Brain Storm: your impression of Stratteras' effect

[Wheel1975]

I'll start with few. Your different or similar experience welcomed!

For me, Strattera produces not focus, but perseveration and emotional detachment.

I find focus, per se, is not improved... I don't think better thoughts, I don’t have better short term memory... but I do stay on one thing longer, though that isn't always better... it is sort of related to the hyper focus thing, but at lower interest levels. It's more like I perseverate on socially approved items more. It passes for focus. I do pick things lower on the Urgency scale. I see a difference.

Also, I am not dragged off my chosen tasks as easily, but not because my values have changed, but because things happening in the world are less personal. Generally a relative improvement, but not universally so. As a drug it seems to push me "hard right rudder" to emotional detachment, relatively regardless of the stimulus or situation.

It is sometimes depressing to me to see my lack of response to some things, unfairnesses, injustices.

This emotional detachment comes at a high price: I am VERY tired on even small amounts of Strattera. Stimulants help a small amount to keep me awake, but i find it hard to be productive unless someone else has laid out everything for me to do (granted, what is new about that!) But in the absence of someone else directing me, I simply do nothing instead of “other productive” or other nonproductive things. Again, an eventual distinction with out a significant difference in result.

[joanrdtobe]

In school it definitely helped with staying focussed on assignments....I could sit longer with them and stay with them without getting up to do something else because I was bored or nudgey or whatever....but the side effects were awful....I won't go into them...since you didn't ask....but I am very convinced David that from what I've seen, men tolerate this drug so much better than women and have had more success and benefits with it....in so many ways....just what I have seen on these forums....that's all.....

[healthwiz]

Straterra works for me, even in low doses, which is all i can tolerate. I take it, oddly enough, each nite before bed, and i sleep BETTER! And I wake up bright and early...a little trick I developed for a notorious oversleeper and nite owl!! By early, I mean 6 am. And I'm out the door at 7 am....so this really works. I also think Straterra calms me, and lets me think of things in less urgent frames of reference...the sky is rarely falling on Stratera. I would say Straterra allows me to access a more balanced frame of reference.

Jonathan

[Wheel1975]

I love the responses so far! Very illuminating!

I am interested in side effects, though I assume some may be relatively personal.

I'm also interested in dosages and time frames. I started on 40, dropped to 10, then 10 twice a day, then a 40 once a day. At very low doses I didn't go off on people, but i wasn't "satisfied" with my lack of responsiveness. With higher amounts of the drug I still didn't like my lack of responsiveness from a cognitive point of view, but I couldn't evn marshall depression over it... i was simply too detached. I stayed there until I simply needed to be able to launch myself from one task to another, which I can only do unmedicated. (I needed to move out of an office and back into my home office.)

I'm very interested in how setting and task relate to the impression of appropriateness of the effects of these drugs, and the similarity or disparity between the drug taker, and those who have to deal with the drug taker... my family likes me on strattera... I don't rock the boat. I can't blame them. i also can't always indulge them.

Thanks again. I am interested in the extra details you might have to offer!

[healthwiz]

David.... hmmm....could you translate that pleasessseee? Going too technical, as I myself often do, leaves the rest of us clueless...and I would have to concentrate way to hard, like for a graduate school exam, to understand the technical validity of your question. See what I mean?

Try me again..what do you want to know?

Its nice that others like you better on straterra, but I was not aware you were medicating yourself to please others. Do you like what straterra does for you? That is what counts in my book.

As for the rest of the information you are requesting, it seems like an analytical way to dodge the real question: HOW DOES DAVID FEEL ON STRATERRA. All the research in the world won't answer that question with validity or conviction! The research is pointless once you have chosen to swallow the pill. Now you swallowed the pill, because the FDA gave Eli Lilly permission to sell it, because the research said it was a harmless or worthwhile drug and brushed over the side effects, and now here you are, the real guini pig, you are the quintessential live human lab rat, and your research in your life is the one that counts. It doesn't matter if it works for me or not, is only matters if it works for you.

I wouldn't be surprised if even a small dose could make a difference. I take 40 mg and I think that is small dose.

Side effects: Prostate issues for the first time in my life. Thats why I take such a low dose. At 60 mg and up, I can barely pee. It doesn't effect my sex life, at least not negatively.

I don't get grouchy on Strattera, but I do get grouchy when I take in intermittenly, skipping a day, and then taking it and then skipping, etc.

Jonathan

[joanrdtobe]

Side effects and all the ugly details David??? Okay.....Strattera gave me an insatiable sex drive I never knew existed in me....and that was not okay with me....I could not pee...and my pelvic area hurt a lot....My mouth inside would tingle.....I could not sleep at night...and during the day I could not stay awake....(good thing I loved what I was studying or I never would have made it)......I had this generalized sick feeling all the time.....and I was only on 40 mg per day....It's been a few months now since I've been off it....so I forget the other side effects....But do you sort of get the picture now???

[Wheel1975]

Thanks for the extra detail.

