I just watched this special on ADHD in adults. I thought it was just found in children, but I was mistaken…
I always thought Ritalin was just for children. Is it prescribed for adults as well? They briefly mentioned it in the film, but didn’t say whether or not they did.
What is the deal with adderall? They said it could be addicting because it is an amphetamine. Amphetamines seem to be becoming a big problem. Why would a Dr. prescribe adderrall opposed to the other drugs that are available to treat ADHD in adults?
Is it a “hit or miss” treatment? If one drug doesn’t work on an adult, why would they change the drug from a stimulant to an amphetamine instead of just increasing the dose of the stimulant?
Yes, many adults take Ritalin for ADHD. An amphetamine is a stimulant. The reason you would use one over the other is the same reason that there are many different antidepressants. Some people respond to one druge better than another. This could mean that one drug has side-effects for a person but the other one does not. It could also mean that one drug treats the primary condition more than the other. Don’t assume that the name amphetamine automatically means something like the street drug speed. It doesn’t. It doesn’t even mean that adderall is more “powerful” (whatever that means) than Ritalin because the dose will be tailored to the individual. The bottom line is that most psychiatric disorders have several drugs available that can potentially treat them. There is no way to know how a given individual will respond to a drug or which one is best until you try it.
The reason they would prescribe adderall over something non-addictive is becuase amphetamines have proven to work extremely well in treating ADHD. Also, like shagnasty said, some drugs work better then others. When I was working with a doctor trying to find a drug that worked we tried: Dexadrine, Dextrostat, Adderall and I think one other one (not Ritalin). I’ve been using Adderall for probably 4 years now (oddly enough I was swallowing it as I say this question on the GQ page). There’s many reasons for using one over the other. When we were trying to find my ‘perfect drug’ I tried each for a month or longer. I was on Dextrostat for quite a while, and I don’t really remember why I switched to be honest. Dexadrine is a time release version of dextrostat and for some reason my stomach just didn’t deal with it very well. I would feel NOTHING all day, but I swear it started working at night and I woulnd’t be able to sleep, but I could concentrate really well (I believe the results were similar for Adderall XR. Would you belive I taught my self to play the guitar in about 3 nights of not sleeping, but that’s another story. I’m sure it was in my head, but either way it didn’t work for me. Anyways, we went through a few others and they found the magic blue smurf pills (adderall). They are actually made up of four amphetamines (actuall 2 amphetamines and 2 dextroamphetamines). The reason for this is that each of the different salts dissolves and is proccesed by your system at a slightly different speed, so instead of going stright up, waiting a few hours and then crashing unless you time your second dose really well, you go up and down more gradually. What’s really nice about that is, that if your doing something that really has your mind occupied when you gradually come down, often times you don’t even realize it.
I’m sure a doctor will come along to explain this better, I’m just a person whose son has ADHD and has taken various medications for years. I think use of the word “addictive” to describe this medication is inaccurate. To me, “addictive” means your body becomes tolerant of the drug and you need more and more of it. I have never heard of that being the case for any medication used to treat ADHD. Of course, as with most medications, if you need to stop taking it, you need to stop slowly to prevent various side effects, but this is not because of anything related to “addiction.”
At the levels that amphetamine coctails are prescribed for ADHD, they are not particularly addictive. In normal people, the entire dose is eliminated or metabolized before the next dose.
CAVEAT:
The developing field of pharmacogenetics has shown that a small, but significant number of people have genetic mutations that make them slow or super metabolizers. This is a possible explanation for why some people don’t do well on a drug most other people find effective. The metabolism of some drugs are altered by other drugs metabolized by the same enzyme, either by competition for the enzyme or by increase or decrease of the production of that enzyme. So, if you are on more than one drug, metabolism of one or more drugs might be affected.
It’s important to remember the Zebra Axiom: When you hear hoofbeats, think of a horse, rather than a Zebra. If you don’t have success with one drug, it may be because of your particular body chemistry, rather than something exotic like a genetic mutation. Drug interactions are more common, and it’s wise to consult with your pharmacist, who will be more aware of such things than many doctors.
As I mentioned before, the time release pills just don’t seem to work with me, I’m sure it’s “all in my head” but so is ADHD, so why do it if it doesn’t work. As a side note. My doctor over prescribed like you woulnd’t believe. She wanted me to take 2 pills (total of 20mg I believe) twice a day. If I did that I don’t think I would ever sleep. So I’ve just been taking a half pill each day (just once) and it’s been working just fine.
It’s important to realize that the non-amphetamine but stimulant ADD drugs are closely related to the amphetamines. I think Ritalin can occasionally cause false positives on drug tests, for instance. But the doses used are quite small, and addiction is actually a quite rare occurence with ADD treatment.
Anyway, now that ADD is understood as a disease that’s not strictly limited to children, the drugs are used in adults as with kids. Adderall is just a particular combination of amphetamines, and there’s nothing particularly special about it compared with other ADD drugs - they are all prescribed in quantities sufficient to work, and hopefully too low to cause troubles with addiction.
