The Forums › Forums › Medication › Concerta › Concerta? Does it work for you? › Re: Concerta? Does it work for you?
Anonymous
Hi everyone! I registered just to answer this post!!!
I was reacently diagnosed as an adult but oh it was sooo obvious with 20+20 hind sight (pardon my spelling… I’m french! LOL!!) … just like you I had high IQ, great grades, not the typical portrait I guess, but chroninc difficulties througout my life since I was a kid and still today… I was misdiagnosed along the was at a great cost to my mental health and self esteem but now I’m a graduate student at a top Montreal University, I work as a reasearcher and I have a 6year old son so you can say I am very active from early in to morning to late at night and I live a mentally demanding and high pace life… kind of like you maybe??
I am also struggling to get the right dosage of Concerta… at first it felt like I was taking tranquilisers… wanted to dose off all the time unless I was actively engaged in something… so my doctor and I kept upping the dose all the way to 72mg which is when I started to feel like myself again, quick thinking!! I took it aroung 7am and it was wearing off by 2pm… I felt gradually drop down and it was harder to focus and unpleasant… like a rebound almost. I was unpatient and agressive even… I managed a while like that… tried to get as much as I could by 2pm but you can’t realisticly organise the world around your medication schedule… I had meatings from 1-3pm, and homework with my son… so I looked up some videos on CADDAC.ca and one Dr. explained that the rebound effect was often caused by the rapid drop so a smaller dose just before the drop could counter balance that effect… Speaking with my doctor about the demands of my life and the need for me to be on top of my game in the evening as well (as I will start teaching one evening a week soon), led us to try this regimen: 72mg in the morning and 36 mg at 1pm, just before the drop. It make sense to have a larger dose in the morning than in the afternoon because what is leftover from the morning carries over on top of the afternoon dose. The CADDRA recommended max dosage for adults is 108mg if there is no cardiac risk factors in the family… see the link! (http://www.caddra.ca/cms4/pdfs/caddraGuidelines2011Document7A_MedTables.pdf)
I see a difference in my functionning in the afternoon and the evening for sure… harder to fall asleep without a minute dose of mirtrazapine (7.5mg) but I plan on trying melatonine this week to replace that. Here is an article on sleep and trouble feeling alert that I really love:
http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/757.html#disqus_thread
Not sure if it’s the regimen I’m going to stick too but I’ll give it a chance for a few weeks at least before I decide… I feel a little jittery… maybe 27mg in the afternoon would be enough.
If Vivanse was covered by medicair in Canada my Doc would want me to try that but for now it’s too expensive for me… you may want to look into that option if you feel Concerta isn’t cutting it…
Good luck to all of you!!
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