The last two days I have experienced tightness in my chest, usually later in the day and lasting several hours. Like anxiety. I have had this before, when not on any medication. It would come on suddenly for no reason but would go away after 5 minutes or so. It didn't happen very often... maybe once every other week. Now I get it, seeminly after meals, but it doesn't go away for hours.

Is this a normal side effect or should I be concerned about it? Does it go away.

I took my pill very late this morning and do not plan to take the second dose today. Usually, the first dose in the morning is fine. I feel normal and can work without much concern. As it wears off in the afternoon, my chest starts to tighten up and I also feel pressure in my head. Taking the second one eases it, but it doesn't go away. When it wears, my evening is pretty much shot as I am consumed with this tightness and my anxiety over that only makes it worse. It faded over time and is often gone by bed time.

Any ideas?

Is it possible that the tightness and anxiety are seperate?

amphetamines can make your muscles sore.

sometimes i feel a tightness in my chest cavity and that means I have to heave my chest out to pop it (like poping ur knuckles) and relieve the tension.

I really can't describe what I feel as pain. More like pressure. Similar to what I feel in my head as well. It's not bad today. Off and on but nothing severe. Maybe right now a dull pressure, but again, not like last night. I am not going to take my second dose because I took the first one so late, so I should be coming down from the first as I'm typing this.

Muscles in general seem ok. Only weirdness is in my chest. All over. Not just in one area. Like a weight is on me. Sitting up straight helps.

sorry. it's hard to describe I guess.

are you going to the gym? i went a couple days ago and was doing some crunches after running and lifting and when i got off the crunch machine it felt like my chest had collapsed on itself. it HURT so bad but i had to stretch backwards in it was fine.

No I don't go to the gym and I wasn't doing any exercise. I'm hoping it's just anxiety related and not a heart problem. It seems if I keep busy it goes away or is just not noticable.

Standing or sitting up straight helps. If I'm slouched in a chair I feel a lot more pressure almost like I can feel each and every fat roll pushing up on my chest. Weird description I know, but I'm trying to explain. LOL! The thing is I am not overweight at all at 5'7"/135.

I get anxious and cranky and very moody and it occurred to me last night that possibly even depressed as I was feeling kind of blue for no reason. This all happens about 3-4 hours after I take the second dose.

Monday I only took one, later in the day. The symptoms above were not as severe. Tuesday I returned to prescribed dosage... one in the morning and one in early afternoon. The symptoms were back to uncomfortable levels.

I'm trying the one dose thing again today to see what happens. It really does help me, but I don't know if I can handle the chest discomfort on a regular basis. I'm scared to death of it... which probably only makes it worse. :(

^No soreness or stiffness in any other part of your body. Not even the neck?

What part of the chest? Is the discomfort centered? Or is it off to the left?

I actually went to the emergency room like 8 years ago cause of chest pains. There was definitely a corelation between the pains and the adderall. They couldn't find anything wrong. No more pains, but I pop my chest now and it relieves the tension.

Might be totally different than from what you have.

I dunno if everyone will agree with me or not, but muscle soreness can be a big problem if you dont stretch a lot while on the adderall. Gotta stretch it out or you'll get stiff and might become prone to injury.

Maybe you should see a chiropractor. It could be more serious than that though, so I dont want to stear you in a bad direction. Just be careful.

NO no no. I know exactly what you are talking about. It's shortness of breath, like someone is standing on your chest and you cannot completely take in air or you have to force yourself. It's a common occurance from anxiety. I take adderal and when my last dose wears off my chest gets super tight as well and all my muscles tighten up, so i take 1mg of ativan and it really helps. I feel fine during the day but after about 5 or 6 hours I start feeling the anxiety and chest problems come. The ativan is a benzo and it gets rid of your anxiety within 5 minutes. Talk to your psychiatrist and explain when it happens and suggest ativan, because i think it is one of the best benzos, for it doesn't make me feel loopy or drunk and i still have my energy and ability to do things!

Yes, I have experienced this. It scared me for a few days, because I also have natural high resting pulse rate. I was concerned that my heart was weakening.

I went to the Cardiologist and did all the tests. Everything turned out to be normal.

Since then I have seen direct correlation of this "pressure" with taking Adderall. I titrate my dosage from 7.5mg to 20 mg and also take frequent adderall vacations, that allows me to see and identify the timing of pressure in chest and my adderall dosage.

Just to reconfirm the symptoms - they are very mild; not painful, just a feeling of pressure, as if something inside the chest cavity (especially on the left side) was pushing it out.

