So, I just started taking Ritalin, 20 mg, 1-2x/day a few days ago. I love, love, love how it makes me feel . . . honestly, yes I can pay more attention, but more than that I just have more energy . . . tasks which used to seem impossibly difficult now I can actually do and enjoy. Anyways, I’m really super nervous that I will develop a tolerance to it and have to keep increasing the dosage.
Could anyone who has been on it for a month or more talk about how their reaction to the drug progressed? Any other advice people here have for life with ritalin or ADD/ADHD in general would also be greatly appreciated. Does anyone else find that it just generally lifts their depression and gives them more energy? Thanks!
Don’t look to how your brain “feels” or whether you can “feel” the drug working to gague its effectiveness. This is certain to require higher and higher dosages, as you’ll naturally start to suppress its obvious effects on cognition from your immediate attention.
Instead, measure your results, and be honest. Are the dishes getting done more often? Is the time to get off the couch and into the car significantly shorter? Did you make fewer mistakes that day? These are the metrics to pay attention to. Most people just decide it’s “not working” when every day isn’t as spectacular as the first few.
I’ve taken various medicines on-again off-again for ADHD for nearly my entire life.
Interesting, Rex. Would you mind elaborating on your ADHD medication experience, what worked for you, what didn’t work for you, and other ways you’ve tried to control it?
Been on it for about half a year. So far if I’ve developed a tolerance it is only slight. I still feel good on it. However, I will note that I may take 20MG twice daily as needed, but I make it a point to take it only if I absolutely have to.
To expand on this, treat your medication like alcohol. Do you decide it’s safe to drive or drink another beer based on how drunk you “feel” at that moment, or have you trained yourself to pay attention to the fact that you’re talking a bit more loudly, smiling more, etc? These signals have counterparts in psychiatric medication, and you have to train your brain to notice them.
I tried Ritalin, Adderal, Focalin, and Concerta, but eventually settled for Ritalin because its side effects are mildest. I took Adderal for most of my childhood, and hated every day of it. I complained every single time I was taken to the doctor that it made me a “zombie”, and when I was old enough to be taken seriously (15 or so), the doctor stopped writing the prescription. When I resumed the Adderal at age 21, I realized that what I couldn’t express as a teenager was severe depression caused by the medicine. It disrupted my sleep patterns, killed my sex drive, and made me moody as hell.
Remember, training your brain to think correctly is far more important than any medicine. Develop good habits, and stick to them every day. The best tool to combat ADHD is good old fashioned routine.
This was my experience with it. I’m battling a very resistant depression, and one of the first days I took it I was up and out of bed quickly, interested in getting stuff done. After the first week though…not so much. I went for two months hoping that I’d feel that way again, but I never did. Since the entire point of taking it was to try to get me more interested in life outside of my bed, it’s sorta irrelevant if it was “working” in any other way.
I concur with the above. While you may become tolerant to the feeling, the actual effects of the medicine don’t tend to decrease, or at least take a long time to do so. All the time I had it as a kid, it never decreased in effectiveness. The only reason I was pulled off was because of stomach side effects to try adderal, which also never wore off, but caused me to lose 80 pounds in just a few months. The only reason I was pulled off of that was that it was determined that I don’t have ADHD. Seeing as the medicine did help, I assume I was the type that actually grew out of it. Either that, or my other medicines compensated.
I took Ritalin for about 5 years- a couple years during law school then for a few years afterwards. I was on 50 mg twice a day; each dose lasted for about four hours. Anything less than about 40 mg didn’t register, and 40-45 mg only left me feeling “part way” affected.
I loved it. Primarily because I finally knew what it was like to be able to focus on studying, or on anything, for that matter, but also because it made me feel somehow energized. Not that I had a lot of energy, and it would have been counterproductive to try and get a lot of physical stuff done while on it, but it made me mentally voracious. I loved studying on it because I was so much more efficient mentally than I had ever been. Also, I was finally experiencing the joy of studying something and learning it, rather than the frustration of reading, and re-reading, getting distracted before I got to the end of the paragraph, every paragraph.
However, what I did not like about it was that it made me sort of unable to comfortably contribute to a group discussion, for instance. If I was allowed to sit quietly by myself and focus on a single task, it was great. But if I was in an environment where the work, or discussion topic, or subject matter was changing rapidly, I felt at a disadvantage. Once the meds wore off I was then able to roll with the changes again.
Also, it always gave me a mild feeling of drymouth. I always had to have a water bottle handy.
I wouldn’t say I developed a tolerance- my dosage didn’t change in five years- but on a few occasions when the pharmacy was out and I had to come back the next day, I sort of felt like a junky. I needed the feeling of the meds on an emotional level (meaning that I just missed the feeling of it), not on a chemical dependency level. If I didn’t get the meds when I “needed” them, I was just bummed, but not actually strung out from a dependency standpoint.