Reply To: My first week on Vyvanse…….an update

[jojosephine]

I have been away for a while. I have been on Vyvanse since September. I was panicked, just like you, when I had first started out. I watched the Charles Parker videos on YouTube, religiously. I was scared that it was going to take me months, even years, to find the right medication, the right dosage. I didn’t want to wait any longer to feel “right”. I was so anxious and excited to feel what I should have been feeling all my life. To have a brain that stopped making the horrible life decisions that kept me down and prevented me from my growth. I over-examined every single feeling, side effect. I thought I was over-medicated. I thought I was under-medicated.  I, finally, landed on the right dosage. I am on 60mg/day Vyvanse. I have been prescribed 5mg of immediate release, short acting dexedrine. This allows me control when I need to stay up later (by later, i mean later than 9:30pm). I can take a 5 mg tab at around 5pm. It gets me through the dinner and bedtime routine and allows me to continue on to my evening activity. There are days where I feel the horrible side effects of the coming down. (bad headaches, very moody, etc..). I will take a dexedrine to ease that and make the transition more tolerable. My Vyvanse effects me differently on different days because of various factors (eg. if I didn’t get enough sleep etc).  There are days where I don’t need to take any boosters. The boosters allows me to control the day to day variance and demands. I have been on 60mg since November.  It is my right dosage of Vyvanse but I wouldnt be able to handle it without the assistance of the dexedrine.  I have never had to exceed 2 doses of the dexedrine in a day.  Generally, I take my Vyvanse (60mg) in the morning (around 7:30am) and I then take a 5mg dexedrine around 2 or 3pm.  Yesterday, we had spent the night at friends house for New Year’s and I had forgotten to pack my Vyvanse. We were staying there for brunch and I knew I wasn’t going to take my Vyvanse when I got home (which would have been around 1pm).  It was my very first time since starting Vyvanse that I wouldn’t get a daily dose of it. I was scared because I didn’t think I was going to function. I took a dose of the dexedrine in the AM and one in the PM. I was perfectly fine. I didn’t have to function in my usual daily routine because it was New Year’s Day and a “lazy day”, but it was enough to get me to function through the day. This is my Vyvanse story and this is exactly the kind of experience I would have liked to have heard when I was just starting out. So, I hope this helps.

Jo

PS. Oh and what you should expect from the medication is the pleasure (ie. enough dopamine to your neurons) you need to take the tasks that were too boring, too menial, too daunting, too discouraging and gives you the focus, the drive and the confidence it takes to ‘start and follow through’. You still need to define the importance of those things. You still need to prioritize and you still will need to motivate yourself. You will still define those tasks the same way, so you will have to make changes in your life and develop different ways of doing things. You still will need use different tools and strategies. It just makes it easier to do so and you will see things a little more clearer to develop the tools and strategies that work for you and your life. My brain still moves as fast as it always has, I still cannot articulate or communicate properly. I cannot properly verbalize my thoughts smoothly and coherently. They never come out right and I get frustrated and it makes it appear that i don’t have anything valid to say because it is all jumbled and unorganized. It comes out loud and over emotional and I can see people stop listening and they appear uninterested. I am much better at writing because I can go over and reorganized and not ‘leave out’ anything before it is delivered. Like if I had to ‘face-to-face’ tell you my experience, straight up, you wouldn’t want to even listen to my experience.

 

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