But now I know the cause of it, I can control it, I have independent confirmation that it is not serious and I know that if I reduce my dosage of adderall, it will go away and it always does.




I really can't describe what I feel as pain. More like pressure. Similar to what I feel in my head as well. It's not bad today. Off and on but nothing severe. Maybe right now a dull pressure, but again, not like last night. I am not going to take my second dose because I took the first one so late, so I should be coming down from the first as I'm typing this.

Muscles in general seem ok. Only weirdness is in my chest. All over. Not just in one area. Like a weight is on me. Sitting up straight helps.

sorry. it's hard to describe I guess.

i been getting this too, and it is usually later in the day and gets worse after i eat and seems to get real bad if i drink a pepsi after dinner.

not sure i f it is because its wearing off of the food, because it starts wearing off about that time prob.

usually its very mild, but today it got kinda bad for 20 min or so.

the adderall helps me so much and this is starting to worry me, i dont want to die or anything. none of the other meds i tried help nearly as good as adderall.

anxiety can cause your chest to feel like pressure on or tight?

maybe it does, because right before bed i usually have a beer or 2, and that feeling seems to almost instantly go away.

The last two days I have experienced tightness in my chest, usually later in the day and lasting several hours. Like anxiety. I have had this before, when not on any medication. It would come on suddenly for no reason but would go away after 5 minutes or so. It didn't happen very often... maybe once every other week. Now I get it, seeminly after meals, but it doesn't go away for hours.

Is this a normal side effect or should I be concerned about it? Does it go away.

Any ideas?

Welcome to the club! I get this too, especially if I find myself tired, anxious or doing a lot of reading with bad posture (i.e. forward head posture + way too relaxed abs).

Stretch, stretch and stretch some more! While stretching, in a standing position, keep your abs tight, slightly bend your knees and stretch your neck, chest, upper back, shoulders (stretch and shrug), arms and even hips.

Also DON'T FORGET TO BREATHhttp://www.addforums.com/forums/images/icons/icon12.gif, correctly! Next time you feel the tightness or pressure in your chest, take note of your breathing. Where are you breathing from? Are you breathing from your upper chest? Are you breathing from your upper chest and taking quick shallow breaths? Or are you breathing from your belly? You should be breathing from your belly.

If you find that you are breathing from your upper chest, try some deep breathing.

If all else fails... I take a Xanax.

This is what I do, it seems to help me...


Take a deep breath for 5 seconds, making sure you fill your lungs completely, see your belly rise.
Hold in that breath for 5 seconds.
Exhale slowly but forcefully for 5 seconds. (When I exhale I like to recite a mantra or something to calm me down... ex: "be calm... relax...let go")
Take 2 normal breaths
Repeat steps 1-4 for 2-5 minutes


Hope you feel better!

Welcome to the club! I get this too, especially if I find myself tired, anxious or doing a lot of reading with bad posture (i.e. forward head posture + way too relaxed abs).

Stretch, stretch and stretch some more! While stretching, in a standing position, keep your abs tight, slightly bend your knees and stretch your neck, chest, upper back, shoulders (stretch and shrug), arms and even hips.

Also DON'T FORGET TO BREATHhttp://www.addforums.com/forums/images/icons/icon12.gif, correctly! Next time you feel the tightness or pressure in your chest, take note of your breathing. Where are you breathing from? Are you breathing from your upper chest? Are you breathing from your upper chest and taking quick shallow breaths? Or are you breathing from your belly? You should be breathing from your belly.

If you find that you are breathing from your upper chest, try some deep breathing.

If all else fails... I take a Xanax.

This is what I do, it seems to help me...


Take a deep breath for 5 seconds, making sure you fill your lungs completely, see your belly rise.
Hold in that breath for 5 seconds.
Exhale slowly but forcefully for 5 seconds. (When I exhale I like to recite a mantra or something to calm me down... ex: "be calm... relax...let go")
Take 2 normal breaths
Repeat steps 1-4 for 2-5 minutes

Hope you feel better!


Thank you for the information! I actually take only 10mg right now. The problem would happen when I was on 20. However, I'm debating about trying to increase back to 20 slowly because I find I'm slipping back into lala land on 10. Still not as bad as I was, but it's there calling me. :p I might need this if the symptom comes back.

Also you could ask your doc about taking a small dose later in the day too. I take 15 in the morning 15 in the afternoon and 5 in the early evening. That helped a lot when it came to the chest tightness and anxiety.

