Background: Started on 15mg of Adderall XR. Worked for a week and then stopped. I still took it for ~2 more weeks though. Doctor prescribed me 20mg of generic pink d-amphetamine salt tablets (IR I'm assuming). I wanted to clear the XR out of my system, totally, so I stopped taking it for 3 days and started taking a lot of vitamins as well.



**A TLDR version is at the end. :)**



Today (6.5-7 hours of sleep and first day taking 20mg pink d-amphetamine salt tablet):

8:30: Took dose with glass of water (no breakfast)
9:00: I could feel the medicine working in my system.
My mood: Wanting to learn, peace of mind, happy.
Dry mouth, a bit hungry, an urge to be social, catching myself the second I start zoning out (instead of normally 60sec-2min in that frame of mind), slightly tired.
9:30 Feel like I'm slowing down, a bit tired still. Class ends and I go outside to study.
9:35: Feel like falling asleep, hard to concentrate and focus.
9:40: Get a feeling of a 'second wind'
9:48: Hard to focus again, wanting to do a ton of things
10:00: neck feels stiff, noticeable oncoming headache. dry mouth
10:45: Started forgetting where I was putting stuff, while organizing notebook
10:50: a bit hyper, started 'bouncing' leg. I feel like I have a lot of energy. I feel more focused, clear headed again. Hands are freezing though.
11:10: energy level and social urge has greatly diminished. But still focused and determined to study.
11:13: Normal OCD habits are reoccuring (Taking the medicine seemed to have removed all OCD habits, until now)
11:16: Vision has diminished quite a bit (slightly blurry)
11:30: Mood is almost in a neutral state. Not sad, not happy, not mad. Just....alive.
11:35: extremely hard to focus. Becoming upset, bitter, aggrivated due to this.
11:40: head feels hot. Tired.
11:44: Giving up on school work. Going home.



**TLDR**: Medicine worked in 30 min. focus and concentration stopped after 2 hours. In those 2 hours, it was random bursts of focus and concentration, kind of. Constant dry mouth, unpleasant mood at the end of the 2 hours. A little tired through it all.

So I'm just curious....has this 'scenario' happened to anyone on here before?

To me, it feels like I might be taking too much. I think I'm gonna split my 20mg in 4 pieces and try 5mg tomorrow and see how much of a difference there is.

I would agree with your assessment about it being too much. Your old 15mg XR's only released half their dose (7.5 mg) at a time, and you went from that to taking 20mg all at once. Definitely try a smaller dose and see what happens.

Doctor prescribed me 20mg of generic pink d-amphetamine salt tablets (IR I'm assuming).

First of all, I recommend knowing what your doctor prescribed before you take it.

Second of all, did you eat? You might be one of those people who has to eat breakfast with your first dose. The drug might suppress your appetite, but you'll still get a headache and feel tired and irritable if your body needs fuel.

I'm on Dex IR (10 mg each, but I take 2 doses of 20 mg) and I find it works best if I eat breakfast 30 minutes after my first dose. A dose of IR typically lasts 4-5 hours for me.

Third of all, sleep matters. 8 hours a night should be minimum (ha, I should talk). When I don't get enough sleep, even Dex can't give me energy. 6.5-7 hours might seem like enough, but that extra hour and a half can really make a difference.

If your diet and sleep cycle are in line, and it still makes you feel crappy, then that med is probably not for you. Of course, it could be the manufacturer. For some people, it makes a difference. You gotta control the variables as best you can when you're trialing a new medication.

Well, I asked for Adderall IR and the script was for the generic brand, so no IR or XR was used, and it wasn't a capsule, so I'm pretty positive it is IR. I just threw that in there, because I was confused when it didn't indicate IR or XR on the script, when I received it. But good catch on that, in case I was completely blacked out with my medication hehe.

No, I didn't eat. When I was taking the XR, it seemed to almost have no effect when I took it with food. I'm pretty much playing the experiment game, trying to find my niche. And what I mean by that is: take it with no food, take it and then eat 30-60min later, eat first then take it in 30-60 min.

Yeah, I hate going to bed early, which screw up the 8 hours by just a hair.

Also, I feel like amphetamines are a glass house. You have to do everything JUST right, in order for things to go smoothly. I mean I just went to work out earlier, and my heartrate seemed to have tripled in under 2 minutes. So now I have to find a way to incorporate fitness with the drug. And then throw in how to take the medication (meals) and how much of a dosage works best, and tolerance issues. Quite a headache in itself imo. But hopefully it won't take me too long...like my entire semester lol, to find out what works for me.

Also, I feel like amphetamines are a glass house. You have to do everything JUST right, in order for things to go smoothly. I mean I just went to work out earlier, and my heartrate seemed to have tripled in under 2 minutes. So now I have to find a way to incorporate fitness with the drug. And then throw in how to take the medication (meals) and how much of a dosage works best, and tolerance issues. Quite a headache in itself imo. But hopefully it won't take me too long...like my entire semester lol, to find out what works for me.

