Ok, doctor switched me from Concerta 54mg to Adderall. He said to take 10mg for the first week then 2 to 3 10mg pills after the first week. what the hell? aren't i going to be going through Concerta withdrawl? any suggestion for the best way to take my meds to get all day coverage? he prescribed 76 10mg pills.

Ok, doctor switched me from Concerta 54mg to Adderall. He said to take 10mg for the first week then 2 to 3 10mg pills after the first week. what the hell? aren't i going to be going through Concerta withdrawl? any suggestion for the best way to take my meds to get all day coverage? he prescribed 76 10mg pills.

It's safer to ask your doctor that question - None of us here can answer that safely.

my sons Dr says that ADHD drugs are out of the system within 24 hrs, so it IS ok to start a new drug the next morning.

shouldn't our headline of the thread read: "from concerta to adderall"

Ok, doctor switched me from Concerta 54mg to Adderall. He said to take 10mg for the first week then 2 to 3 10mg pills after the first week. what the hell? aren't i going to be going through Concerta withdrawl? any suggestion for the best way to take my meds to get all day coverage? he prescribed 76 10mg pills.

Stimulants like meth (desoxy), amphetamine (adderall) and methylphenidate (ritalin, concerta, etc) aren't physically addictive. You won't have any withdrawal. The only type of "withdrawal" that you can get from stimulants is psychological withdrawal, where you miss the feeling stimulants give you, but you certainly won't get physical symptoms like you would with opiates.

Even if you could get physical withdrawal from stimulants (and you can't), you wouldn't get it because the adderall would take the concerta's place in your brain (laymens terms) and prevent any withdrawal. It'd be like switching from vicodin to percocet... you wouldn't get withdrawal.

For all day coverage, take 2 pills when you wake up (assuming that's before 10am) and 1 pill approximately 4 - 5 hours after the first two. That'll give you a nice 7 - 12 hour coverage.

But honestly, read your prescription and follow what it says.

This is wrong. You be physically tired and sluggish and fatigued if you are going through any type of withdrawal from a stimulant. Ask anyone that drinks energy drinks everyday and doesn't get them one day. I'm not even going to argue this point.

Stimulants like meth (desoxy), amphetamine (adderall) and methylphenidate (ritalin, concerta, etc) aren't physically addictive. You won't have any withdrawal. The only type of "withdrawal" that you can get from stimulants is psychological withdrawal, where you miss the feeling stimulants give you, but you certainly won't get physical symptoms like you would with opiates.

Even if you could get physical withdrawal from stimulants (and you can't), you wouldn't get it because the adderall would take the concerta's place in your brain (laymens terms) and prevent any withdrawal. It'd be like switching from vicodin to percocet... you wouldn't get withdrawal.

For all day coverage, take 2 pills when you wake up (assuming that's before 10am) and 1 pill approximately 4 - 5 hours after the first two. That'll give you a nice 7 - 12 hour coverage.

But honestly, read your prescription and follow what it says.

This is wrong. You be physically tired and sluggish and fatigued if you are going through any type of withdrawal from a stimulant. Ask anyone that drinks energy drinks everyday and doesn't get them one day. I'm not even going to argue this point.

I'm sorry you decided that "it was wrong", but unfortunately for you, the medical community decided "it was right". You do not get physical withdrawal from stimulants, I really could care less if you don't want to argue about it, because you're just plain flat out wrong, and there's hundreds of thousands of pieces of research to back me up here. Your energy drink analogy, while cute, is a moot point since energy drinks don't actually contain amphetamines or piperadine derivatives (adderall and methylphenidate, respectively).

Caffeine actually IS physically addictive because it acts as an antagonist to your adrenic receptors, and thus, when you consume it frequently, your body upregulates the # of receptors you have and then when you don't have it those receptors are all empty. Opiate addiction is based on the same concept.

Let me explain to you what physically addictive means: It means that when you discontinue the drug, you have physical symptoms that show up as a result of the drug not being in your system. It also means these physical symptoms go away when you take the drug (read: they actually go away, the drug doesn't suppress or hide them).

