Hi everyone! I was diagnosed a few years ago in my early 30s, and started taking Adderall along with some different drugs for anxiety as well.
With Adderall and then Wellbutrin, even in small dosages, I notice that my HRV Stress (recorded on a Garmin 945 Forerunner) is significantly elevated for the entire day. When I used to take a midday and evening dose of (instant release) Adderall, it severely impacted my sleep. I also tried extended release taken in the morning, and that caused sleeping issues as well. So did an extended release of Wellbutrin.
Basically, any benefits those medications provide (and it didn’t really feel like it was helping) were offset by the bodily impact.
Has anyone had a similar experience with either of these medications? Any notable co-morbidities or changed metabolism or something that you identified as causing these symptoms? Did Ritalin or Strattera work for you when Adderall did not? I’ve been cycling through other non-stim medications with my provider, but haven’t found anything that provides benefits for ADHD (I’m currently on guanfacine and zoloft, which mitigates my anxiety at least).
Mydayis (dextro- and amphetamine salts) seems to be more stressful on me than Vyvanse. The extended release mechanism also varies things. But hey, there’s a new goddamn shortage every week and we go with what works well enough.
As it was explained to me, you basically got three options: amphetamines, methylphenidates, and the “other stuff” (Wellbutrin, strattera, qelbree, guanfacine etc). This is a purely anecdotal analogy and oversimplification of how stuff works as it was told to me:
Amphetamines (adderall etc) hit the front door in the front of the brain — more dopamine, intense concentrated focus. Methylphenidates (Concerta etc) hit the back door in the front of the brain — more norepinephrine, longer-lasting, more alertness. The Other Stuff is back of brain, like if you turned down the ambient noise of a room.
Long and short of it is that one of these three approaches will tend to work well for an individual with ADHD, but the other two not so much. It’s pure trial and error, and it sucks, but with a decent provider and time (and insurance) you can eventually settle on one at a particular dose. Best of luck!
Oh, thanks for reminding me to take my meds.
I used zoloft at first, which imo didnt do jack shit, then went to wellbutrin, which made me completely unable to sleep (I was doing 48h awake, crashing out, sleeping 4 hours, repeat), and now I’m back on Zoloft, which I still feel like doesn’t do jack shit but at least no side effects are manifestating
tl;dr I have no fucking clue, good luck
many peopoe struggle with zoloft, experst seem divided. antidepressants don’t help Depresseion any way, long term. anxiety, maybe. yes, thats been proven.
wellbutrin: you describe an overdose.
- medication interaction could be a reason
- overdose
- you dont eat right (protein, fat, vegtables)
- you are insuline resistent
- in my case, i am grain allergic without knowing it, stopped etaing grains, that helped
- you could be out of salt and different minerals
so. you take uppers and downers at the same time. you take blood pressure altering meds. you take ssri while having adhd, AND stimulants on top.
a couple of things:
stimulants WILL speed up your metabolic rate. thats why they give you brain energy, and a bit of body energy. Its what you want. but the blood pressure thing interferes big time, as does the ssri. the ssri tries to slow your metabolic rate down, thats why it interferes with blood sugar levels, for example.
the salt thing is easy, just eat or drink salt. overdose is also easy, just halv your dose. eating is also easy, just eat right.
so essentially, what you are trying to do is not possible. it will get worse and worse and worse.
MY problem for eanxeity was grain allergy.
you have a very high chance that your anxiety has a reason.
i would recommend getting of of your anxiety meds, make a pause, and see what you cn do to make the stims work.
I garantuee you that what you do will not work at all.
try the salt and eat more good stuff, that cant harm you. but if this doesnt owrk, you have to reconsider. try taking less.
signs of food allergy:
bloating, stomach cramps. you need 60 sheets of toilet paper, stomach ache, migraines, heart arythmia, anxiety, drepression, skin problems, hair looks dirty, pimples, black spot under eyes, sore throat, dry thorat, white trush on tongue, panic attacs, paranoia thoughts, congested nose, vitamin deficency
yea, ssri does kinda complement adhd meds, because of serotonin dopamin relase and stuff.
but that still leaves the fact that one does speed up your system, the other slows it down.
keep in mind that salt and minerals could be also the culprit. salt is insanely important for proper heart function. and your body cant really deal with a sped up metabolism, sometimes, you are right on the edge, and the stims push you over.
oh, the guanfancine lowers your blood pressure. so, on stims, your heart needs to beat faster, because your body wants to have higher blood pressure.
normally, your heart would just beat STRONGER, you see? but it isnt allowed to beat with more force, so it has to beat faster.
you have an energy usage increase of 20-30 %. thats what stims do.
keep in mind that i am just an autistic dude with adhd that had problems with insuline resistance and stimulants, so i read a lot of stuff.
i just want to give you ideas, thats all. it doesnt mean that I know whats right or wrong.
ok, take care, you will figure it out.
I had a similar experience with small doses of Adderall. It would improve my focus, but it left me feeling anxious in the evenings.
What helped in my case was consistency. I took the meds every weekday for a month and slowly the anxiety lessened as my body got used to the meds.
I took Adderall for about two years with slowly increasing dosages, so I definitely had the consistency aspect down. If anything it seemed to work well early on, but then started causing issues the longer I took it.
sounds like you depleted your storage of micronutrients.
I don’t have a garmin, but methylphenidate (Ritalin) extended release gave me a high heart rate and exercise intolerance.
I’m on dexamphetamine now, that doesn’t seem to have the same issue.
For me, Vyvanse (lisdexamphetamine - a prodrug of dexamphetamine) caused the same side effects - high HR and working out felt bad. I stopped medication because it was a lot of stress for me.
one reason could be you were lacking salt. sounds stuüpid, but is very easy to test. just eat salt.
I was not lacking salt. My body was having a natural reaction to a CNS stimulant. Everybody reacts differently to pharmaceuticals, and I’m audhd which makes it worse.
biochemistry doesn’t lie. off course i don’t know whats up with you, forgive me that i come over as being sure about it, its just the way i speak. i am audhd as well. and yes, in terms of biochemistry and metabolism, everybody is the same.
if you take stims, and then having problems with your heart, and before you had none of that, chances a great that you simply lack minreals, salt, that kind of thing. because biochemistry and homöostasis.
or you have a heart condition, or some other underlying problem.
the nice thing about that is that you don’t need to believe it, you can make the experiment yourself: just drink nacl.
