drewster1829
04-30-08, 01:09 AM
I was diagnosed with ADD last summer about May, I think. I started taking Focalin XR 10mg shortly thereafter. It made me much less reactive and quick to anger. I was able to listen to other people's conversations without interrupting, and also had the ability to control a desire to start an argument.
Before medication I also had a problem with risk taking...driving too fast, flying crop dusters, and the such. I used to listen to loud music, and I loved the adrenaline rush of all the above, as well as getting angry. I could feel the pleasure in my head, and I craved it. I had to have it. I was a compulsive shopper, a compulsive eater, and I would even get a caffeine craving in the middle of the day, and I just had to have a Coke, come heck or high water.
When I started medication, all this started to abate. I could feel the beginning of the rush of pleasure, but then it would stop before reaching its usual peak. It was an interesting sensation.
I took Focalin for 3 months last fall, with a gap of a week between each month. The first two times I stopped, I felt withdrawal symptoms, mostly just a big headache for a day or two. I immediately went back to being the argumentative jerk I was before (it surprised me how different I was, now that I was able to directly compare the two personalities), maybe even a little worse.
The last month I was taking it, I was getting up very early some days, between 12 am and 2 am, sometimes more like 5 or 6 or 9 am, and I'd take the Focalin either at 3 am (if I was awake then), or within an hour of waking up. I am a truck driver, and one of the side effects was eliminating the fatigue response (as well as hunger and thirst). I wouldn't yawn or feel like dozing off when on it...I'd just feel a little funny.
When I stopped taking it after the third month (I split the last dose in two, and took a 5 mg dose, skipped a day, then took the last 5 mg dose), a very interesting thing happened. There was no withdrawal. I never felt any headache, any return of my old desires and urges. I never got my appetite back, or thirst response, or fatigue response.
This was probably September of 2007. Today, April 29th, 2008, I feel the same as then. I have taken no other prescription medication since then, or before then for years (maybe an antibiotic in 2001 was the last medication I had taken). I don't drink or smoke, and I don't abuse any illegal drugs.
I later learned that part of what I'm experiencing is called anhedonia, or lack of pleasure. I don't feel pleasure from adrenaline (though it still makes me alert and makes my heart pound), or from eating, or from orgasm, or from driving fast, or from listening to loud music (when I was on the medication, loud music just made my head hurt. Now it does nothing), or from bodily functions such as using the restroom. There's no pleasure in spending money, or getting angry, or starting an argument, or from caffeine.
I still have no appetite (none whatsoever...if I don't remember to eat, I just get a tummy rumble after a couple hours, then I feel really dizzy, then eventually I get very faint...but never actually hungry), no thirst response, and no fatigue (though I have been yawning more than a month or two ago when I should be sleepy).
I've searched the Internet and talked to the people who originally prescribed me the stuff, and I can't find any information on stimulant medication causing these permanent symptoms. I can find no other explanation, however, and it's very, very strange. I have moved twice since then, and now have no health insurance, so I can't afford to go see a doctor. I don't make a lot of money, and I can't spend it on overpriced medical care for something that isn't life threatening.
What I wonder about, is it a blessing, or a curse? Sure, I feel no pleasure out of listening to Baroque music or eating or doing anything, and sure, I have to remember to eat at meal times (eating enough is another problem, too...I usually just have to eat until I'm "full", though full doesn't feel the same, either...but it is harder to eat when I get to that point), but now I'm not an argumentative jerk, I don't take the risks I used to, and I don't lose my temper nearly as often. It's not like my urges are control, as if I were on medication....there are no desires to control. Doesn't that make me like a robot? What should I do? Is there a cure, or am I cured?:confused:
Before medication I also had a problem with risk taking...driving too fast, flying crop dusters, and the such. I used to listen to loud music, and I loved the adrenaline rush of all the above, as well as getting angry. I could feel the pleasure in my head, and I craved it. I had to have it. I was a compulsive shopper, a compulsive eater, and I would even get a caffeine craving in the middle of the day, and I just had to have a Coke, come heck or high water.
When I started medication, all this started to abate. I could feel the beginning of the rush of pleasure, but then it would stop before reaching its usual peak. It was an interesting sensation.
I took Focalin for 3 months last fall, with a gap of a week between each month. The first two times I stopped, I felt withdrawal symptoms, mostly just a big headache for a day or two. I immediately went back to being the argumentative jerk I was before (it surprised me how different I was, now that I was able to directly compare the two personalities), maybe even a little worse.
The last month I was taking it, I was getting up very early some days, between 12 am and 2 am, sometimes more like 5 or 6 or 9 am, and I'd take the Focalin either at 3 am (if I was awake then), or within an hour of waking up. I am a truck driver, and one of the side effects was eliminating the fatigue response (as well as hunger and thirst). I wouldn't yawn or feel like dozing off when on it...I'd just feel a little funny.
When I stopped taking it after the third month (I split the last dose in two, and took a 5 mg dose, skipped a day, then took the last 5 mg dose), a very interesting thing happened. There was no withdrawal. I never felt any headache, any return of my old desires and urges. I never got my appetite back, or thirst response, or fatigue response.
This was probably September of 2007. Today, April 29th, 2008, I feel the same as then. I have taken no other prescription medication since then, or before then for years (maybe an antibiotic in 2001 was the last medication I had taken). I don't drink or smoke, and I don't abuse any illegal drugs.
I later learned that part of what I'm experiencing is called anhedonia, or lack of pleasure. I don't feel pleasure from adrenaline (though it still makes me alert and makes my heart pound), or from eating, or from orgasm, or from driving fast, or from listening to loud music (when I was on the medication, loud music just made my head hurt. Now it does nothing), or from bodily functions such as using the restroom. There's no pleasure in spending money, or getting angry, or starting an argument, or from caffeine.
I still have no appetite (none whatsoever...if I don't remember to eat, I just get a tummy rumble after a couple hours, then I feel really dizzy, then eventually I get very faint...but never actually hungry), no thirst response, and no fatigue (though I have been yawning more than a month or two ago when I should be sleepy).
I've searched the Internet and talked to the people who originally prescribed me the stuff, and I can't find any information on stimulant medication causing these permanent symptoms. I can find no other explanation, however, and it's very, very strange. I have moved twice since then, and now have no health insurance, so I can't afford to go see a doctor. I don't make a lot of money, and I can't spend it on overpriced medical care for something that isn't life threatening.
What I wonder about, is it a blessing, or a curse? Sure, I feel no pleasure out of listening to Baroque music or eating or doing anything, and sure, I have to remember to eat at meal times (eating enough is another problem, too...I usually just have to eat until I'm "full", though full doesn't feel the same, either...but it is harder to eat when I get to that point), but now I'm not an argumentative jerk, I don't take the risks I used to, and I don't lose my temper nearly as often. It's not like my urges are control, as if I were on medication....there are no desires to control. Doesn't that make me like a robot? What should I do? Is there a cure, or am I cured?:confused: