Ive been taking adderall/vyvanse since January and it has been great, but I want to know if I should keep taking it or not because I heard that to much amphetemines lower your natural dopamine supply. I don't want to end up depressed and not able to enjoy anything in life, but I also don't want my old eating habits coming back...


I learned this on the history channel, it was all about meth.

Are you taking it for weight loss, or ADHD? Either way, you will eat more when you stop taking it.

if as adhd we already have low dopamine, which i do anyway, reguardless of a label or diagnosis, then using dex to add it is fine. if that results in LESS natural production of dopamine, then who cares, i never had enough to begin with. use the meds if they help and dont harm. thats the criteria for using meds

One of the side-effects of ADHD stimulants is loss of appetite. Occasionally, (and I've seen this on ADDF several times before), Docs will prescribe it as part of a weight loss program.

Personally, I don't agree with this. Using secondary side-effects of a particular medication as a primary effect treatment opens up a can of worms.

However, once you stop taking the medication you will return to your pre-medication state, (whatever that is).

Amphetemines do alter your Dopamine supply. The drug will bind to the Dopamine transporter...... (a few more processes in between)...... will cause more Dopamine to be produced.

This is all a short term process. I think the court is still out on whether there is a long term depletion of Dopamine levels, or a reduction in the ability to produce Dopamine.

Word of warning.... If you want to avoid post-medication depression, then titrate slowly DOWN. Don't go cold-turkey.

Your pDoc will mention this as well. It's important to discuss this with him/her as well.

I agree with mijahe's post above. .

I also don't want my old eating habits coming back...


The eating habit is much like other habits we acquire, it is some thing you will have to address nonpharmaticuticaly. You have to change the way you eat in a manner you can stick with for a life time without medications. Stimulants aren't the whole answer for ADD treatment they damn shouldn't be the answer for weight loss. You do not mention weather or not you have ADD.

Many doctors won't prescribe stimulants for weight loss because the decrease in appetite is a short term side effect that diminishes rapidly so the patient keeps having to up the dose to maintain the appetite suppressant effect. This is a bad cycle that only potentates the chances of addictive behaviors.


Medications allow ADDers to manage their symptoms but the meds do not do the management for us. We have to learn different ways to approach life so we can function. Weight loss needs to be a slow gradual process that come about via life style changes that are feasible without the use of a chemical.


Using these medications to lose weight is a slippery slope.

I take L-Tyrosine supplements that are supposed to help with the dopamine depletion issue, but I can't say that I can tell a difference. If you do a search for them on this forum, there is tons of info about them.

One thing for people to keep in mind is that often overeating can be due to the same lack of dopamine ADD people have, and that therefore there can be long-term benefits to taking Adderall for people who have had chronic weight issues, even if the real reason it was prescribed was for ADD.

I've been on Adderall since October, and I had a lot of weight loss early on. It has slowed, but it's still coming off. I'm not experiencing the hard-core appetite suppression anymore (mostly, anyway - sometimes I'll have a day where I just don't want to eat much at all), but neither am I anywhere near eating what I used to.

I eat three small meals a day. I almost never snack. I don't pig out anymore (or even fantasize about pigging out) on a whole pizza or a sack of hamburgers. I used to be hungry ALL THE TIME, even when I knew I should be full. I was constantly battling the urge to stuff my face.

The Adderall seems, at least, to have put those days to rest. The increased dopamine production helps the ADD tremendously, but it also helps the urge to overeat, an urge that came from the same lack of dopamine that is related to ADD.

Point being that while I think many of the cautions here are quite good, the fact is that just as many people find that lifestyle/behavioral changes don't help their ADD (at least not at a sufficient level), lifestyle/behavioral changes aren't necessarily enough to allow one to lose weight, either. Both conditions have (or at least often have) the same biological cause behind them, and in that context I don't really see weight loss as a "side effect" of Adderall so much as seeing both ADD and chronic obesity as two symptoms of the same condition, a condition that Adderall treats quite successfully.

The Adderall seems, at least, to have put those days to rest. The increased dopamine production helps the ADD tremendously, but it also helps the urge to overeat, an urge that came from the same lack of dopamine that is related to ADD.

I think this is the key.

Many have commented that ADDers don't get used to the stimulant medication as quickly as NTers. That is: a NT will keep having to up their dose constantly as their body gets used to the medication.

Not so sure about that one, though.


Either way, though, if the OP is an NT and taking it as part of a weight loss program, then slippery slope indeed. However, if they are an ADDer, then as you said it certainly does help control weight anyway.

For me; I find that I have a reduced desire to eat. I used to regularly buy 1kg blocks of chocolate and pig out on them. I wasn't fat before, as I have a very fast metabolism, however now I'm a whole lot healthier.