Is it true that Ritalin is different than other stimulants in that the higher the dose or the more of it you take, you end up getting sleepy, tired, sluggish,etc.? Whereas with Adderall and Dexedrine, the more you take, the more insomnia, excitedness, wiredness, hyperness, etc.

I've been on Adderall for the longest with the most success, and tried Dexedrine, and now on Ritalin for a few weeks. It's been the hardest finding the right dose and the right dosing pattern for me. I'm wondering if my dose is too large (75 mg/a day), supposedly 25 mg three times a day. I had been on Adderall 60mg/day for a few years, and since Adderall is supposed to be twice as potent as Ritalin, I feared that the 75 mg a day would not be enough.

So I don't know if my dose is too low or too high. A few days I felt good with it, but the last few days have been very tired, as if I was on a sedative rather than a stimulant! And sleeping many hours, having a hard time getting up, and not getting anything done.

That happened with me a few times on Adderall but only after working hard and going with little sleep for days.

Is this "crash" normal for Ritalin or is it a sign of too much or too little- at any rate, what it's doing to me right now is not helping at all.

I am going to be switching back to Adderall I think next month and none too soon.

But until then I don't want to be a zombie.

Thanks.

If I may ask - why did you go off of Adderall in the first place? It seems it had been working. Personally I have tried a different stimulant in hopes of it working better than the one I was on... that one didn't work out so great. :p

Anyways, I too have heard all about how one drug is "supposed" to be twice as strong as this one, and that one is half as strong as the other one, etc., etc. That's all fine and dandy when comparing meds of the same family, but not so much when the opposite is true. Ritalin(methylphenidate) is different from Adderall(mixed amphetamine salts) and therefor it is difficult to try and figure out what an equivalent dose would be.

When starting on a completely new stim, it's usually wise to follow the titration schedule as one would without any previous stim experience, maybe with a slightly higher starting dose. It's extremely likely that you're on too high of a dose, which could be making you sleepy.

Stims do different things for different people. 30mgs of Adderall may put one person to sleep, while for another it might send them into a panic attack, even though they just switched from 80mgs of Ritalin or something. Just like all other psychiatric meds, there's no way of knowing for certain how each individual will respond to a particular med.

To get to my point(it's taken quite a while for me to do this, heh), you could certainly be getting tired because of taking too high of a dose. If you still want to pursue the whole Ritalin thing, I think that trying it at a lower dose would be worthwhile. :)

Thanks- I actually put in a call to my doctor today because I can't stand it anymore. The nausea, dizziness, fatigue and tiredness...I had that when I first started the Ritalin for a few days, then it seemed to be ok but not very beneficial, and now the bad side effects again.
I switched from Adderall b/c I thought it wasn't as effective anymore. But at least there were no bad side effects! And it WAS still effective. I am going to go back on it as soon as I can get my doc's approval.
Ritalin is just not working for me.