ritalin dosages in contradiction??

[traveler2002]

hi..

i' have tried testing ritalin in T.O.V.A tesing in 10 and 25 mf and go mixed results, under 25 mg, the test shows i completly drifted off, becouse in the first 10 minutes my omission errors were huge, i cliam that it cannot be true becouse

a. i distinctly remember pressing the button correctly in these mnutes

b. in the raw results u can see that i had 0 errors in the last 10 minutes so how can that be possbile that simply 'woke up' in one second and started dong ok?

my theory says that i stared pressing the button while the squre was being draw, the "dead time" for the computer to stop monitoring.

anyway my pschaetrist thought it was too much that 25 mg is too much for dosage and it got me overwhelmed, while a neoriligyst i saw cliams the opposite that 25 mg in the US is the minimum..

also my pschaetrist gave my clonidine becouse he was worried about my motor tic disorder getting worse becouse of ritalin, i say untrue becouse they barely happen as it is.

today i took 30 mg or ritalin and one pill of clonidine, no tics. no nothing.

on another mattter, i see that aside from starteraa (which is not being imported to israel) aderall is the most popular post-wise even more then ritalin, should i try to switch to that, in case i won't feel much difference in ritalin ? (i suspect that ritalin only terminates my hyper, not solve my attention).

[Tara]

Are you keeping track of how the ritalin is helping you with everyday activities?

There really is not a standard dose for ritalin some people do great on 10 mgs and others take over 60. Each person's body chemistry is different.

[FightingBoredom]

I've been taking 20mg doses of ritalin for the past 6 years.
I've found that all sorts of stuff affects the way I respond to ritalin. Caffeine affects it. Sugar and high carb foods affect it.
Even whether I have taken it consistently for the past few days or missed a dose.

I am personally not impressed with the results of using ritalin.
I will be trying Wellbutrin (in place of ritalin and zoloft)next month so I'll let you know how that goes.

[Gregster]

Continuous performance testing (like the TOVA) is useful in "fine tuning" the diagnosis of ADHD, but I have read that it is not hugely reliable, sometimes giving false negatives. If you feel deeply that the test was not accurate in your case, you may well be right.
25mg is not a lot of ritalin, but it's not a small amount either. I take between 20mg and 30mg, 3 or 4 times a day, but my weight is 275lbs (125kg).
Are you taking the 25mg per day, or as one dose several times a day?
Here in Canada most Dr's seem to use the patients opinion on what works best for them, within limits of course. Everyone is different and each person responds slightly differently to the drug - some need more and some need less. Weight does have something to do with it too - the heavier you are, generally the more drug you need to treat your symptoms.
Most Doctors will start you at a low dosage, to see how you respond, and slowly let you increase the dose until you find an amount that works best for you.
Adderal is also popular here, but is it not any more effective at treating symptoms than Ritalin. Some people find it works better for them, other like ritalin better, and for some there is no difference. With Adderal however, the dosage will be about 1/2 of the equivalent dose of ritalin (10mg ritalin = 5mg of Adderal).
Regards,
Greg

[traveler2002]

60mg per dose?? wow,

i don't use it every day, just before i study, and this time, i felt a little tired after breakfast so i could study more ( took it before food).

caffine and sugar effect for the worse or better

i keep waiting for the 'big bang' everyone say they have when they take the medication, something like when u feel u nose is cleared.. i took 30mg per one dose.

[Gregster]

Stimulants will often calm down someone with ADHD - so the "bang" you are expecting won't come until you take a lot.
25mg at one dose is quite a bit - depending on your weight. I find 30mg is too much for me first thing in the morning (and I am a BIG guy), so I take 20mg first thing and then 30mg four hours later.
If you are taking a "regualr release" version of ritalin (what is the full name of the drug you take - what's written on the bottle?) 25mg might well be too much.
At lower doses ritalin improves attention, as the dosage increases it improves impulse control and at even high doses it THEN helps with hyperactivity. The problem is that at these higher doses it will HURT attention. So if you are finding the drug is mostly helping your hyperactivity, you very well might be taking too much.
Try lower doses and see if it helps you study more than the high dose does.
Just because you can't FEEL the drug working (no "bang") does not mean that it is not helping you.
Regards,
Greg

[traveler2002]

it's a regualr release version (no SR written on it) my weight is around 180 . i don't think o felt attention dislove at 30 mg (certainly no at the level of tova described it).