I was thinking of going on adderall ir as I said before. I know people usually take 2 doses a day...and they say it lasts for 8 hours. 8 hours? How is that even enough? I don't get why people can take antidepressants which balance you out all day and night, yet these pills work for a mere 8 hours on TWO doses. ADD isn't just something I need to manage on an 8 hour work day or school day...it is a constant problem that effects my moods and behavior. They make it seem as if all you have to do is get through your job while on these pills and when you're home it isn't important that you have ADD. Why isn't there a 24 hour pill for ADD when they have antidepressants that last 24 hours? Why are they only giving out medications that last for a few hours? I want something to manage my problems all day long.

Adderall will more than likely give you insomnia if there was a 24 hour medication. And you must give your body a break after working on overdrive after the several hours of taking Adderall. If you need an extra boost cause it crashes too early, ask your doctor about an XR to get you through the day and for an IR boost to help you through the rest of the night so you're not entirely burnt out when the XR wears off. A 24 hours lasting pill is just too long for your body to handle since most medication to treat ADHD are stimulants.

Adderall will more than likely give you insomnia if there was a 24 hour medication. And you must give your body a break after working on overdrive after the several hours of taking Adderall. If you need an extra boost cause it crashes too early, ask your doctor about an XR to get you through the day and for an IR boost to help you through the rest of the night so you're not entirely burnt out when the XR wears off. A 24 hours lasting pill is just too long for your body to handle since most medication to treat ADHD are stimulants.


I can see that would be a problem for some people but I personally don't get insomnia at all. No ADHD pill I have ever been on has given me a ton of energy or effected my sleep. I must admit adderall is a lot weaker than people said.

If not a 24 hour pill they should at least extend the timing on them I must say. Maybe the reason so many become addicted to these and not antidepressants is because they wear off so quickly. You have to keep increasing your dose and I am sure there are people out there who can't stand the short lived effects so they take more than they should.

Strattera and other anti-depressant type drugs are "24 hour" meds.

Edit: before someone complains, Strattera is not approved as an anti-depressant in the US, but if it looks and quacks like a duck...

not a 24 hour pill they should at least extend the timing on them I must say. Maybe the reason so many become addicted to these and not antidepressants is because they wear off so quickly. You have to keep increasing your dose and I am sure there are people out there who can't stand the short lived effects so they take more than they should.

I would imagine that a steady 24 hour dose of an amphetamine (or similar) would lead to tolerance sooner than intermittent dosing.

A large part of the meds' effects seem to be proportional to the increase in blood concentrations, not the actual level. Adderall XL is a lot more effective at T+3 hours than T+16 hours, even though the blood levels are about the same at those to times.

The closest 24hr. amphetimine-related medicine which sustains a CNS stimulant effect with regards to dopamine and neuroepherine is Wellbutrin XL. Straterra effects NE, and all other DA related meds are sedative. Wellbutrin is analog of amphetimine, and it doesn't reach a half-life until 21 hours.

If you take adderall IR 3 times a day that would last about 12 hours which is decent...why can't people do that?

I get why the 24 hour desire is there, especially if your day involves more then 12 hours of needed productivity. You might want to look at supplements Tyrosine, DMAE.

I take the Adderall in the morning, as well as, WBXL 300; in the evening 10mgs. Celexa. I find this combo the most conducive to 24 hour coverage. Adderall XR immediate 8 hour coverage of DA, NE and Seratonin reuptake and release; WBXL for longterm DA and NE retuptake, and Celexa for longterm Seratonin reuptake coverage. All three neurotransmitters get hit for both immediate and longterm effects. Also, the Adderall seems more effective, I guess becuse there is more DA, NE and Seratonin to act upon.

Does Strattera not last 24 hours? There's your 24 hour ADHD medication

Of course we all would like 24 hour coverage but there are downsides to it. Tolerance being the number 1 issue. I'm not talking about the physical tolerance in which that initial honeymoon phase of euphoria passes.

I'm talking about the phenomenon of 'acute tolerance' in which our body tends to recognize passive levels of amphetamine/methylphenidate in the body and we don't get the same benefit as we do in the 'active' phase of taking medication. Look at any of the medication booklets to see what I mean. You will see something like a graphical bell-curve or inverted "V" to show how the medication rises, peaks, then declines. The active phase is the rising portion, the passive phase is when the medication is still in the body but we don't feel or benefit from it anymore (or as much).

Anyways, as people mentioned Strattera is a 24 hour med. Actually, Vyvanse reaches steady-state levels after 5 days of use. Steady-state is the technical term in which after x-amount of time you will have a continuous level of medication in your body due to the half-life of the medication and overlap. As someone that has been on Vyvanse for about 1.5 years or so I am tolerant to any residual levels of amphetamine and like many here, only get the benefit from the active portion of taking Vyvanse each day (about 5-6 hours tops).

Methylphenidate has such a short half-life that those meds don't reach steady state. If you want the longest, actively working medication then look up Daytrana. With Daytrana you can get about 15 hours on continuous active dosing before the patch runs out.

It's perfectly acceptable to take IR 3x/day to get the 12 hr coverage you're needing.

It's similar to what I do. I take an XR in the morning and an IR in the later afternoon. I need to function both at work and at home.

When I was on Adderall I took XR twice a day and had a few on-hand IRs (5mg) just in case there was rebound (there normally wasn't). So you can get yourself covered all day, but as other people pointed out, it's the fact that these medications break down so quickly in the system that prevents us from building actual tolerance to them. (Well that, the low doses, and the delivery mechanisms) If they were in our systems 24 hours a day, they would cease to be therapeutic after a while and would become an addiction.

But you're not alone in the frustration here. I call it the "Pumpkin Complex". I take my meds twice a day and get a good 12 hours of relief from my systems, and then after 12 hours I turn back into a pumpkin. I'm impulsive, I'm restless, I'm unfocused, and I'm moody just like I've always been. It's really hard to deal with. The medicated hours seem to make the nonmedicated hours that much harder to deal with (though due to risidual amounts of medication in our systems, they are often actually a bit easier to deal with)