Some brief background: I’ve been on Dexadrine for ADHD for a few years, but have seemed to become tolerant in the last 6 months. Took a holiday last summer but only regained partial sensitivity. I fear I may never regain the full sensitivity I once had, which really sucks because it worked quite well.
I friend of mine recently gave me a few of his adderall to try. I took one yesterday and it worked well, though I took significantly more than I would’ve of Dex (the reason being that for some reason I was under the impression that it was a timed-release pill. Of course I found out today that I was wrong which explains the intensity I felt yesterday, whoa!).
Of course Adderall contains Dex as well as 3 other amphetamine components which brings me to the question. Why the mixture of these 4 amphetamines? Do each of them do something slightly different? Perhaps different rates of absorbtion for softer ups and downs? Is there cross-tolerance between them? (i.e. if I am tolerant to Dex, would this mean I’m tolerant to the others as well? or is it their effect I’m experiencing?)
note: these questions have nothing to do with my experience. I just included that for some background. Obviously having accidentally taken a much larger dose than I normally would have negates the validity to any comparison I could make with Dex alone.
Recognize also that it is a felony to take someone else’s medication, even if given by the original patient. This is especially true for controlled substances.
You mean, “Why does Adderall contain a mix of drugs?” Isn’t that kind of like asking, “Why does Vicks Cough Syrup contain a mix of drugs?”
Answer: Because that’s what the drug manufacturer has found works best to achieve the desired effect, at the minimum cost to himself and the maximum expected profit.
Talking about cold medicine (since I don’t have any personal experience of ADD medication), pseudoephedrine and dextromethorphan, taken together, work better to stop your cough than either one taken separately. So Vicks Cough Syrup has both.
I guess what I was asking is why 4 different amphetamines? I mean the effects of different amphetamines are very similar as far as I know, differing mostly in terms of potency. So why does this mixture work better than, say, Dexedrine alone adjusted in dose to achieve the desired level of effect.
I’m interested in knowing what the benefits of this particular mixture are over Dexedrine alone. Dexedrine tolerance has been a problem for me for some time, but, through talking with the powers that be I’ve got my school pharmacy (the only place where my insurance is good) to order it specially for me (they don’t ordinarily carry any of the stimulant meds used to treat ADHD) and they have been carrying it consistently for me for over 2 years now.
Adderall would be quite expensive for me right now. But if I believed I would benefit from it, I would have my doctor switch me over to it and either talk to the powers that be, or do some math to see if I could handle it out of pocket.
Having only tried it twice I cannot truly gauge its effectiveness. It took some time and experimentation before I found the right dose of Dex for me. So the bottom line is, would I benefit from persuing the switch? My Doc is no expert on ADHD, nor the meds, and he really doesn’t have any advice for me on the subject. He generally trusts the research I do and allows me to make my own recommendations.
Anyway, does this perhaps clear up the reason for this thread?
Adderall is a peculiar mix of isomers and salts because the combination gives a different timecourse for peak plasma concentration than what you’d get with d-amphetamine-sulphate alone. IIRC this is all detailed on the package insert, or you can probably find it among the several pdf documents here: Adderall pharmacokinetics
Yeah. But what it amounts to is, you’re asking us to tell you how to figure out your own dosage of amphetamines so you can tell your doctor what to give you a prescription for, which I don’t personally think is a good idea, even if we were allowed to do that here in GQ, which I don’t think we are.
Frankly, I’m surprised to hear of a doctor who presumes to treat ADD patients who allows his patients to tell him what kind of medicine they ought to have. Suggestion–find another doctor who is an expert on ADD?
Fooling around with your own meds is IMO never a good idea. It’s one thing to get information off the Web about side effects, and what you can expect from different medications, but it’s quite another to take that information and make your own decisions about what kind of meds you think you ought to have, and then take that info to your doctor and have him give you the prescription. In my experience that’s not how reputable doctors work, for one thing.
From what I’ve been told (i.e. I don’t have a link and I’m not an expert), Adderall was originally developed as a dieting drug, then it fell into disuse, then it was resurrected for use in ADHD. It didn’t have to go through the approval process because it had already been approved for dieting. Being a mixture of different amphetamines, they all have different half-lives, so you don’t crash all at once from it they way you might from Dexedrine.
There is a newer formulation of Ritalin, called Concerta, that is time-release and has been very effective for my son (who used to take Dexedrine). Although it is the same chemical as Ritalin, it is much, much smoother and better.
But of course, see your doctor about it, and don’t take your friends’ meds.
In addition to being illegal, ill advised and Not a Good Idea®, mixing some medications can be lethal.
Your doctor takes all your history, current medications and contraindicated medications into consideration when writing a prescription. Certain combinations can cause lethal arrythmias.
I have taken care of many patients who thought they knew what they were doing and ended up having a heart attack, stroke or just plain dead.
Cindi RN, (pain control and chemical dependancy expert)
your ‘explanation’ of cough medicines isn’t relevant to ADHD meds. Some ADHD drugs contain mixtures for different reasons to why Vicks cough meds contain mixtures. Not all people with ADD need drugs like Concerta or Adderall.
It’s reasonably common for people on ADHD meds to play around with dosages within the dosage limits to see what works because response to ADHD meds is so idiosyncratic. My paed tells me how much ritalin or dex my kid can go up to, I play with different doses and we consult when I know what’s working best.
Moe, find a doctor who’s up to speed on ADHD and meds. While taking Adderall instead of Dex is unlikely to be fatal, it’s dumb to take someone else’s meds. You need a doctor who is expert and able to work with you on figuring what’s best.
The reason Adderall has a mixture of amphetamines is because it was discovered that a blend had the same/better effect on alertness with a decrease in overall agitation. The effects were also less abrupt on the upside and downside. Adderall is considered by most psychopharmacologists to be vastly superior to ritalin or dexedrine. From my own first hand experience with all of them, I agree. My WAG is that different amphetamines have greater variablility in the types of dopamine receptors they affect versus norepinephrine receptors, so adding different types of amphetamines will give you boosts in dopamine without a concomitant boost in adrenalin.