalin LA 40mg (once daily) and Methlephynedate 10mg (three daily). With this, I do well in the morning, but really crash in the afternoon.

Has anyone experienced something similar?

Or had better results with something else?

Seperately, has anyone ever taken 25mg of standard methlephynedate 4 or 5 times a day.

I know that regular methle/ritalin works for me, but I'm not sure if I should take this many pills a day.

Am I alone here?
It sounds like your body is metabolising the meds to quickly. Stick in there, you'll find the right med and dosage that works for you.

Have you tried Dextroamphetamine?
It's the first drug used for ADD in Australia, and from what I hear; people typically respond to it a lot better than other stimulant drugs.

Have you tried Dextroamphetamine?
It's the first drug used for ADD in Australia, and from what I hear; people typically respond to it a lot better than other stimulant drugs.Different people respond differently to different medications. I believe that for this forum, that is the more common knowledge.

To the OP: when I took methylphenidate, I took 100 mgs spread out over the course of the day. I was taking that at 20mgs a dose, so no, I don't find your experience to be unusual. I too am a rapid metabolizer and whatever stimulant I take, I take in "higher" doses.

I have to say, in honesty, that I did well on Concerta (81mgs AM then 2-20 mg boosters MPH per day) and I loved what that did for my ADHD. Problems arose with IR methylphenidate products due only to my Bipolar II disorder. The "edges" on MPH were a bit too "sharp" and the occasional rebounds too intense, which was aggravating my BPII symptoms and causing hypomanic episodes regularly in spite of my medications. Rather than increase my bipolar meds, I gave Adderall XR a try...and loathed it (I know it works great for others but virtually not at all for me). I did have to admit that the "edges" were much smoother however, so the doc and I postulated that maybe the amphetamine salts portion of Adderall was my problem. I went back to Concerta using dexedrine IR 10mgs as my boosters...and discoverd that it actually alleviated my anxiety issues, yet still worked for my ADHD.


I switched to dexedrine spansules, 45mgs AM followed my 2-15mg boosters. Its been pretty smooth sailing, but the spansules boosters are not suiting me due to the lowered amount of released dex per capsule. I will probably have to replace the evening doses with the IR form soon enough.

HTH and best of luck.

C~F :)

Yes, I too am having a rough time finding the right medication.

I've only been consistently treating ADHD for a year and a half.

Strattera was OK for overall organization for a few months, but faded after that. It never helped with school work and it has an odd, flattening affect on my mood.

Adderall was too stimulating and caused a huge crash into depression.

Concerta didn't last more than 3-4 hours. Ritalin LA is about the same.

Right now I take 30 mg Ritalin LA twice a day, plus 400 mg Provigil. They don't help with concentration. I do need them for fatigue, which they help with, but the affects are diminishing.

I really need something that helps more with concentration because I'm a grad student and struggle to study.

Perhaps one of the higher dosages of ritalin patch daytrana? Supposedly can be kept on with full effect pretty much until you want to wind down for the night.

Am I alone here?Hi bond691, and welcome to the forums.

I can relate to what you describe, and the feeling that there might just be a better drug out there. Well, from my experience there are several better drugs out there.

I too started out with Ritalin, and I eventually tried all the generic version that I could obtain. Next in line for me was Adderall, but I found it to be very sedating (it was the only stimulant to ever cause me to feel sedated). Next in line for me was Dexedrine which was/is a great drug for me.

I eventually tried all the generic versions of Dexedrine, and after doing that I read about the drug Desoxyn. I had never heard of it before I stubled across it at another forum where some people with ADHD were reporting that it worked better for them than anything else.

Well, as good as Dexedrine did/does work for me, it was never a cure all for my symptoms (nor is any drug from my experience). From reading about it online Desoxyn was being reported to fill a unique void for so many folks who had tried everything else like me, so I decided to ask my Dr about it. Like me, my Dr had never heard of Desoxyn, but he decided it was worth a shot since I had tried everything else.

Desoxyn turned out to be a wondeful drug for me, and depending on what I have to do I prefer it over Dexedrine. Desoxyn was by far the most therapuetic of all the prescription stimulants for me, but it was/is also the most expensive at $2.00 a pill. For someone who would need 12 pills a day like me, it was just not worth the extra expense compared to how effective the Dexedrine was/is for me.

