I just found this forum and this is my first post.

I am 27 year old married woman with a 1 year old son. I was diagnosed with ADD and depression 15 years ago and was on ritalin and zoloft and later just adderal xr. Two years ago I stopped the adderal. I have been having a lot of problems at work, so I asked the doctor to put me back on adderal. I also wanted to quit smoking so he put me on chantix at the same time. I quit smoking and I lost a few pounds too, which I thought was great. I was doing much better at work and everything seemed fine.

Then I started getting really depressed and having crying fits and panic attacks (with I haven't experience in at least 7 years). So I stopped the chantix. I'm still depressed (even though I have nothing to be sad about), so I know it's all chemical. I made an appointment with a psychiatrist, but they won't prescribe meds for at least 3 weeks. (b/c of some kind of rule). I just want to cry all the time, so my family doc prescribed me xanax.

Now I'm getting headaches that are borderline migraines (which I've never had before). The muscle tention from the addreall is sometimes dibilitating, but I don't want to stop the adderall. I've always been a solitary kind of person, which is severely inhibiting my growth at work...which is why I went back on adderall.

So heres the thing: I want to treat the ADD, but not have muscle pain. I want to stop the mood swings and feeling like I want to cry (which is totally not like me! {anymore}) I don't want to get on an antidepressant that will kill my sex drive and in turn hurt my marriage. Ritalin doesn't work for me and neither does stratera.

WHAT DO I DO?

Oh, by the way I exercise during all my breaks at work to help make the muscle tension more bearable.

Do you think the Doctor will prescribe a different kind of stimulant in combination with a muscle relaxer or mild pain killer or something like that???

Magnesium will help tremendously with your muscle pains. If my jaw starts to clench I will take some and it immediately gets better. It's actually better to take it before you take the adderal. The headaches are probably from dehydration, which can be a constant battle on adderal. Make sure to drink lots and lots, especially juices. Also, make sure to get enough salt. My friend gets heat stroke from her addy all the time and if she gets a bunch of salt choked down and drinks water she is immediately better as it helps rehydrate. That's basically what gatorade does. You should stop taking the xanax completely, as it will probably make your depression worse, not better. The SSRIs SUCK, I agree. I hate them, and thankfully there are alternatives that seem to work just as well without all the side effects. Wellbutrin is helpful, and so is st john's wort and 5htp. If you take st john's wort and 5htp then you can come immediately out of basically any level of depression, or at least I can. Be careful, though, because all these have serotonigernic effect and can elevate you into serotonin overdose which can be fatal. It will take a while of experimenting to get yourself undepressed without getting manic. Unfortunately, the 5htp is very expensive. You can substiture tryptophan but you have to take a LOT of pills to get the same effect. Flax seed oil also seems to help a lot with depression, and I mean a lot.

There are non-stimulant medications for adhd.. You can try strattera, for example. Wellbutrin is another. Either of the anti-hypertensive medications clonidine and tenex are good for reducing impulsivity and hyperactivity. The tricyclic antidepressants also are commonly prescribed for adhd. Lastly, the antiviral medication amantadine has been used by a few people with good results.

Talk to your doctor about your options.

Me :D

Thanks, but I don't have hyperactivity...at least not physical hyperactivity...my brain's another story. I am impulsive, but less so now than in my youth. I mainly say things without thinking them out first. My actions are pretty controlled...most of the time.

not all ssri's with effect ya sex drive. there'c cymbalta snri wellbutrin which isnt a ssri/snri. these two do nothing to effect me so you might wanna look into those two. go to wikipedia and read up. i also take vyvanse too

I had very similar problems to adderall. 30mg/day and the muscle tension was unbearable. Only way I could stop the muscle pain was decrease my dosage to ~15mg/day but then it didn't cover my add symptoms very well.

Switching to dexedrine helped tremendously with the muscle tension, but I found my working memory began to decline.

I then went back to adderall + .2mg of clonidine and found clonidine to completely block the muscle tension effects from adderall. It worked fairly well, but my adrenal effects were really up/down.

I am currently taking dexedrine + .1mg of clonidine and its a smooth ride. Sometimes I miss the higher adrenal feeling of the adderall, but its just too rough on my body. I may ask my pdoc about adding a longer half-life adrenal drugs like welbutrin, but not sure if its necessary at this point.

BobC

bobc

from all the peoples individual success rates, it seems celexa and wellbutrin seem to be the best for most people with adhd and depression , anxiety issues. I guess both meds have little to no interference with the adhd neural passageways -

I can agree w/ hollywood as well. Celexa treats my depression, vyvanse treats the ADHD( inattentive). Both working great so far.