I am a 28 year old male and I was recently diagnosed with ADD. I was prescribed ritalin (the generic actually) and started yesterday. I was prescribed 5 mg at 8am and 5mg at 1pm. I have thirty 10 mg tablets which I cut in half.
I haven't noticed any increase in my ability to focus yet. Yesterday I took my second pill about two hours earlier than I was supposed to and did appear to be more productive in that "overlap" time than I was earlier. I cleaned and organized most of my apartment.
Is 10 mg a day enough for me? I weigh about 210 lbs. For whatever reason I can't talk to the doctor until Friday and I don't want to take more than what was prescribed. I do want to get my work done though and be able to concentrate more. Does it take a while for the body to get used to ritalin?

You may need to go up in dosage and the doctor may have that in mind. But you need to start out at a smaller dosage to get it into your system. I have no idea why, but most docs do that on stimulant meds. I guess because of the possible side effects. I would wait until I see the doc until increasing the meds on your own, or at least try and get him/her on the phone and let them know what you did.

Really depends on your physiology. If your brain re-absorbs dopamine too fast then Ritalin will help, if it outputs too little dopamine then Ritalin won't help much and amphetamines (dexedrine, adderall) will help more. 90 mg per day of Ritalin did not help me, hope dexedrine will help me more. My view is that it depends how much a H in your ADHD you have! The less H, the less Ritalin will help...

cool thanks. Yeah, I'll just wait it out and talk to her on Friday, but I haven't noticed any benefits yet. We shall see!

From what I understand, the caution is for the possibility that some one is bipolar, which can cause bad reactions if miss diagnosed and a psycho stimulate like Ritalin is perscribed. There is no time wait for your body to start feeling effects, you will, or you won't, depending on proper dosage, and same thing for stopping, there is no withdrawl time or problems. The only side effects with some people is irritability, but it's apparently not common.
You should wait till you see your doctor, don't experiment... :eek:

wow. 10mg of Ritalin is almost nothing. If you have health insurance coverage you might want to ask your doctor about going to a more stable, long lasting formulation like Concerta, Ritalin LA, Metadate CD, Focalin XR.

As for normal dose ranges typical adult doses of Concerta is 81mg +/- 20mg (ballpark but I can post some good figures if need be).

Just for comparison, normal dose ranges for adults on MAS (Adderall) is 40-60mg a day.

There is no magic number since everyone has a different set point. The golden rule is the higher the dose, the better the benefit but greater likelyhood of side effects.

J