Concerta not working after 5 weeks

[Anonymous]

I started on Concerta 27mg once daily about the middle of august. The first month was amazing. I had never enjoyed “working” on projects and actually finishing them before.

A few days ago it’s like it all the sudden doesn’t work anymore. Should I ask for a higher dose or seek a different medicine? Is it common for effects to wear off after a month?

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[munchkin]

I’ve been on Concerta 54mg for about 2 months – I noticed a few weeks ago, it didn’t seem like it was really working anymore… I can feel that I’m on it, so I know it’s having some effect, but not like it was in the first few weeks… I’m back to not getting stuff done. I’m trying to decide what that means…

First Theory: I need a higher dose, or different brand of methylphenidate…

Second Theory: The novelty has worn off, and I’m not doing anything concrete to improve myself, therefore, that push of motivation I had at first was not the medication – it was the stimulating factor of being able to stay focused when I want to, and experimenting with that a bit. Problem is – what do I actually want to do? It’s been so long since I’ve been able to choose, plan and actually complete anything, I gave up and just did things on a crisis basis. I didn’t proactively plan anymore – not sure I remember how…

Third Theory: I’m on the wrong medication – I haven’t tried Dexadrine, which is a different type of stimulant, and works better for some…

I have been trying to just wait it out a bit and see what’s me, ADD, or Concerta, but meanwhile, I’m more or less back to the whole crisis based lifestyle which is a big distraction from trying to learn and develop a better lifestyle. I’m going to have to bite the bullet and share this stuff with my psychiatrist. I feel intimidated like I will be put into doubt by what he says, or pressured to do something medication-wise that I’m not comfortable with… eek!

Can anyone share who has been through this and got to the other side? I know everyone’s different, but I’m curious

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[Anonymous]

I’m glad it’s not just me. I know it can take awhile to find the right medicine and dosage, but in the meantime I am not able to get anything done. I am aware enough that I can “force” myself to do things, but it’s like pulling teeth. With the beginning of the Concerta, my thinking was, “Well, it needs to be done. Let’s do it.” Simple as that. The last few days my thinking has been like, “I can wait until later to put these orders in…NO! NO, DO IT NOW!… But I don’t want to do anything but chat on google right now…” It hit me on Tuesday, and I still have 3 weeks of this prescription to use.

Last night I slept 11 hours and took a 2 hour nap this afternoon…which I haven’t done since before I started the Concerta. It’s almost like I feel doubly worse because I’ve experience how great I feel and now…nothing. I don’t want to go back…

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[munchkin]

I’ve read a couple of great novels, but my house is a mess… Honestly, I suspect it is doing what it’s supposed to do… I just haven’t figured out how to harness it… I have to jump into some projects that matter, not use the concerta to watch tv better, right?

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[Anonymous]

It’s really weird, but I can just “tell” it’s not as effective. You know how they say, “If it works, you’ll know”? In that same vein, I can also tell that it’s not working. It’s hard not to just sit and whine…but now that I’ve been to the other side, I’m just sitting her wallowing in self-pity. *lol*

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[Anonymous]

I had something very interesting pointed out to me: I started taking the 10mg regular Ritalin in the afternoons riiiight before I started noticing the Concerta not working. Since I actually get a buzz from the regular ritalin, my brain is sub-consciously telling me that the Concerta isn’t working because there is no buzz associated with it. It makes A LOT of sense to me, especially since on Friday I ended up taking 3 of the Ritalin because I was so convinced it wasn’t working. Without realizing it, I was chasing the dragon.

I have decided to stop with the afternoon dose of Ritalin and today I didn’t take the Concerta. Hopefully that will make a difference. Wish me luck.

Unfortunately…I can totally understand how people get addicted to the regular Ritalin. The buzz is awesome. *lol*

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[munchkin]

I read up some more on Concerta and apparently it gives a relatively low dose when you first take it and then increases through the day… Here’s what’s happening with me: In the morning, seems like it’s not working enough. Late morning to about 2pm, it’s working well. 2pm I get this zombie sleepy feeling and start zoning out – difficult to stay on task… Then at about 5:30 pm there’s a pretty bad “rebound” -it’s wearing off, and I’m irritable and talking a mile a minute. So over the course of the entire day, I’m only getting the dose I want for about 4 hours… This seems – better than nothing, but not good enough? When I took short acting methylin, it was also very hard to time it so that I got an entire day’s worth of productivity – it was a roller coaster. I don’t know if I should change dosage, what I eat/drink, different med, or what! Suzybear – were you able to learn anything new this week?

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[munchkin]

Oh, I thought of another thing… at 2:00 “zombie” time, I think – I need some caffeine! (my habitual response to years of coffee addiction…) but grabbing a coffee or a pepsi might actually be increasing the effect of the medicine and having the opposite effect I want.. making me even more spaced out… I’m going to try not doing that and see what happens…

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[munchkin]

I tried to work it out with the zombie thing. I was eating really carefully, drinking lots of water and using a little bit of caffeine at the end of the day to smooth out the come-down, but I still couldn’t get my day working the way I wanted. Today I started on 36 mg of Concerta instead of 54. I had a great day – almost zero side effects, but I still got a substantial benefit of being on the Concerta. Also, instead of just having increased functionality for parts of the day, but somewhat paralyzed with side effects for other parts of the day, I had a nice smooth experience all day. I’m hoping this will be the new norm, but it’s only been one day, so I’ll have to see.

