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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.
REPORT ABUSE@wanderquest I could write word for word your experiences and feelings towards drugs and alcohol…right down to the fact that I could care less if I ever drink alcohol again since taking Vyvanse.
And I truly believe that if ADD was called what it really is at the biological level (Dopamine Deficit Disorder), there would be no stigma attached at all and it would be welcome as a medical condition like diabetes. People who need to get treated will get treated and there would be a lot less cases of alcoholism and drug addictions and all of the social and economical problems.
And my new motto is:
“Dopamine, where have you been all my life”
REPORT ABUSEI agree with you 100% that ADHD should be called Dopamine Deficit Disorder.
REPORT ABUSE@blackdog things are so different on medication. I understand it is not a cure and when my daily dose is wearing off at the end of the day I can see some of the symptoms coming back (like some absent minded things like “why did I come upstairs again?”. I will always have ADD. I still have to put to work the strategies that have always been there, but before the medication those strategies did not work. My efforts were futile. I used to say “today is going to be a different day”- that never turned out to be a different day. Just another day of broken promises to myself and complete disappointment in myself (and of course the feeling of drowning in…well..my life). Now I have such a zest for life when I wake up in the morning. I am excited to get to the tasks I have planned for the day because they are not as daunting and the more I get stuff done, the happier I am because I always wanted to be that person that did all that stuff I am doing now. Medication really helps me. I cannot speak for everyone, but I am sure a lot of people feel the same way and I totally understand why so many psychologists mistake ADD in adults for depression (I have been treated for depression multiple times in my life for depression and it never worked) – because that wasn’t the issue. The lack of zest for life, the fog, no motivation, all the results of untreated ADD.
@swda You are right about happiness being defined in 2 different ways. There is a day to day happiness that can be found in your mood. For example, I am not happy when my sons draw on my floor with marker. but my overall life happiness makes it tolerable. Where as before, I did not have that because all I could think of is OMG another daunting chore to add to my unbearable list of things. My mood definitely can change through the day or from day to day, but I do have an overall happiness for life now because I can take charge of my life. It’s great.
REPORT ABUSE@dithl oh ya I totally get that. It just feels good to have the motivation to get this all done. I have an on going to do list. I am getting pretty good at prioritizing what needs to be done. Like the grimy state of my house can not be taken care of in one day. (like Rome wasn’t built in a day). I have broken it down in smaller tasks and handle one thing a day. Where as before the medication the whole task was so daunting, I just took it and “swept” the whole grungy house “under the rug”. Now I see each small task as a victory. So it feels so good and now I am starting to see the results. I am also finding myself tidying as I go and cleaning up after myself. Before it would all pile up and that also became to daunting to face.
I do rest. I do eat (just grazing though the day on things like trail mix and staying hydrated). I have a big dinner and a couple hours have a pretty big bedtime snack. I am usually asleep by 9:30 and get up around 6am. Exercise is another story, it is so hard with the kids. The only time I can really do it is cutting into my sleep time. and I can’t sacrifice that. I try to do some active things with the kids, park far, and take the stairs as often as I can. It might be better once the kids are in full time school, but I have a couple more years for that.
There is absolutely no way I could nap during the day, now. I would want to get up and get stuff done. Before medication, I could lay in bed all day. I could watch TV all day. I have zero interest in that now. I don’t even like watching my favorite evening shows anymore. I feel like a functioning, contributing human being now. Anyways…back to my video project.
REPORT ABUSE@blackdog Well thank you. I did stall on the project for a couple of weeks. I had to get it done so we could get it in and mounted on the wall because if I ever left the garage open and one of the kids decided to play on it, it could have tipped over and it would have seriously hurt them. I had some strong things motivating me. (and to show my husband). I started this project before I had started my medication. It sat in the garage for the couple of weeks that I had started my medication. Then I was able to complete it when I on the medication.
@dithl Thanks for the tip. I really hadn’t thought of using my avatar. So here it is.
I have also begun to clean my house. (and I don’t mean organize the mess and chaos-that’s another story). I mean the dirt and the grime. I moved into my house 8 years ago (a few years before I had met my husband-and no children). I had never cleaned my house ever (except vacuuming-not often, toilets-not often, the tub once and a while).
