I went to the doctor with chest pains last week and I happened to have severe GERD. I break apart my XR pills some days if I dont want to take my full dose. I mix with food and water. I happened to read my sleep medication last night that is also extended release and it had a warning to not break apart the medication because it can cause severe damage to your esophogous. Anyone know if this is true with Adderall?

Funny you mention this...

I have been breaking my XR open and ingesting it in this manner, with water only because I like to to take more on the weekends, when I am home all day long, which helps me spend 14 straight hours studying.

Last Saturday I started experiencing terrible gut pain, and my bowel sounds went NUTS (and still are). I went to the ER and the doctor on shift told me it was what they call "undifferentiated acute abdominal pain." (basically a diagnosis of no specific diagnosis)...

I have been speculating it was the way I have been taking my adderall.

yeah not good. I have good days and bad on it. My bad days in terms of the stomach issues are more often than not, even when I take the full 20mg. Seems like my side effects are increasing, not decreasing and I am on a relatively consistent dose.

Hmmm.... Interesting. http://addforums.com/forums/images/smilies/eyebrow.gif

The capsule on Adderall XR is just a simple gelatin capsule that dissinegrates in your stomach soon after ingesting. It isn't like a hard coating that slowly dissolves over time, like some medications.

BTW- I'm not denying anyone's claim to digestive problems when doing this. Just saying that the capsule *shouldn't* make a difference. http://addforums.com/forums/images/smilies/tongue.gif

What's GERD?

You're not supposed to break apart XR pills (and it accordingly says so in the Rx instructions), presumably because you don't know which beads are meant to release now and which later - so you could plausibly get the whole dose at one time. This does't seem like that big a deal to me healthwise, because it's not like you're ingesting more than you normally would, it's just an unpredictable distribution. But that's just my thinking, which could well be wrong. Actually, I'm curious about this too, will ask doc when I see him next.

Your chest/stomach pains are a different story though, could be some other side effect or unrelated issue. Annoying because stomach things are so hard to dx precisely. I'd ask a doc specifically so you can rule out Adderall as a cause, or stop splitting it or whatever.

The package instructions say that you may open the capsule and sprinkle the contents over applesauce and consume all at once.

The capsule is just a gelatin coating basically. It doesn't do anything for the "XR" properties of the contents contained within the capsule.

Most extended release medications are not suitable for splitting.
Maybe you could ask your doc for a smaller amount of lower dose pills for days when you don't need/want your full dose?