These are the things that people end up thinking are "just me" but end up being true for lots of other people. Also, they don't get put on the circular for others to read.

I found the "can't sleep at night, can't stay awake enough to do anything during the day" side effect. I also have an increase in my sex drive. I thinkit is because once the idea crosses my mind, while on Strattera, neither Congress nor God can dislodge it. Who knows?

As for what it does for me, I've explored extensively. I've also pulled the covers back to see what mechanisms participate in my case. I'm interested in OTHER peoples' experience, not discovering or telling mine own for its own sake. I've passed that.

And I'm confused... I "heard" a complaint about what I wrote, or how i wrote it, but the answer was eventually responsive... so if "you" understood well enough to answer, why complain?

And yes, I think that for a large number of people, the change in the way they are treated by others (do to a difference in the way others perceive them) is an unseparated participant in the situation. Of course I take pills for "others" sometimes, and I would contend that more frequently with ADHD than some other conditions, that is one of the pronounced reasons for taking it at all.

Not a politically popular possition, but very real in SCHOOLS, and elsewhere.

In my humble opinion. -- David

[Wheel1975]

PS. I also had the inside of my mouth tingle... like I was having a stroke. Arms and legs got into it and my scalp, unevenly, as well.

[joanrdtobe]

Regarding your "P.S." : WOW, no kidding...arms and legs too, hmmm.

Anyway, not to get off Strattera topic but regarding taking pills for "others" vs. for "myself".... since ADD is to such a great extent an illness where there is much social isolation, saying the "wrong" things (I was fired once for calling my boss an *****hole), or not knowing how to "be" with people or around them, yes I would say the meds are partly for "others" as well as for "myself"....I think on meds I DO come across differently to people now....I may "appear" or come across less self-conscious or lost....or more confident in myself that I won't say the wrong ridiculous thing and embarrass myself (again).....so yeah I guess taking the meds is in part for others....Was I easy to be around before I was diagnosed and on meds??? I think not.... So yes OTHERS benefit....

[Wheel1975]

Yep Jaon, the question becomes is the "restraint" restraint or convenient impairment. There is no doubt that Strattera "de-escalates" things. But like one contributor has said, staying focussed is great, except when someone comes up and wants to talk, and I can't seem to put down what I'm doing!"

The other side effects you mentioned... I had them all. Though, some came and went. I had a feeling of being drunk all the time. that qualifies as sick to me, and I asked the pharmicist what the difference was, and why drinking wouldn't work as well. He just said "Strattera isn't the wonder drug they thought it was."

[Wheel1975]

Joan, (David is dyslexic too!), Should we place bets on the "truth" of the statement you made? Social error, certainly. Factually incorrect? I wouldn't bet against you! Just my two cents.

[Wheel1975]

Originally posted by healthwiz
David....

I don't get grouchy on Strattera, but I do get grouchy when I take in intermittenly, skipping a day, and then taking it and then skipping, etc.

Jonathan

Yep. I do this too. It is hard for me to get te right amount. This drug metabolizes into other active drugs before it is done. The "Strattera effect" is best for me from 12 to 36 hours after a dose. The first 12 hours just drag me down, unless it is night, at which point it won't let me go... to sleep. I haven't figured out a way to be always 12 to 36 hours after a dose, and not go through the first 12 hours.

When do you get grouchy, when you are skipping time, and why or how did you come to "have " that experience? (There's always a story in there, isn't there?)

Peace -- David

[joanrdtobe]

Originally posted by Wheel1975
Joan, (David is dyslexic too!), Should we place bets on the "truth" of the statement you made? Social error, certainly. Factually incorrect? I wouldn't bet against you! Just my two cents.

THANKS DAVID....you made my night....this was many years ago...I never told this story.....I was working as a secretary for a health research thingie....anyway, I swear to God my boss was psychotic...I kid you not....she was SOOOOO much sicker than I EVER was....the biggest control freak you ever met...anway.......I was out of control one day, needless to say.....did I WANT to get fired??? I'm sure.....Sorry for keep falling off the topic....BUT THANKS FOR YOUR TWO CENTS....I'LL TAKE THEM

[healthwiz]

Sometimes I just don't feel like taking it, and then I suffer for it, the next day. I take it at night, just as I am going to bed. I sleep very well on straterra for about 6 hours, then i wake up like a bushy tailed squirrel ready to go find nuts. Hmmm.. that doesn't sound very good, does it? lol


Anyhow, I think its true that Straterra is not the wonderdrug, but I think for me it is a piece in the puzzle. I expect newer and better variations on this drug to come out in the future. I still take Welbutrin and Adderall PRN. The Welbutrin I take consistently, but only 150 mg/day - that does the trick for me, and Adderal as I feel the need. I'm finding the afternoon to be a good time to take the adderal for a boost till bedtime. But if i take it too late, i will not get enough sleep and ruin my next day!!

Jon

[healthwiz]

As for complaining and understanding and answering, ahhh well, that is the ADD in me, and it is every ADD person's perogative to change their mind!

Jon