Memantine experience so far....

[Anthony121]

I don't think I've ever found the answer to the question im about to ask in this thread.

Is there a chance that the memantine increases it's benefits with each does you take until a certain point? does that have to do with maximizing the half life levels? I feel like it's helping me more now than when it did the second day I took it.. Or is that placebo?

either way.. I love you surfer dude.. I want your babies.. You said you wanted 5 babies? I'm down for that...

I'm going to tell my psychiatrist to prescribe this to all her patients.. or at least discus it.

[surferdude123]

Originally Posted by Anthony121

Yeah, Memantine at 20mg HELPS a huge lot.. I know I said I wasn't going to take adderall today but I took one my doses just to see how much better it would make me.. no words can describe..It was great.. I thought I was going to get the side effects really bad because I jumped from 5mg to 20 mg.. but, that wasn't the case at all.. I thought it was worse when I started on the 5 mg..


My girlfriend said she could tell the difference right away in the first 5 minutes of seeing her today because the only place my eyes were directed to was at her eyes while we spoke. I was also responding better.. I didn't mumble my words, I didn't try to spit them all out all out at the same time.. I didn't have trouble speaking slowly and clear..

First day and loving it already..

great to hear it!

[surferdude123]

Anthony

Memantine's efficacy will continue to improve and max out over a period of 1-2 months, after having been on this for a little over a year, I've found the max benefits came with proper dosing, at around 3-4 months of consistent usage.

Just continue to take it at the scheduled times, and make sure to continue working with your doctor before making any drastic decisions regarding changes of medications etc.

Also, go by the "if it aint broke, don't fix it"

meaning, don;t go past 20mg if 20mg is working great, etc.

[Naussicaa]

I've come to the conclusion that this does nothing for me. Any results I had seen before have vanished. Good luck to those who still have some sort of effect!

[surferdude123]

sorry to hear about that naussica

can you elaborate for us, more specifically?

[zipporepairman]

Hello all,

It's been nearly two full months now since I began memantine, and the beneficial effects are still making themselves fully realized. I am now on 30 mg a day, taking 15 mg of Namenda and 100 mg of magnesium glycinate at 7 pm and 7 am every day. This medication, combined with regular exercise (I am currently lifting weights and running 4 or more miles 3 days a week) and a proper diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables, protein rich foods and the supplements I mentioned in an earlier post, has improved my quality of life, state of mind, and sense of well being more than tenfold. I no longer have stimulant related anxiety, depression, or social anxiety. I'm more clear and fluent when I address people, and I project confidence 100 percent of the time now. I am more motivated to achieve my desires and dreams than I have ever been before. I just seem to have started making better decisions all the time due to the clarity of mind that Namenda yields, allowing me to reveal my natural self to the world.

I urge the people who have not had the best results with this medication to give it one more shot. The clarity of mind cured my depression and allowed me to tackle my ADHD head-on. This medication is unmistakably beneficial for the treatment of ADHD in my opinion, and along with low doses of stimulant medication ( I'm down to only 15 mg of vyvanse in the morning!) has led me to feel absolutely more normal than I can ever remember, as I've always struggled with ADHD.

As many of the posters before have stated, for the full benefits of this medication to be felt, proper and regular dozing must be observed. If the clarity, mood boosting and tolerance reduction doesn't come immediately, be patient. When I jumped from 20 mg daily to 30 mg daily, for almost a week and a half it was fairly uneven. I would randomly feel a mood that I now refer to as "wacky", the brain fog that is associated with memantine titration. This would sometimes come with mild anxiety or inability to focus, but I stuck with it because I knew the effects would clear eventually.

Since that week and a half passed by I have felt phenomenal. Sure, I still have days that are a little frustrating, but I seem to be actively improving every day, and I no longer feel as if there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

I'm going to bump up to 40 mg a day in two weeks and probably stay at that level, as I have heard from several sources that 40 mg daily is the optimal dosage for both mood stabilization and tolerance reduction. As always, I'll continue to keep this community posted.

Cheers!

[surferdude123]

really glad to hear your positive experiences

I hope they continue for you and congratulations with your successes towards finding stability with treatment and relief.