Err, this happens to me as well. Not sure if it's anxiety, or if It's because the pill is wearing off - also seems to happen when not taken meds. It typically occurs mid day to, a little after my second dose. Or when not taking it, later in the evening when at home. Feels like a panic attack sometimes - it really sucks.

I get this with concerta and/or too much caffeine intake. I think it has to do with overstimulating your cardiovascular system.

Also someone told me on here (not sure of validity) that stimulants open up your air pathways and when they wear off they close them up. So you can counteract it with another dose or wait for it to get out of your system. Once, again, not sure of validity.

What has worked for me over the years:

1) Valarian Root at night while also reducing caffeine consumption

2) 5 HTP and Melatonin at night...either/or both probably have the same effect as Valarian Root does...sedation.

3) Alcohol - a few beers after work usually fixes everything right up quite nicely. I guess it counteracts the stimulating effects of the medicine by acting as a depressant.

I imagine something like Tryptophan would have a similar effect to the first 2.

Just warning: the first 2 can make you wake up kind of groggy if you take too much.

I used to have the chest tightness a lot before I started with Ritalin, much less so on medication. The important point here is I don´t think I have anxiety. I really twisted my head to find out if I felt any anxiety, and I just didn´t. I would typically notice that it was worst during sitting meditation. (I tried to meditate myself out of inattentive ADD-great idea-not!). As the others experienced pleasant relaxation, I felt that my chest felt more and more like I had some weight on it, it was difficult to keep my shoulders up and breath deeply and I would almost crunch. It was very unpleasant. Yoga with backward stretching helped. So how come yoga made it better, meditation made it worse? This doesn´t make much sense if it is about anxiety since both should increase serotonin levels. However, I think yoga might also boost dopamine.

So I changed my opinion about it. I thinki that this phenomena could just as well be too high serotonin versus dopamine levels as sinking serotonin. Would explain why it comes mid-day after the dose is going out. Interestingly I also realize that I automatically pull my shoulders more backwards and straigthen up when Ritalin works. Maybe it has something to do with how the nervous signals regulating body posture is influenced.

I am reviving this post because I've had the same constricting chest sensations with ritalin (I don't take Adderall). A tightness that brings about shortness of breath and then anxiety.

I have been reading as much as I can find about this problem on the net, and have been for about 6 months.

I have found one interesting factor that often seems to occur with people who are gaving this problem. Gastrointestinal problems, GIRD, Leaky gut sysndrome, etc...

When small amounts of stomach acid leak into the esophogus it causes the muscles of that connect to the rib cage to constrict. Sometimes there is a sensation of pain or burning in the espohogus, but just as often there is no pain associated with it.

The medication can cause the acid leakage, or it may be a pre-existing problem (as in my case). Then, once the medication is taken, the tightening chest sensation causes anxiety since we've all been informed about the negative possible sysmptoms of using stimulants to treat our ADD.

Something to consider, and explore on your own. Over a long period of time GIRD can cause serious health problems so a consultation with your doctor may be in order.

Hi, I am writing again in this thread because I started having the chest tightness again. It feels like a pressure, like something heavy on my chest, and it is difficult to take a deep breath.

I still disagree with the anxiety theory though.

I got it really bad a day when I had not taken Strattera (switched from ritalin to strattera). I was totally relaxed lying on the sofa watching TV. Then I felt more and more of this heavy feeling of resistance in my chest. So I went and took a tablet. And voila! After like ten-fifteen minuts it was a lot better. Then I did some stretching exercises recommended in another post. This helps wonderfully, but only if I take Strattera first. Highly recommended!

I recently read up on stretch reflexes in muscles. The muscles in the body are not totally relaxed even when you don´t use them. There is some tension in them. High serotonin increases the tension. So my guess is that imbalance between dopamine/noradrenaline/serotonin causes the muscles to contract too much.

Just so people know, a lot of the symptoms described here could be reflux related.

7 years ago I had surgery for GERD & erosive esophogitis, and chronic reflux often feels nothing like heartburn. I had a constant pressure in my chest which freaked me out for months. Try drinking some Gaviscon or something similar when you have this pain or discomfort and see if its alleviated.

I just started on Ritalin and am having chest tightness. I am trying to figure out if its somehow reflux related.

Hopefully that info will help someone.

I don't know if I am talking about the same stuff you all are, but sometimes, I get really bad anxiety while on my 20mg adderall. It's bad enough that I can feel it in my chest. The last really bad time it completely canceled out the good focusing effects of my meds and I wandered through my apartment trying to pinpoint where it was coming from.