I mean I am really starting to notice just how filthy my house really is. You can barely see out the windows. The walls are unbelievable (the doors, baseboards, light switches, door handles. And the dust. no wonder I have been having sinus issues. LOL I think my kids are pretty healthy because the have built up strong immune systems from living in this bacterial cesspool. There is so much dust on the floor behind furniture. Can a blanket of dust on top of a power bar start a fire? What I don’t understand is how I couldn’t see how bad this was. Almost like I had avoided seeing it how it really was. I think about the people that i had here over the years. I am absolutely mortified. I mean I had to use a non-scratch scouring pad on my windows yesterday. I go to clean something and I take notice of something else. It is really starting to feel great that I am chipping away at the grunge. I would have zero motivation to do this (or even notice how terrible my house had gotten) if it weren’t for the meds.
REPORT ABUSEI have been away for a while. I was actually “pulling the trigger” on a couple of unfinished projects. The medication has definitely assisted. I, also, had to put a few strategies in place too. The biggest one was not coming here or do anything on my computer that wasn’t work related. The one was a video animation project for a client. I had run out of excuses and they gave me a firm deadline. That definitely got the ball rolling.
Another project that I decided to make was an 8′ wide, 6′ tall, 1′ deep piece of furniture that runs along the wall by the front door. It is divided in 4 sections (each 2′ wide-one for each of the family members). With a cubby at the bottom for shoes/boots, the middle cubby has hooks for coats, jackets, and a top cubby for hats, mitts, etc. I sketched it out in my sketch book with proper measurements, I made my list of supplies and when to the hardware store and bought the supplies. I started building it and realized it was more work than I had initially thought (like always). I didn’t tell my husband because I thought he was going to shoot my idea down, and reject the notion of it. I had the frame done (I was building it in the garage). I wanted to have the complete project done by the weekend (I started it on the Tuesday), so that he could see how great the finished product was. Friday came and the frame sat in the garage. I had to show him because he would see it for sure over the weekend. And of course I got the reaction I had expected. He was pointing out the flaws. Telling me “shouldn’t I be spending my time doing more important things, blah, blah,”. I was so hurt. It sat there untouched for 2 weeks.
My motivation: to finish this project and show him how great it is. So I did it and it is great. and my husband has no problem enjoying his cubbies. My kids love it. The have their own sections and it really helps with the organization at the front door. There is no heaping pile of shoes to trip over and you don’t get buried by an avalanche when you open the closet. I still have not received a complement from him. I really wish I could post a picture of it (starting with my sketch in the concept stage).
Getting these 2 projects accomplished has propelled me to finish more and it feels so good.
REPORT ABUSEOMG i have to go downstairs and portion and freeze my chicken RIGHT NOW. (and then take my meds-or should i do that first?)
REPORT ABUSEI love when my husband goes to work and goes away. It means I can do things on my own schedule. He stresses my out and it makes me irritable that he can swoop in and do a task or a chore that I have been trying to complete all day or makes a comment about something being messy or not done. I, also, get so offended when he reminds me to do things like I am some sort of idiot. I know it is all me and my low self esteem (which is something I have to really work on).
I know what you mean about structure. For all my life I have wanted nothing but to live a structured life. For example, my life-long girlfriend has always had a simple, organized and nicely decorated home that she did herself very thriftily. Her clothes closet always consisted of modern clothes that she currently wore and nothing else. When we went away on trips she was able to know exactly what she would need and packed light I would be lugging around a huge over-packed suitcase . When I have achieved living a structured life (in all areas), I will have successfully mastered my ADD.
I love going on road trips with my kids because I am not faced with the daunting chores at home, not to mention my kids won’t make a mess that will just add to the daunting chores. It was always a rush to get out and see new things.
I live in southern Ontario too. I am 40. I have a 2 and a 5 year old. I run my own business from home. and I am trying so desperately to get organized in both. I started Vyvanse a couple of weeks ago (still working on finding the right dose). And I will be starting some cognitive based therapy fairly soon. Right now I am trying some strategies on my own. I am looking to start an Adult ADD support group, because in my area there isn’t much unless I want to drive 45 min south or 45 minutes north. Please message me if you would be interested in something like this. (If we life close enough).
