Several years ago I had no job and no insurance and was seeing a county shrink. I mentioned that, on top of or instead of, my OCD and chronic depression, which were being treated with Prozac, my symptom profile matched Adult ADHD uncomfortably well. He gave me a week’s sample of Strattera. I said, fine, but noting my financial situation, how much will getting this regularly cost? “I think it’s $1000 a month.”
:smack:
I put the samples in my magic bag of tricks until today. No point in even starting if I could not continue.
My job will be changing this week and I will be part of the small roll-out crew for a project that will be very big for the company. I need to be on my A game, at least during training. No in one ear and out the other for things I’m told and the same for my eyes and what I read. No distractions. I took the first capsule, not expecting any noticeable results until I get my levels up, which should be around when I run out of them.
Except, at 11AM, 3.5 hours later, my brain went quiet. Literally quiet. No earworms, which have driven me mad since I was 4 and “High Hopes” first got stuck. No planning/writing posts for here. No thinking about old girlfriends. One time I lay in bed counting the trains of thought in my head at once and I stopped counting at nine. Another time I reached eleven. Today it was two, my job and wonderment at the quiet.
I wasn’t thinking about the meds when, or before, it happened. As I said above, I was expecting nothing. Hoping, but not expecting. If this is the placebo effect I want more of it, but could it really be the medicine? So soon?
I think so, yes. If it helps, it can help that quickly. It can take a while to get dosing right and so on, but if it works I think it makes a tremendous difference and it can happen the first day you take it. My son is ADHD.
Look up the manufacturer for Strattera and see if they have a prescription subsidy program. Many of them do. For my son’s medications, this has meant that they cover the difference between what our insurance coverage pays and a minimum payment. In other words, they guarantee that we will we never pay more than $X a month (it’s been $40 for both that we’ve tried I think). We registered with them, they gave us a card, and we gave the card to the pharmacy.
As you’ve noted, some of these meds are really expensive, so it’s worth trying. It may be listed under “rebate” program, or prescription assistance. I would start with the manufacturer’s website for the medication and see what you can find there.
Also, this is not the only ADHD drug out there. If you can’t find a coverage program for this medication, ask your dr if you can try other meds that are more affordable. This one worked. It’s likely that other ones will as well. There are different families and classes of ADHD medications, which your dr can review with you. They are not all as expensive.
Congratulations on finding something that works. 
Glad you found something that works! I just dropped in to say that I read the thread title as “How long before Sinatra starts working for Adult ADHD?”. It makes much more sense your way.
Well, I am getting odd chills, but nothing too annoying. I might be a bit shorter-tempered, so I have to count to ten more. My heart starts thumping hard for longer and for no good reason; my BP has always been good, but I need to be careful. Or the temper and heartbeat may be because I’m fairly pissed off by a situation at work. These samples are 60mg and what the shrink had in his desk, so the dosing may not be anywhere close to right, but I’m big with a lot of blood to dilute it. My doc recommends Costco for other expensive drugs, and the web backs her up, so I’ll try there.
ETA: Sinatra has no difficulty holding my attention because I cringe at every note he misses. Not good for temper and BP, though.