Lastly I tried Focalin, which is the new single isomer of methylphenidate called dexmethylphenidate. I found Focalin to be as effective as Dexedrine, and maybe a tad bit more effective than Dexedrine, but like Desoxyn it was too expensive for me when compared to the cost of Dexedrine. Even though it was a tad bit more effective for me, it was just was not worth paying so many hundreds of dollars more per month compared to what a months worth of Dexedrine cost me. Also, since I was not on it for longer than a month, it's hard for me to really assume that it would continue to be as, or more effective than Dexedrine in the long term due to the "honeymoon" period that was/is typical for me when starting a new stimulant medication.

PS I never tried Strattera, and the Concerta was something that I found to be of no more benefit than any other extended release preperations of methylphenidate.

What type of stimulant is Desoxyn? It's too bad there isn't a longer acting version.

I am interested in Dexedrine and Focalin since they're single isomers and less likely to have side effects. Thus, the dose can be increased with a greater chance of tolerability, in order to find a therapeutic level, rather than just giving up because it doesn't work or makes you feel horrible.

The biggest problem, in terms of getting doc's to stray from only choosing methylphenidate or mixed amphetamine salts, is that the majority of studies involve those two drugs. Doctors like to have documented studies, citing the tested outcomes of a medication, rather than going on anecdotal evidence.

It's too bad studies are so narrowly focused for the benefit of pharmaceutical companies.

Desoxin is methamphetamine

What type of stimulant is Desoxyn? It's too bad there isn't a longer acting version.Desoxyn is form of methamphetamine hcl, and is a schedule II controlled stimulant drug just like all the other prescription stimulants used to treat this condition with the exception Cylert which is a schedule IV I believe.

It's true that there isn't a long acting version of Desoxyn on the market any longer, but if your Dr chooses Desoxyn for you, then it would be perfectly legal for him/her to have a local compounding pharmacy create an extended release version just for you if the immediate release was not best.


I am interested in Dexedrine and Focalin since they're single isomers and less likely to have side effects. Thus, the dose can be increased with a greater chance of tolerability, in order to find a therapeutic level, rather than just giving up because it doesn't work or makes you feel horrible.Desoxyn is a single right handed isomer of methamphetamine called dextromethamphetamine, or desoxyphedrine.



The biggest problem, in terms of getting doc's to stray from only choosing methylphenidate or mixed amphetamine salts, is that the majority of studies involve those two drugs. Doctors like to have documented studies, citing the tested outcomes of a medication, rather than going on anecdotal evidence.This is a good point, and IMO a good way to address this issue with a Dr would be to point out the fact that both Desoxyn, and Dexedrine have been on the market much longer than Ritalin, or Adderall. When I consider issues concerning drug safety, the amount of time that a given drug has been on the market carries a lot of weight with me deciding whether or not I will try a given drug.

In fact, my paranoia about how long a drug has been on the market is what prevented me from even trying Focalin for as long as I waited. My Dr wanted me to try it out when it hit the market, but I was paranoid about doing that, and I wanted to wait and see how people responded. The main reason for my paranoia has nothing to do with the drug per se, as much as it has to do with the fact that my father was killed from taking the diabetic drug Rezulin which was pulled off the market in 2000. Sorry to ramble on, and go off topic, but I just wanted to explain why it matters so much to me as to how long a given drug has been on the market.

PS I do regret waiting as long as I did before trying Focalin. Unfortunately I was under the false impression that it was more than just a single isomer of methylphenidate, so I wanted nothing to do with it initially. I regret very much not learning more about it, and I have since learned how important it is for me to know as much as possible about what something actually is before being sure that I want nothing to do with it.

All,

Sorry for my delay in thanking you.

I appreciate the advice.

Here is an update.

My doc had me try 40mg of adderal xr in the AM with an additional 2 doses of 20mg of regular adderal thru out the day.

Results:
Aweful
This med made me extremely anxious and a little paranoid. I will never take this again.

Next up. I am going to ask for the patch.

Question:
Will the patch be affected by my high metabolism?

The patch will most likely not be effected by your metabolism; when absorbed through the patches, the drug enters systemic circulation by zero order kinetics – a constant amount of drug enters the circulation per unit time.