Example: Opiates. Take opiates every day for a month and you will become physically addicted to them. Discontinue their use immediately and you will get physically sick. This includes diarhea, vomitting, sweating, hot/cold flashes, involuntary crying, itchy skin, fever, etc etc. These withdrawal symptoms are, again, due to the drug being absent from your system. Take one dose of an opiate and these symptoms disappear.

Stimulants, on the other hand, don't do this. The reason you feel tired, fatigued, and sluggish when stimulants wear off is because your body needs sleep. And by this I mean, most people who use stimulants have them in their body for the majority of the day. Obviously they're going to be more tired at the end of the day than at the beginning. However, like I said, these "physical withdrawals" as you call them, are not due to the drug at all, but due to the fact that the drug suppresses your need for sleep, and ability to notice fatigue. Lets look at crystal meth, as an example. Crystal meth users often go on day-long and even week-long binges with the drug. When the week is over, they feel like crap, are extremely tired, extremely hungry, very out of it, depressed, anxious, etc etc. Now I know what you're thinking... "AHA! IT WAS THE METH AND THAT IS WITHDRAWAL", but you're wrong. All of those "withdrawal symptoms" are actually just what happens to you and your body when you don't sleep for days on end. The meth only suppressed the ability of your body to feel these things. Compare that to the physical withdrawal of opiates, which, as you recall from above, are a result of not having an opiate in your system, as opposed to an opiate hiding these symptoms from you. Put simply, drugs that cause physical dependence are drugs which cause physical symptoms upon cessation use. Drugs like amphetamines only hide your natural need for things like sleep and ability to feel fatigued, which is why when they wear off you feel them anyways, but like I said before, THE ABSENCE OF AMPHETAMINES IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE APPEARANCE OF THESE SYMPTOMS AND THE CONTINUED USE OF AMPHETAMINES WILL ONLY HIDE THESE SYMPTOMS.

If I go to bed at 10pm, wake up at 6am and take my adderall IR, I'll notice it for 3 hours or so. When it wears off though, I'm not tired, or sluggish, or anything. I might think I'm sluggish, but really that's just because the performance enhancing effects of adderall have left my system and in comparison to my brain on adderall, my brain operating at normal levels feels sluggish. I know this because I do this on a daily basis.

I understand it's a hard concept to grasp. For the longest time I was in the same boat as you and thought stimulants like cocaine, adderall, and ritalin were physically addictive. Like you, I argued with anyone that said otherwise and remained ignorant to the fact that I was wrong. Eventually though, I looked it up, did a bunch of research on the topic, and found that I was the one who was wrong.

Go research it, but don't sit here saying "LOL D00D NO U R WRONG I KNO B/C ASK ABOUT ENERGY DRINKS IM NOT GUNNA EVEN ARGUE!!" because it's really ignorant of you to do so. And I'll know whether or not you researched based on whether or not you continue to argue a falsity.

Ok, so basically I used the idea of withdrawl in the wrong way. I could have said 'I feel really fatigued because of the fact that I have not taken my Concerta today.' 'My body is now catching up on sleep that I missed out on.'

Happy? I still feel tired.

People are dependent on methamphetamine because they like the drug, are addicted, and don't want to catch up on the sleep they've been missing. True or false statement?

and sorry, im just mad today, no hard feelings, all love

All I was saying is that a distinction exists within the medical community between physical and psychological addiction... as it should. Drugs which are physically addictive are drugs that people cannot stop taking because if they do they get physically sick. They may want to discontinue using that drug, but can't because they get physically ill. Drugs which are psychologically addictive are drugs which can be stopped cold turkey, without making the user physically ill, but usually aren't because the user does not want to stop taking the drug because they enjoy how it makes them feel.

The reason I brought this distinction up, and argued about it with you is because you expressed fear over concerta withdrawal. Not only would you not get withdrawal from concerta, but even *IF* there were a such thing, the adderall would keep the withdrawal from showing up. Just like if someone was switched from hydrocodone to oxycodone, they wouldn't get opiate withdrawal.

Anyways, it's all good, I used to think the same thing you did, but I know better now.

Oh, and a little piece of advice, I wouldn't register the same user-name on multiple forums... some of us might frequent the other forums you visit ;).