I was on Ritalin as a child (3-6th grade) then taken off out of some of the irrational fears about it leading to adult drug addiction that were in the media at the time. When I was in college, (studying psych incidentally), concerned about the same symptoms as the OP mentions I sought treatment again and eventually ended up with dexedrine which I’ve now been on for he last 12 years.
I do agree with Hello Again about the troubleshooting period. I was prescribed 10 mg/day 2-3 times a day which is probably typical, and so I took it as prescribed for over a year when I was working in an office. I was able to read (on the train) like I’d never imagined possible, and I was very productive at work, BUT my mood and sociability was horribly off. It was like I was made of stone while sitting at my desk. I felt very edgy and irritable (particularly when someone disrupted my groove).
At some point I experimented with the dose, and discovered that a quarter of the dose (2.5mg) was magically perfect. I suddenly felt “normal” in a profound sense. I had the ability to focus and accomplish a list of tasks, and organize my thoughts, but I was also suddenly comfortable in social situations in a way I’d never experienced my entire life.
To the OP, give it time, experiment with the dose, and take the absolute minimum you need. I did find that the ups and downs are a bit more abrupt with Ritalin than with Dexedrine, and it’s quite possible that your feelings of disappointment afterwards were related to the comedown (I call it the “dexedrine downs”).
Also, in my case there is no perfect solution (that I’ve found). The dex helps me in dramatic ways, but there are issues I deal with that are simply a part of my life. I time activities around the activity of the meds, and when they wear off at night if I just have an hour’s worth of work to go I have to decide whether to take another pill and be up for another 4 hours or not. There are times when tolerance seems to build up a bit and I need to find a few days or a week to take a break. And then there are even times when it makes the ADHD a bit worse for some reason. But for the most part the dex makes my life function.
I just thought I’d update this in case anyone had wondered how things were going.
I’ve been getting on very well with all the stuff that had needed to be addressed. I’ve gotten a lot more jobs applied for than I had been doing before and have just had a telephone interview for a pharma industry job that seemed to go pretty well. Also been doing some writing, and have a couple of short stories I’m just finishing beating into shape with the grammar brick that I will try and submit for publication. Obviously I still have a lot of other stuff that needs to be done that will be less straightforward to deal with.
I’ve been panicking a bit when I find myself not doing things, but that is increasingly associated with having worked through all of the things that I had needed to do that day, an experience that is still rather novel to me. I’m still taking the lowest suggested dose, but given that it seems to be working I’ve not particularly anxious about trying a higher one. I’ve got an appointment on monday with an NHS psychiatrist that my GP is hopeful about, so we’ll see how that goes. I will probably ask about cutting the third daily dosage for the time being, as their isn’t really anything that I am needing to do in the evenings at them moment.
Still feeling a bit subdued but nothing like as bad as the first day. I would have said at first it wasn’t effecting my sleeping, but it’s slowly been dawning that getting straight to sleep doesn’t necessarily mean much when you are finding yourself doing it at 2 in the morning :smack:, my sleep patterns were already a bit random though so I’m not sure that it’s the medication or just me.
I need to find some decent source of information regarding the requirements to, and advisability of, declaring this on job applications, the actual law defining disabilities seems (deliberately) incredibly vague. Hopefully the Dr on monday will be able to give me some advice on this, but everyone else I’ve asked who you would expect to have information on this has turned out to be clueless.
Well, what time are you getting up? And, really, if you don’t feel tired until 2:00, it’s no big deal. The problem with not getting adequate sleep is if you are exhausted.
I wish I could help you with the other stuff, but I got my diagnosis early enough that my parents dealt with most of that.