My doctor first suggested I switch to Adderall when I explained my issues, but I really wanted to try the lower dose of Concerta before giving up on it. It really has been helpful, hopefully I just needed to fine-tune the dose. I may decide to try Adderall at some point – I am definitely curious, since some people respond better to a dexedrine type med…

Anyone else have a Concerta newbie update?

-Munchkin

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[Anonymous]

Wow… You guys are exactly talking about what I came here for. Started Concerta since September (27Mg). First week was awesome. I felt like I was more aware of everything surrounding me; kind of feeling like when you wake up after a loooong night of sleep. I also felt way less irritable with the kids and had no side-effects at all. Workwise, wow! I finally ended all of those projects making me anxious.

On the second week though, I could already feel the effects wear down. I have thus been upgraded to 36Mg 3 weeks later.

Once again, good effects the first 2 weeks, but then started to feel zombie again in the afternoon. I also had the feeling that when the effects were ending (around 5:30 – 6:00 PM) I felt like I haven’t sleeped for days. My doctor thus upgraded me to 54Mg. Almost no difference except for more side-effects on the first 5 days (nausea). The side-effects wore off totally, but I feel like the medicine does not do as much as it should.

What makes things complicated is to compare my situation with my “previous self”. I don’t totally remember how bad I felt before I started Concerta. I only remember the great effects of the few first days of having my brain teased! I have tried to skip a dose on weekends just to see, but I feel sleepy for the whole day and get irritable with the wife and the kids.

One thing I noticed though is that if I don’t sleep well, I feel like I have not taken medicine. If I sleep well and workout, the medicine looks more efficient.

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[munchkin]

Sounds similar to my experiences. I’m finding that the dosage is counter-intuitive (for me). It seems like when I think I should be dosing higher, it’s actually the opposite – I need to go lower. I think that either too much or too little just doesn’t work. It’s not a “more is better” kind of thing. I wish there were more different dosages available. I’m starting to think I should be somewhere in between 36 and 54.

They should make 45

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[dspicelady]

When I was faced with the 36 or 54 option (36 being too little and 54 being too much), my doc said we could just do a 27 and an 18. It wasn’t a problem at all. Just a thought.

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[Anonymous]

I was started on an 18 mg trial for a month, and the first two weeks were amazing! After that, it seemed kind of sporadic, so when I went to my follow up, the psychiatrist upped the dosage to 36mg. I felt another increase in productivity, but it wore off a bit faster. I do find that I’m able to complete things easier now than before the meds, but when comparing to the first two weeks on the 18mg, it doesn’t feel quite as good.

I’m probably just over the novelty of it all and getting used to it rather than any reduction in the effectiveness of the meds. At my last appointment, I felt that I was doing well on the 36mg, but I wasn’t sure if I could do better on a higher dose, so I’m on a two week trial of the 54mg, to see if there is any difference. Right now I would say that my biggest problem isn’t my ability to focus, but making sure I’m focusing on the right thing! Also, with the job I work at now, I have to be able to drop what I’m doing to serve clients at a moment’s notice, so I’m finding that I occassionally get irritated because I’ll be right in the middle of something and not have a choice about being interrupted.

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[billd]

totally different drug – but I feel the effects have waned on my 20mg of Adderall XR after 2-3 weeks. In fact, I was sick yesterday, didn’t take it, then took it today, feel no difference at all. I don’t feel anything at all, no appetite loss at all, nothing. Almost like I’m back where I was.

I know – different drug, differnt doses and all, but it sounded familiar when I read……………

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[Anonymous]

My 12 year old son just started Concerta about 2 weeks ago after I reluctantly decided to give it a try. He has ADHD – inattentive type and learning disabilities. The first 2 weeks the teachers noticed a drastic change in him. He was able to keep up and focus on his work. He still has LD, and will always struggle in school with certain tasks; however, he was able to focus and his self confidence increased. However, these past few days we’ve noticed that he’s sliding back into old patterns of doodling during class and not paying attention to instruction therefore missing important pieces of information. He was started on the 18mg of Concerta with no side effects. He could feel a difference, felt clearer and finally felt like he could keep up in class. I’m going to wait another week or so and see if he’s just having a few bad days…he recently had a new student sitting beside him that the teacher has admitted is very distracting…why she’d put him beside my son that was just starting to be able to focus thanks to the Concerta, is beyond me! Anyways, I’ve asked that he be moved so that we can see if in fact he perhaps needs a higher dose, or if it’s this other student that has been disrupting him. Even on meds, I can imagine having a kid talking to you all the time would cause you to lose focus.

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[Author]

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