The site may not work properly if you don't, If you do not update your browser, we suggest you visit, Press J to jump to the feed. In rare cases, Ritalin and Adderall can result in serious side effects such as abnormal heart rate, heart attacks, seizures, and even sudden death. If it's focus he's after, you could offer a lame but tried and true strategy: sleep. The irony is that on my off-days, I can't do anything but lie in bed. The result? the question should be is adderall a lifetime drug it really should be is a.d.d a lifetime condition. I've spoken to friends who also say that they're diagnosed with ADD, and when I describe my typical day of lying in bed just watching TV and browsing the internet, they say "lol, are you me?" There’s no way to guarantee that you won’t have withdrawal symptoms, but you may be less likely to if you: When you don't take your medication, the symptoms of your disorder reappear. Maybe I truly have always had ADHD, and taking "off-days" is just not going along with my treatment plan for that day. Edit: By the way, you're not the worst one out there. 3 days ago was my first day not on adderall. The medication is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy. The drug had a positive impact on my digestion and I was doing better in school and sports. Adderall helps bring the ADHD brain up to status quo. Maybe I have ADHD-like symptoms but was "fine" ... until I first went on Adderall. May be taken with or without food. Then the end of the semester came, with all its tasks that I would've been motivated to do them anyway with or without Adderall because I recognized their importance. Lucky for your friends, they've got you to ask their deepest, darkest questions for them. But given that the side effects of meds like Adderall and Ritalin are not fun and the fact that these drugs likely don't even do what your friend thinks they're doing for him, it doesn't make sense to take them. This hour? They were my first taste of academic failure in a while, and it's not like college was a walk in the park (this isn't a source of pride but just to give you a rough idea, I went to an Ivy League school for college and graduated near the top of my class). I notice a marked increase on lethargy when I stop taking my Vyvanse. So I take off-days when I can. "Research has shown that the placebo effect of ADHD drugs is quite large, so you feel more focused because you tell yourself that's supposed to be the effect," says Karen Miotto, director of the UCLA Addiction Medicine Service. I think you need to either step up your psychology sessions or find an ADHD coach on top of it. Drugs like Adderall and Ritalin work to compensate for deficits, not increase performance, says Eugene Arnold, a professor of psychopharmacology at the Ohio State University. It has more of the stuff that treats ADHD and less of the stuff that doesn't. Why would my doctor tell me to take days off when I can from the medication? there are plenty of solutions to you manage your and dishes of having a ADD OR ADHD. If you really insist on not taking your medication, glucose boosts executive function. The reward centers of our brains are wired wrong, so unless an activity offers immediate reward, like tv, video games, and going back to bed, it is unsettlingly difficult to motivate ourselves. found that in more than half of the research, adults without ADHD who took stimulants didn't see any cognitive improvements. Looks like you're using new Reddit on an old browser. Yet when he finds his mind too frequently wandering away from office spreadsheets and into the dark abyss of Reddit, he busts out his amateur street pharmacist skills and acquires some meds to "help him focus" and "get more shit done." I know Joe will never read this. According to a 2012 meta-analysis of research on Adderall in the journal Brain and Behavior, although some areas of cognitive function improved in adults without ADHD who were given Adderall, the improvement was limited to the area of simple memory functions 1. If you're unsure as to why you'd feel markedly lethargic without medication, you may find the bits about executive function in my [earlier comment] (http://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/2zwk6b/without_adderall_i_cant_do_anything_but_lie_in/cpn9nuu) helpful. With Adhd, it will stimulate the parts of your brain that aren't functioning normally, specifically the frontal lobe part that handles executive function. I'm supposed to take that every day, 30 times a month. Natural supplements may help reduce symptoms of ADHD, and help balance stimulation and improve focus whether or not you have ADHD. Without Adhd this means you'll be more energetic and maybe hyper. You just have to keep taking the medication. I also see a psychologist (i.e., someone other than my -psychiatrist- who prescribes me medications) twice a week but there's so much to cover that, after a dozen sessions, we haven't practiced actual strategies. The hope: Popping a legal, physician-prescribed, FDA-approved pill in the name of productivity is basically, like, an applause-worthy form of workplace initiative. It's normal, he tells you: He is part of a sizable and growing group of young people who do this. Anxiety was through the roof. It sounds to me like now that you have your diagnosis and medication, you are relying on the medication to be your motivation whereas before, when you didn't know, you just had to push yourself to get something done. This is all a really long way of asking "how can I stop being a lazy bum nailed to my bed when off Adderall?" It's really great that they offer an ear for listening, but if you aren't develop coping strategies then they aren't helping. Look into other medication for sure, but you have different brain proportions from the rest of the world, it's a physical issue! Adderall is stimulating your brain. Vyvanse and Adderall are two drugs that doctors prescribe to treat ADHD symptoms. I have a solution (at least what's worked for me). Adderall is a drug used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as well as sleep disorders such as narcolepsy. What does Adderall do for people with ADHD? This week? If you persist in not complying with your medication regimen, you can expect to continue to have exactly the same symptoms. Any other time of day is a total no-go. The scenario: Your friend doesn't actually have ADHD—or at least hasn't gone to a doctor to confirm. Adderall is a drug used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This semester is going down the same road as last semester. Since the semester ended, I took most of the week off meds, and I've been as useless as I was when I first made this thread. If you have things you want to do, write it down. However, if I hold it for whatever reason, the adderall barely takes effect, if at all. I am not the young man I once was, I do not need Adderall. But on my on-days, even though I can get stuff done, the Adderall makes me too anxious to hang out around other people. On that day, I still try to get things done, but not too much. I’m curious about this. But I went into that first prescribing psychiatrist's office knowing what the outcome would probably be (medication as "first line treatment"). Recently I was evaluated by another psych who administered an ADD battery of tests, including a fool-proof computer game. If I craft a paper that I'm confident will be the best in the class, then that will make me feel really good. But there's other things to do that I might not be thinking of. When I need to remember things, I always write them down (by hand, in a notebook). At first I thought "what's the big deal? I entirely agree with you though. There are side effects of taking medication of course, but also for NOT taking your medication. However, the lethargy does largely pass after about a week without it, it's just that then I have uncontrolled ADHD, which really is a hellish way to live. I keep a current list of to-do items in Evernote. Those are more likely if you take a larger dose than prescribed (and you wouldn't know what yours was if you haven't sat down with a doc to talk about it) or have an underlying heart condition. This is a little eye opening for me. This psych really made it a point that ADD--my condition--is "neurological." That social isolation and my academic disappointment has resulted in an additional diagnosis of depression. Edit: also, by the way you're talking about taking adderall to concentrate, it sounds like maybe you haven't studied up on ADHD. It was a horrible mistake, and I lost myself. What is a complex learning task? Maybe, but that might be in his head. Someone with ADHD tends to have a very inactive prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that controls things like attention span. If you could somehow "will away" your ADHD symptoms, you wouldn't need meds at all. Over a million users here say they 'feel at home' and 'finally found a place where people understand them'. About 3 months ago I was forced to stop taking adderall because it sent me into a heart irrithmia that wouldnt stop one day at school. But they've also said that they went on Adderall as children and have gradually relied on Adderall less as they've grown. Think about it. 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