Help me please! New to ADHD medication.

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#1

Hi! Hope everyone’s doing well!
It’s been 3 days since I’ve started taking Adderall 10mg immediate release. I’ve heard many great effects of Adderall, but sadly, I feel like I’m slightly feeling the benefits, like my impulsive behavior went down and I tend to not get up from my seat much, but I’m feeling restless with a pounding heart beat. I feel calm, but I feel agitated at the same time. I’m just going to say that I’m feeling scared I might be on a inappropriate dose of Adderall. It might be too soon to conclude that, but I don’t know what to think.

Can anyone share their stories with me if they had similar experience on their first few days of medication? Is this normal? Should I ignore these negative effects and continue having it?

Any help is much appreciated! Thanks a lot!

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#2

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

Wow, that’s a heavy first post, but totally understandable. None of us are medical professionals/doctors, so we can’t give medical advice, but knowing a bit about it, if you’re having heart palpitations, increased blood pressure or pulse, you should contact your doctor and ask them about it as soon as possible, as that CAN be a problem. Better take it seriously at once. It might be your acclimatisation, but your doctor still needs to know and be aware of it to keep track of changes, etc…

Good luck, and hope you get some good answers from your doctor…!

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#3

Never expected my first post here to be that way, but oh well… :slight_smile: Will keep everything you said in mind. Thanks for your response!

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#4

Take care, and hope it sorts out well, whether with time, different dose, or even different medication.:blush:

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#5

Welcome to the forum! I hope everything turns out ok! There should be another thread on here about meds and heart problems so I’ll link it if I can find it

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#6

The MOST IMPORTANT bit of advice here is talk to your doctor as soon as you can. None of us can say what your experiencing is normal or ok or bad or serious but you need to get it checked out.

I can tell you for sure that finding the right medication can be a bit of a journey. 10 days into starting meds I had the mother of all panic attacks. To the point I took myself of to the hospital to be checked out to make sure I wasn’t having any serious issues.

The stimulant meds are a fairly powerful medication and early side effects seem to be fairly common but your doctor needs to make that decision.

ADHD medication is fairly personalised and it can take time to find what works for you.

The basic stats say that 80 percent of people with ADHD will find a suitable stimulant medication / dose / mode of delivery. And then there are the non stimulant options and then there is the small population that will not have either a beneficial reaction or tolerable set of side effects with any medication.

From someone that has spent 12 months working on this the best advice I can give is keep talking to your doctor even the smallest bit of information you can share with them can help them make better more informed decisions on your treatment.

And the biggest benefit of checking in with them is if what your experiencing is normal that will put your mind at ease and reduce some of the anxiety that you can feel when working through this process.

In my little journey with meds I started on concerta 36 then went down to 18 and then back up to 36 and then to 54 for about 6 weeks and then things got weird. Then back down to 36 where the weirdness went away but the effects of the medication where not effective. And now I am trying Vyvance 30 mg which is the lowest dose available has a much much better control of the ADHD symptoms and no side effects apart from wearing off a little early in the day.

This process has taken a year. And the belief of myself and my doctor is that with an addition of a small instant release dose of medication later in the day we will have cracked the code.

So go talk to your doc and let him know what your feeling. Because if I didn’t and just kept going on and ignoring what I felt I would be living with a solution that would not even be half as good as what I am experiencing now and probably trying to live with unnecessary side effects.

M

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#7

This was really helpful. I needed much guidance on how to navigate through medications since I’m basically handling all on my own with no one to talk to (except for my doc), and the journey of finding the right medication along with all the odd experiences ahead is very unsettling. It’s good to know what you have gone through cause it sure gives me an idea now. Thanks a lot for sharing and helping me out!

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#8

Thanks, anything helps!

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#9

When I first started my medication I felt the same way. I even had people tell me I turned into a zombie. It’s takes a little bit of time to find the right dosage since everyone’s metabolism is different it may take a little bit to figure out what you need. I would just reach out to you doctor if you can’t break your pill in half. Once you figure out how much and when to take your medicine it will be worth it in my opinion.:blush: you got this.

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#10

I’m so sorry to hear that you went through the same crap. Though I’ll admit that it’s kinda relieving to see that I’m not the only one going through this. Thanks Ashley!

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#11

@Simran Are you still around? Found this thread because I am having similar issues with Adderall. Today is day three for me. I’m waiting for a call from the doctor’s office now. Just wondering what worked out for you.

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#12

It’s a journey. Don’t give up.

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#13

Well said!