There’s some other drugs too, of course - Wellbutrin is a commonly-used one in adults, and it’s normally an anti-depressant. There’s also Strattera, which is new and apparently works through a different mechanism.
I’m on 10mg Ritalin, four times a day, and it works fine. Whereas Adderall made me jittery, prone to sudden rage, and it made me grind my teeth. Plus it did funny things to my thought patterns. Other folks love it. Who knows? The way a drug will work on an individual person is impossible to predict.
Alright, after a few questions ran through my head, it’s time to hijack my own thread…
First, What will ritalin test positive for in a drug test?
Is it “Addiction” or “dependence” that is warned? What is the difference? As I know, many people would not say, “Hey! I have an addiction!,” there are many more that would say “Hey, I’m not addicted! to that.” I’m not doubting either, just ignorant to both.
What constitutes a “Salt” ? How would one define it? As a chef, I’m quite familiar with kosher salt, sea salt, iodized salt, regular table salt, etc… however, I’ve never heard of salt in the context of ADD or ADHD.
Does adderall work better in adults or children? Why?
How does Welbutrin Aide in ADD or ADHD treatment? What does it do opposed to adderall or ritalin or the other accepted medications.
I know straterra is different than the norm treatments of the conditions. How is it different than the usual? Is it not an amphetamine? as it may be a stimulant, so is caffiene. How does it affect the body differently.
If adderall makes users pone to rage, then why wouldn’t the others? Or do they? are mood swings a natural side affect with the treatment of add or adhd?
How much does metabolism play into the effectiveness of a certain drug or drugs in general
WOW! There are quite a few questions there. any help or responses will be read, and more importantly, APPRECIATED!!! (Feel free to contact me via email as well at johnnyt@siu.edu if you feel the answer is personal and better answered there. )
Amphetamines, though I haven’t ever experienced it (not having ever taken a drug test). It’s just something I’ve read. Like I said, it’s not that different from the amphetamines. Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritalin for some information about the basics of the drug. It has entries for Adderall and Amphetamine as well.
Addiction is a behavioral descriptor. It’s defined as continuing to use a substance in spite of significant negative consequences. Dependence is when ones brain chemistry requires a substance to achieve normal functioning, which is strictly a biological issue. Addiction usually presupposes dependence on a chemical, but the other way around isn’t true, which is why doctors are becoming more willing to prescribe narcotic pain relief. The user may depend on a certain dose of the drug to function properly, but they won’t necessarily have escalating use of it or hurt themselves using it.
Generally, therapeutic treatment with stimulants is limited to small amounts that are completely metabolized before another dose is given, so there is no opportunity for either dependence or addiction to result.
Kitchen salt is sodium chloride. It’s a combination of positive sodium ions and negative chloride ions in a crystal structure. Salt in a chemical context can consist of any combination of positive and negative ions, and these ions naturally form crystals that enable their total charges to balance out. I can’t really explain that any further; you’ll need to study some basic chemistry if you don’t know what a salt is, chemically speaking.
Many (perhaps most) drugs are actually amines, which is a particular (very broad) class of chemical compounds that involve a nitrogen atom bonded to hydrogen atoms as a structural component. This nitrogen atom can be ionized, commonly with hydrochloric acid. In the case of Adderall, one of the ingredients is amphetamine sulfate, which is amphetamine reacted with sulfuric acid to yield something water-soluble and therefore more biologically active. None of this, though, is particularly relevant to the functioning of ADD drugs in particular. It’s just chemical means to modify the way a drug is used by the body. The mixture of salts in Adderall allows different components of the pill to become active more or less quickly, which means Adderall tends to have stable effects on the patient’s brain for a longer period of time.
It’s used in both, as far as I know.
I don’t know the specifics on how it impacts neurochemistry to fix ADD, and I’m not sure anyone completely understands. But most of the drugs used in mental health have fairly broad applications - as antipsychotics, antidepressants, seizure drugs, etc. etc. etc. Many drugs are developed for one purpose and tested for several others just to see if they happen to be useful in treating other conditions. Thus the use of Prozac and its kin for anxiety-related conditions or Wellbutrin (rebranded as Zyban) as an aide to quit smoking.
I said it made me prone to rage. As has been stated above several times, drugs do not act the same way in every patient. A side effect may be major in some people and minor or nonexistent in others, and another, related drug may have completely different effects in the same person. It’s not something that can be fully predicted, and so generally treatment for chronic conditions involves use of several different drugs over time to achieve the desired results.
But stimulants are known to screw around with peoples’ moods. They can cause a generally elevated mood, but people who abuse hardcore illegal stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamine are not generally known for their calmness. The side effects are much smaller, of course, in therapeutic treatment, since the doses are much smaller. Whether a side effect will occur in a person or not is, at this point, completely a matter of guessing.
In my case, Ritalin has few to no negative side effects. One of the most common, however, is a reduced appetite (most stimulants do this; thus the use of the now-banned stimulant Ephedra in diet pills). It doesn’t seem to do this to me at all, which is perhaps regrettable.
