Just diagnosed and starting medication

[New2ADHD]

Hello all,
I would like to apologize in advance if I am repeated a thread. I have made a reasonable effort to search for some specific information about my recent diagnosis but have been unsuccessful.

First of all, I am 40 years old and just recently diagnosed with ADHD. I have felt all of my life something is just not right. As long as I can remember, I have been different from other folks: It takes me long time to learn, pick-up and process information. I have also have had trouble with hyper focusing (didn't know what it was until I found this forum) and depression.

I have been able to manage well over the years, but about six years ago I went to the doctor because I seem to have a lot of anxiety and depression. The anxiety and depression medication seem to help, however my mind has always been foggy with unorganized thinking and slow processing. For the last three years I believed my depression was increasing and I talked to my primary care physician, but he recommended I go see a psychiatrist. I hated the idea of thinking that I could not deal with my own problems and the idea of going to see a doctor to help me with my emotions was an unbearable thought. I finally had enough stressful life events that I couldn't deal with my depression any longer and scheduled the appointment. Boy, I am glad I did. My doctor believes that it is probably more undiagnosed ADHD than depression.

He prescribed Vyvanse which I am on my fifth day of taking the medication. His advise was to take one 30mg of Vyvanse for a couple of days and see if I can feel a difference. Then if that didn't help, take two 30mg (60mg total).

The first day I took my 30mg pill, and I felt an extreme calmness: it was euphoric. I was so excited, because for once in my life my mind didn't have unorganized chaotic thoughts. I did feel very sluggish; to a point that I was a little concerned about driving. This seemed very bazaar to me since the medication was a stimulant.

The second day I took my medication and didn't feel as good as day one; I no longer felt the extreme calmness. I do think my obsessing over small details and re-living stressful interactions were less frequent. My wife tells me I seem to be more relaxed. However, the euphoric feeling from the first day was completely gone (and I was disappointed based on the effects of the medication from day one).

On the fourth day I increased my medication to 60mg. I had a very stressful social interaction in a meeting and my obsessing and re-living of issues, and chaotic/unorganized thinking was in full force again.

Today I have gone back to my single 30mg dosage because I wasn't sure if the 60mg taken on the fourth day was reason for increased obsessing and chaotic/unorganized thinking.

I have a couple questions of the group (now that you have the back ground):

Can you explain to me how you medication makes you feel when it is working properly? (It would be helpful for me to know if my medication is working and this is going to be the best results I am going to get). Does anyone get an extreme sense of calmness that is detectible by you? As I mentioned earlier my wife thinks she can see a difference; however I don't think I see any difference.

When you take your medication, are the effects detectable by you? If so can you describe what you feel?

Do you think my euphoric feeling on the first day of my medication was a temporary high or is that the norm and should continue on subsequent days?

In your experience, do you think the stressful interaction on the fourth day would cause a temprorary re-lapse to chaotic/unorganized thoughts? Or could it have been caused by the increased medication? I am a little scared to try increasing my medication again based on the high level of anxiety and obsessing.

Thanks in advance. You guys live with the same problem as I do and it would be very helpful to me if I can to compare my response to medication to yours.

[meadd823]

Can you explain to me how you medication makes you feel when it is working properly? (It would be helpful for me to know if my medication is working and this is going to be the best results I am going to get).

I do not "feel" any thing what so ever as my body has long adjusted to the chemical changes the medication cause. In my opinion one should NEVER go on feelings because you end up chasing a "high" instead of using the medication as a tool for functioning.

I know when my medication is working because I can complete a task,even one I do not like doing. If I get interrupted and remember where I was, I remember and have the attention span to pick up my things when I am done using them. I know when I am being distracted when I am distracted as opposed to fifteen minutes later.

Do you think my euphoric feeling on the first day of my medication was a temporary high or is that the norm and should continue on subsequent days?

No the euphoric feeling was you noticing the chemical changes made in your brain and over time these will decrease to the point where feeling wise you will feel "normal" but you will still be able to have some control over your attention span - I can still foreground and back ground stimuli and notice when something is distracting me and deal with it via physical {non-pharmacutical means} such as in putting on head phones when my husband's TV distracts me from reading your post.

I do not feel my medication wear off either. My husband notices when my medication wear off before I do heck the other staff and members here notice before I do because my post get quirky. I do not notice until I am physically unable to sit in one place long enough to read a post never mind be able to respond coherently

In your experience, do you think the stressful interaction on the fourth day would cause a temprorary re-lapse to chaotic/unorganized thoughts? Or could it have been caused by the increased medication? I am a little scared to try increasing my medication again based on the high level of anxiety and obsessing.

Stress will still cause me to scatter hell stress causes Neurotypicals {normals} to scatter they just don't stay that way - medicated I will still experience chaos during extreme stress but like normals I do not stay that way I will return to being able to function in a reasonable time frame I have to put forth a lot more effort even medicated to return to Earth but at least I know there is a difference between chaos and not chaos - before medication I thought chaos was my only option.

Weather some thing is dose dependent one would have to detect a pattern and one experience is not sufficient for pattern detection.

[Michiko74]

Basically when my ADHD symptoms are managed is my sign the medications are doing what they should. So I'm more focused, less implusive, I'm not as mentally sluggish...

Can I feel the effects? No, not really. At least not anymore. I think the difference was much more pronounced when I first started my medication. Although I will say I still notice how much more 'awake' I am when I'm on meds than when I'm not.

As for feeling europhic.. I would think that's a first time only thing. And I don't know if it was the meds that made me feel that way, or just feeling happy that my focus was longer than five minutes. Personally it's not a feeling I've kept chasing. I was more interested being able to do my job.

Ahhh.. what else.. stressful interaction.. Well bear in mind that when you start your meds, you're going to have to play around with the dose to find the right one for you. It's probably natural to see a bit of relapse. That you need to tell your dr. Hopefully there's a medication that won't bring on the anxiety, but still manages to control the ADHD.