[begreen0]

Here's a question for you guys which would have interesting implications for addictions research...do you find that memantine helps with tolerance to amphetamine's rewarding/motivating/mood-boosting effects (in addition to its focus-boosting therapeutic effects)? Most people get motivation/confidence-boosting effects when they first take amphetamine, but get tolerant to these effects very quickly, while the focus we adders are after remains for much longer before it gets destroyed by tolerance, too. So, again, are you finding that memantine helps just with tolerance to amphetamine's focus-boosting effects, or does it also restore amphetamine's power to provide that motivational kick-start? (just curious, am curious to understand how this all works)

Thanks in advance!

[ideaman]

Hi, I'm checking in after a while.

To remind you: I have discontinued memantine 15mg qd as it was giving me high BP, around 140/90. Since then, I had a day-long BP test which had found similar values during the day (this time high pressure was caused by thyroxin supplementation as I'm also subclinically hypothyroid.) The cardiologist didn't seem to care much about my higher daytime values, noting that my nighttime BP was low enough. So I have no more qualms about giving memantine another try.

I am still on 5mg qd and plan to titrate up to 15mg again, possibly higher, if I can tolerate it. (I seemed to have really weird insomniac states a few times on 15mg which had scared me. Hard to describe what was going on, maybe slight hallucinations or depersonalization, these might not be the right words. Basically I felt like I was loosing control of myself. I hope it's not coming again. Anyone else had this experience? If so, please share.)

Other than that, greetings!

[surferdude123]

ideaman

if you're taking divided doses don't take the last dose close to when you go to bed. it can be a little stimulating.

and synthroid can cause a high BP and widened pulse pressure, I;m not aware of any adverse effects of memantine on BP, I have seen it prescribed in hospital to dementia patients on two pages of meds and they seem fine. but as always discuss anything with your doctor.


let us know how things go ok?

[ReachOut007]

Surferdude, compared to when you first began your Memantine experience from about a year ago how effective is it? Especially relating to social ability/social confidence and motivation. I ask because these are the two primary reasons Im taking adderall.

Thanks Josh

[surferdude123]

reach out,

good question.


Re: Motivation - I would say there are modest improvements when combined with Adderall and an SSRI, because it has pretty eliminated social anxiety for me, in a lot of ways. Although I feel the Lexapro I'm on, isnt as effect for Depression as it was when I started it back in Dec 30, 2009.


Re: Social etc - It helps, and as you may have seen discussed in this thread, it helps with obsessive thoughts, and seems to calm down the "ADHD mind."

However, I have noticed with the Memantine I get a metallic taste towards the end of the day, the other day I was hospital and thought I'd eaten metal, kinda strange, haven't had that happen until now. I spoke to a colleague about it, and she assured me it was ok.

Other than the brain fog I got initially, I don't experience any profound side effects with this med. I'll continue with it at least until I'm finished with my training.

Hope this helps!


Take care!

[hanzsolo]

Hi all,

So I finally started memantine this morning @ 5mg, no brain fog or anything negative to report as of yet. Which was kind of surprising since it's 8pm EST and I expected much worse.

I actually found my clonazepam seemed to work better today (could just be placebo of course), and regardless had a very nice day. I stopped my stimulants for the next few days as instructed..

I did decide to stay on a low dose of wellbutrin for now as I tried an SSRI a few weeks back and it unfortunately did not agree with the stimulants (maybe too much serotonin). In any case, my plan is to taper both wellbutrin and clonazepam in the near future if I can get stable on memantine, and then test an SSRI again...

Will keep you all updated on my progress,

Thanks to surferdude for your tremendous support and all members for the updates and feedback

[425runner]

How long are you supposed to lay off stimulants when starting on Memantine? I don't think I could stay off for a week. Does Memantine help with mental clarity?

[hanzsolo]

I am far from an expert here so maybe some of the more experienced users can chime in, but to my knowledge about 1-2 weeks..

And yes, I believe it helps with mental clarity, reduces OCD thoughts, and calms the ADHD mind..

Too early for me to say, I just finished day 1

Will def keep you updated on my progress