I'm right there with you. I could have written that paragraph myself. Timing the dose with the food is especially bothersome, as sometimes it worked great when I took it only 30 mins away from a meal and sometimes it felt completely cancelled out when I took it 2 hours away from a meal. (the same meals too, containing no vit c/citric acid).

2nd Day: Took half the IR (10mg), and felt nothing for over an hour (only a slight headache, probably due to no breakfast). After about an hour and 15 min, I took the other half, in hopes I was wrong about 20mg being too much. In 30 min I started getting a little tired for 10 min or so and then it went away, and I started feeling really weird. Vision was getting blurry again too, like when the adderall wears off, or when I don't take it (drug holidays). It almost felt like I was going through a withdrawl.

Gonna go back to 20mg tomorrow. I could try it without food again, and see if it works for 2 hours and then stops, like last time (too check the drug's consistency). However, I think I'm gonna see how it works with food.

It sucks I have to wait 24 hours to test every freakin' variable with this drug...lol.

Most of the effects that you're experiencing will go away after a few weeks to a few months depending on how your brain tolerates the drug. Most of what you're dealing with is typical of the drug. It's nothing negative. I felt the same way in the beginning when I took IR. When I switched to XR I noticed that my body was already used to the effects and the transition was smooth between the two. I felt normal again. Before you know it after taking the medication you'll just feel normal again as if you didn't take the medication. Give it some time to adjust. I'm sure your pdoc will agree.

The side effects are fine as long as the drug helps me focus (and even better if they diminish over time =D). But it hasn't really even been working lol. Helped for 2 hours yesterday, and 0 today.

Try taking it three times a day, 5-6 hours apart. If that doesn't show any efficacy then try it every 4 hours. I tried that the first time I took IR and it worked for me. I'm no pdoc but I'm sure your pdoc would possibly agree with me. If you're not satisfied then I suggest approaching your pdoc and increasing your dosage to the maximum of a period of time and taking it more frequently throughout the day. IR usually lasts 4 hours in most individuals. Again, give Adderall some time to work.

Good Luck.

MODERATOR NOTE:

Please remember, we can't give out definitive medical advice, especially for med dosing. Talk to your doctor!

I do agree. Yet nothing mentioned was "definitive". However, educating one's self is crucial. Having this in mind, it could help with his treatment in conjunction with the pdoc.

Yeah, I figured I'd try and get adderall to work for at least 4 hours (if I can ><). And then talk to my doc about multidosing throughout the day.

3rd day:

Got roughly 5 hours of sleep. When I woke up, I was surprisingly not tired at all and very energetic. This kind of gave me this slight notion that maybe the vitamins/supplements I take at night, are really helping me, but I'm asleep and the 'effects' from them wear off by the time I normally wake up... Would be really interesting to test this, but I can't take them the same time as adderall, maybe I'll try it this coming weekend.

Took the full 20mg after school, felt 'different' within 30 minutes and it lasted for an hour. 30 minutes later I became EXTREMELY tired...almost like a crash. But I felt really focused as well. Couldn't fall asleep, just really rested. It was weird, it felt like half my mind was awake, focused, and wanting to do things, I also had this huge urge to socialize, even though I was home alone. The other half of my mind just felt exhausted. I just felt REALLY relaxed overall...almost as if I took a sedative. I have a feeling that the medicine was trying to work, but my due to my lack of sleep from the night before, my mind was too fatigued to work with it.

I'm going to try and get a full 8 hours of sleep tonight and take the 20mg again on an empty stomach before class and compare my results to Monday's.

Question for the board though....When it comes to sleep, most people seem to agree on 8 hours as being the best number. Getting less than that, well, it is obvious that it's not good for you (even without medications). However...how much is TOO much sleep? I'll try and research this later, but if anyone has any input on it, I'd love to here it :).


On a side note, I want to add that Adderall seems to do WONDERS for my slight case of OCD. I'm not even sure if it's even supposed to help with that, but it definitely seems to completely suppress it. It's actually the first sign I get, to let me know that my adderall has stopped working/worn off.

Don't mean to double bump my thread, but from the various articles I read, it seems that 7 hours is the bare minimum a grown adult should sleep and on the other end of the spectrum, one shouldn't sleep for more than 9 hours. (Just in case others are reading this silly 'journal' of mine and were interested as well :P).

every1 is body chem is diff i can handle up to 300mg of adderall ir with no problems cept jaw clenchin

4th day:
7.5 hours of sleep. Took 20mg of IR at 8:00 on an empty stomach. An hour and a half life later...no effects -_-

Gonna try taking an alkalizing agent 30 min before I take adderall again, in the morning.

Hooray for having to wait 24 hours to test these silly variables...lol

4 hours after I took the adderall, I got an extremely bad headache on the left side of my head. I can easily get headaches from not eating, but the pain was ten fold, probably the worst headache I have ever had...because I've never had a headache make me tear up before... The worst part lasted for an hour and has slowly, and I mean SLOWLY lol, started to come down.
Also, I checked pulse at rest, and it was 100 bpm. I need to lookup what a normal resting heart rate should be...