New to adderall.. A few observations and questions.

[Bobthebuilder]

I got prescribed 10mg Adderall XR, to replace 80mg Strattera. also taking 150mg Wellbutrin

My third day I took 10mg XR, then 2 hours later I took another 10mg XR.
blah blah its illegal. Its not like I haven't done drugs illegally before. And I bet a lot of you double up from time to time for a little extra boost no? I see no issues (besides legality) in doing so as long as its on rare occasions. On top of that, I think its wasteful sticking to a single dose for a month, going back to a doc, HIM making the decision for you to increase (based on a 15 minute interview), and then send you off for another month. I need day to day comparisons to look at and then I can make a better judgement of the drugs effectiveness at a given dose. Not recommending anyone else does this, its just my perspective on things.. Abuse scares the @#$^ out of me now since I smoked pot for a while, and I'm aware and weary of those signs
Anyway, if anyone can give me a good reason as to why trying a bigger dose from time to time just to see the difference or get a little extra boost is a bad idea(besides legality), by all means let me know. and Im talking 10-20mg XR... hardly a risky dose. Maybe I'm ignorant though lol

Anyway... off that subject.
Probably too early to tell anything about my focusing and productivity... Its finals week, I am still procrastinating, but Its day four and I did a lllooot of work over the past week. On 20mg I def felt that Euphoria I hear spoken about. But I didnt take any today, and I still feel this Euphoria over 24 hours later?.
Strattera made me feel sick from time to time, and made me soo unsensitive down below...And it shriveled up so much it made urinating difficult... which is worrysome lol. So maybe its just the negative effects dissipating. Combined with adderall. (I'm AMAZINGly sensitive down there now, and back to normal size)

Brings me to one of my questions. I know it releases 1/2 instantly 1/2 ~4hours later.
I read somewhere that the effective time of a dose is around 4 hours, so just when the first stops working well the second kicks in.
But I've also read its more of a whole day kinda thing. I'm curious to see a graph of the amount in the bloodstream, or just approximated strength of the dose over time.
- I was expecting Erowid to have this graph... Side note: wonderful site, and it really bothers me that people take street drugs w/o researching them. I knew a crap ton about LSD before I did it, it still didnt prepare me, but at least I was very confident that there was little-no risk. Despite what I was wrongly told all these years in school. I wish I read more about alcohol before messing around with it, awful awful drug that is.

Back to adderall effects. I'm very talkative, I feel a lot better now, still procrastinating... but I think thats just a loss of hope... since I started taking adderall with 2 days of class left. Its just too late for it to help my grades out. Havent cleaned my room or anything like that... I can't clean my room while I should be studying for finals, and I can't study for finals I have little confidence in passing. But I did seem to oddly enjoy rushing through a semesters worth of Calc 3 homework...even though I just winged it, get as many points as I can in as short a time as possible. I probably wouldve done that anyway. Damn teacher gave essentially no due date!.. and its a class I'm pretty confident im getting a C-B in so It was really easy to push aside.

Energy boost off 20mg, was probably too much. so I'm sticking with my 10mg... I guess I'll just notice a general trend in greater productivity over time. Not due to a build up, but due to an exploration of hobbies, having more fun doing things I always wanted to do but never followed through with... etc.

Negative side effects, only sleeplessness... Does this generally wear off? I assume so, the euphoria I speak off seemed to keep me up.
Other than that... I am soo glad I pushed my appointment forward to get rid of strattera, The effects it was having on me just never really got to me until my first week on 80mg... tired and sick... and practically no positive benefits, a slight increase in focus.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.. I hope this drug works for me, once Finals are over I'll be a much happier person, less depressed, less anxiety, less stress, more sleep... Then I can start to analyze this ADD stuff. lifes too complicated right now. I just hope I found the right medication, and I'm glad I have none of the many many negative effects listed on erowid (granted those include the effects of chronic abuse)

[Shiro]

Trying a higher dose can be bad when your first starting out because it does give varied results, and by this I mean if your talking to your doctor about how it affected you, the results aren't valid since you had a higher and lower dose on different days. You should always take what you are prescribed. Plus when you double up, you run out faster which can make the doctor or pharmacist suspicious, which can turn out badly. Doctors have you visit so they can raise or lower the dose because they think it will help you better. Choosing your own dose could probably lead to serious health problems, since you can go as high as you wanted to.

My euphoria state lasted for 48 hours, though I did take my meds the second day because I had to. Adderall does take a while to really start affecting you, it can take up to a week to produce good results. It took a week and a half for me to buckle down and really start focusing on my work. My doctor, and my pharmacist, told me that sometimes people will try to "fight" the medications effects because they either don't want to do the work, then they end up using the excuse that the pill isn't working for them so they could get a higher dose or a more effective pill.

Some advice I can give that helps me:
Always stay positive, even if it seems like its not going to do much for you. Adderall, along with any other AD/HD medication, ISN'T a miracle pill, it's not going to make you do perfect at everything, it's designed to make you focus better, so treating it as a miracle pill will not help you succeed. Adderall isn't going to make you 100% focused, it's based on your efforts too. I know that from my experience, too. If I don't try to focus on my work while on adderall, I don't. If I try to focus on it, I do, and the harder I try to focus, the more I do focus. It may be different for you, but I don't believe that most pills work unless you try to make them work. My ritalin didn't help me focus, but I wasn't trying to focus, I just thought that if I took it, I'll magically get hyperfocused on my work. It didn't work out.


As for the sleeplessness, it probably depends on when you take it and when it really stops working. I take 20mg XR capsules and it affects me for probably 12-16 hours. If I take it at 12 PM I'm up until around 3-6AM.

All of this is based off my experience, so be aware that what I say may or may not help your case. Plus there's a lot of people on this forum that are more knowledgeable than I am that could help more.

Hope this helps a bit.
Shiro

[Bobthebuilder]

yeah thanks. With finals, I figured if 10mg was not helping me I would double up. However it seems 20mg was excessive, and still didnt help me... Like you said, I am not doing the work because I don't want to, not because the pill isnt working.. The energy is improved, focus is inproved, but motivation is shot.
I get a fresh start after this week is over, so hopefully my motivations will change, and I will be better at making decisions that avoid this sort of mess I am in now.

After schools over I will be less stressed out and will be better able to judge this drugs effects at 10mg. I will be on vacation so I can do things I want to do, and see how it helps there.