Hey I am new.... answers please

[Laney29]

Hey!! My name is Lane and I am 23 yrs old. ok well a little history... I was diagnosed with add or adhd whatever when I was 6. My doctor did many test and decided I had a severe case, so he put me on ritalin well i took it for years. Then when I was about 18 he switched me to concerta. Horrible. I was evil when I came off of it. We tried strattera and honestly I cant remember why I quit taking it. I thought add was just a child thing and I grew out of it. Well when I was 19 i thought I had depression problems, and the only real depression behind it was I couldnt focus, I was never on time, couldn't complete one thing I started and really had no idea who I was as a person. Well I tried anti-depressants and that just made me crazier than what I felt already. So I got off everything and just shuffled through the days. Well I got pregnant with my son when I was 20 and had him at 21 and everything seemed perfect. Well of course the newness went away. I started a new job at a bank and was constantly making careless errors, to the point of almost losing my job. I was never on time and very impulsive, blah blah blah.... ok well i am going to get to the point now.... So about 6 months ago my doctor and I were talking I was there for a med check up. I have been on valiums for a couple years now (minus being pregnant) and i started telling him what was going on. He said it was adhd. Which i was confused I thought I grew out of that. He ran test and oh yeah definatly. So he put me on 20mg Vyvanse and of course my valiums as needed. I felt great, like a completely different person. I was social, happy, started back to school, read all the time, quit making careless errors at work, actually got promoted... Well the last month I was on 40mg and one day I took it and it was hell... I felt horrible. Well I thought just a bad day thats it...The last month of being on it everything got worse. I couldnt do anything, complete anything, focus on anything, not even function. It just out of nowhere stopped working. So I went to him about 2 weeks ago in a panic and told him and he said lets try the adderall xr 20mg (generic) and 10mg ir (generic) in the afternoons if needed and see how that does. Well the first couple days were great I started to feel normal again. And now its hit or miss. Somedays are good and others are bad. I have gotten about the same amount of sleep everynight. No orange juice ect. Drinking lots of water and protein and I just cant figure out whats going on.... I am thinking I dont need to be on extended release at all and just regular ir but I need to figure something out quick because i am up and i am down and I cant afford to be that way, not as a mom, wife, in school and work full time. I am drifting from everything and I need some advice.

[Josh_kelly]

What I would do

Switch to the IR. Take it on an empty stomach so it would absorb faster with lots of water and eat after 30 min so you won't have peaks and valleys after its absorbed.

[Laney29]

is there a big difference is the ir and xr?

[Josh_kelly]

The IR you can tailor it better to your daily schedule.

Adderall XR was designed to kick-in twice:
1. half when you first take it (in the stomach where the pH is low) acidic
2. Other half 4 hours later (small intestine where the pH is high,basic or alkaline).


For example, lets say you ingest 10 mg adderall XR, the perfect scenario is 5 now and 5 mg 4 hours later.
But with the ingestion of acidic substances, 3 now and 7mg 4 hours later.

that's why you feel that the XR is working one day and not working the other. Food, anxiety, stress, water intake and many other factors change pH (slightly) from one day to the other depending on these conditions.

[rd_wnc]

I think it's just the time of release. IR is 4-6 hours vs. 8-10 for XR.

I'm on XR but the amount of time that I get an effect seems to change with the weather.

Some days great, some good and some I could go back to sleep.

[Laney29]

your probably right i still think i should switch to ir but i am going to give it a little longer... do you have any advice on how i should take it???? or what i could be doing to get the best effects out of it i can get and to not be so blurry headed and out of it????

[Josh_kelly]

I wasn't on the XR very long because it was unpredictable and I didn't have time to experiment.


good luck!