I just started on IR... get 2 10mg pills a day.

10 mg seems to do me ok (I'm ADD-PI), but each pill only give me maybe 4-4.5 hours or so of productivity.

Problem is, that only give me 8, maybe 9 good hours a day. That gets me through the work day, but when I get home to my 9 month old baby & all the house chores, I'm dead.

Should I try to get 3 pills a day? insurance requires some kind of special authorization to do that.

or should I just try to get 20mg pills? and either take those twice a day or cut them in 1/2 to get 3 10mg doses a day?

I'm worried about taking too much & getting too dependant on it... should I just make do with my current 10mg x 2?

It seems like the doctors want to treat us like the treated the kids back in the 80's.

It only makes sense that you would be crashing when your family needs you the most.

You could reasonably ask for a third and possibly fourth ir if necessary or consider trying a comb. of an 'xr' and an 'ir' or two xr's. There is a lot of room to find out what works best for you..

You could ask for an increase but only increase after you talk to your psych. If you increase it and run out of pills in the meantime you will crash from the withdrawl. I take 20 mg of IR generic 5 times a day and if I take less than 3 I have major physical withdrawl and I have a 2 year old and a 12 year old.

You could ask for an increase but only increase after you talk to your psych. If you increase it and run out of pills in the meantime you will crash from the withdrawl. I take 20 mg of IR generic 5 times a day and if I take less than 3 I have major physical withdrawl and I have a 2 year old and a 12 year old.

Holy cow! You take 20 mg 5 times a day? That's a lot.

I am a graduate student and so my schedule is all over the place. I take a total of 20 mg IR a day, but all of my pills are 5 mg so I can spread them out as I need to. I usually do 10 mg twice a day, but sometimes I don't want that heavy focus at night and only take 5 mg, or spread 5 and 5 out at night, depending on the next morning. Also helps with the crash and sleep, too!

I would suggest to your doctor an increase. I hate to say this, but if you are crashing hard or you are thinking about an increase, you are already dependent on it. The majority of us are! There is a difference between being dependent on a medication and being addicted to it.

Maybe you could do 10, 10 and 5. It isn't that much of an increase, and you could skip it if you wanted to sleep without having much withdrawal.

Have you tried XR? I just was switched from IR 10mg 2times a day- due to the same reasons- plus the crash was terrible, just in time for dinner, and the rest of my evening- when I needed it the most. If I take a 10mg after 3:00 pm then I am up until wee hours of the night. Not convenient when I needed to be up at 6:45 to take care of my very active 2 year old.

I had tried taking a 20mg in the morning and a 10mg in the afternoon around 2pm and the crash was just worse. So after talking to my Doc we decided to try XR. I just started it but so far- it's way smoother, the crash is not there and the only bad thing so far is that I took it at 9 am the first day, and it lasted until 2 am. So the next day I took it at 7:30 and it lasted until 12am. So hopefully I can get it to about 10pm- The nice thing is that I don't wake up feel crappy, but do like to be in bed by 10/10:30.

I just started on IR... get 2 10mg pills a day.

10 mg seems to do me ok (I'm ADD-PI), but each pill only give me maybe 4-4.5 hours or so of productivity.

Problem is, that only give me 8, maybe 9 good hours a day. That gets me through the work day, but when I get home to my 9 month old baby & all the house chores, I'm dead.

Should I try to get 3 pills a day? insurance requires some kind of special authorization to do that.

or should I just try to get 20mg pills? and either take those twice a day or cut them in 1/2 to get 3 10mg doses a day?

I'm worried about taking too much & getting too dependant on it... should I just make do with my current 10mg x 2?

I've been in the same boat. Just tell your doctor all this! The med is working for you, but is wearing off too quickly and you feel you need a few more "medicated" hours in the day.

XR might be an option, as mentioned in another post, but it sounds like you just need a 3rd 10mg tablet.

Maybe you can try taking a 10mg tab in the morning, and then splitting another 10mg tab, so you can take 5mg in the early afternoon and 5mg in the late afternoon. Might be worth a shot! :) Sometimes it takes a long time to find that medication routine/schedule that works for you.

Good luck! :)

im with you

i thiught the dx was only if it affectef TWO or more areas of your life

my heads always a mess not just at work

If you're not getting the coverage you need out of 2 pills/day, then it sounds like talking to your doctor's a good idea. One approach I know a lot of people take is 1 XR in the morning followed by a lower-dose IR "kicker" in the late afternoon. I did this for a few months but I don't have insurance the cost of pre-generic XR was more than I could handle so I switched to all IR. My current routine is 20mg IR when I get up, 20mg about 4 hours later, and 10mg four hours after that. It took a few months to figure out the routine and dosage levels that worked best for me. 20mg 3x/day gave me horrific insomnia, 10mg 3x/day didn't do anything. Initially, I was supposed to take 20 then 10 then 20, but that also gave me insomnia.

The point is, talk to your doctor. It may be a matter of simply taking another 10 mg later in the day, it may work better for you to switch to XR, or it may work better to decrease your dose-per-pill and increase the number of times you take a pill, in which case you're probably best off trying to split them if your insurance company's evil.