REPORT ABUSEThanks for the responses.
Yesterday (day 4 on 30mg) I was a tired Zombie all day. I felt like I wanted to lay down all day. it wasn’t until hour 11 (6pm) that I felt like I could do anything productive and fell asleep much later at night.
I think you hit the nail on the head here:
“If you ramp up the dosage too quickly, you may miss the best dosage because of the effects due to one of the other factors.” (my doc only scheduled 5 days at 20mg before uping the dose to 30mg)
I think I will not call my doctor. I have an appointment to see him on Saturday (6 more days). 3 more days on 30mg and then move to 40mg. If my suspicions are right, I will be a tired zombie that goes to bed late for a week. I just fear that taking 40mg will interfere with my sleep. going to bed at 11:30 is tolerable at 30mg, but if 40mg pushes me later than that might be very bad for my next day. I think I will pop into my pharmacist sometime this week.
Could the meds be as sensitive that the right dose for me could be 25mg? has anyone ever found that their right dose was in between a dose increase?
Thanks.
REPORT ABUSE@ditlh
I express myself the same way (from a “me, me, me” stand point). It’s because I can only speak from experience and self education since I was never successful at formal education. It’s not that I think I am better and more important. It’s more of a way of letting you know of where I get my knowledge from. So I never feel that it is all about you, you, you. I completely understand that form of communication. So no worries here.
And about Charles Parker: He, also, speaks about a “Therapeutic Window” (the right dosage for you). He says that if your dose is too low, you fall out the bottom. The duration is shorter. Start zoning out not as much concentration. And if you come out the top of the window it can look the same as falling out the bottom. Actually, I have watched his videos several times and he does contradict himself. In some videos he says that too much dose extends the DOE past the expected time and in another he says that it can shorten the time.
So I do agree with him that there is a therapeutic window. but I don’t know if I am falling out the bottom or going out the top. I started at 20mg. and I am only up to 30mg. I always thought my metabolism was slow. because I was always cold and always struggle with my weight. and I always had low energy and not very active. He states that some people’s metabolisms are so slow they have to have smaller doses they have to make a water titration. As of right now, 30mg isn’t working. The DOE is not as long as it should be and in the early afternoon I am zoning out, tired and unmotivated to do anything (I too was suppossed to grocery shop yesterday afternoon lol..i am going this morning) so I have to adjust the dosage. I don’t know whether to go down to 25mg or even below 20mg (because 20 mg didn’t work either) or do I go up to 40mg?? I have 3 more days on 30mg. I guess I will follow my docs orders (to go up to 40mg for 2 weeks after the 1 week on 30mg).
He does not say that you should need boosters on long acting ones. I am so confused because a lot of people are getting boosters. Are they “over medicated” and think it is right?
I really have a feeling my doctor has no clue about this because he said that I will not go past 60mg. Which kind of confuses me. Because of all the research says that finding the right dosage is personal, individual and done by trail. So I have a feeling that my doc is not going to work with me on this (finding what works for me-medication and dose). Everyone says that you may need to educate your doctor. How the hell do you do that. How do you basically tell a doctor they don’t know enough about this stuff and why the hell should they listen to me. I don’t have a PhD.
I will keep you posted. I did send some messages to some members who posted a couple of years ago with concerns like ours, to find out what if they found out what works for them. but they haven’t gotten back to me. (maybe they have and they are finally busy living their life).
You keep me posted too.
REPORT ABUSEIt is such a powerful addiction and even as a smoker, as smoking became less acceptable indoors, I couldn’t stand the thought of smoking indoors. Second hand smoke is brutal.
REPORT ABUSE@Rick Are you guys going to get another medical doctor on board?
@blackdog I am not really that concerned or worry. It isn’t really that intense. I just wish there was someway to know that what I am feeling is what the “normal” feeling is that I am supposed to feel.
I have no patience. I really want to get to my proper dose now so I can function and be as productive as I want to be. The time between my appointments to discuss this with my doc feels like an eternity. 🙁
REPORT ABUSEoh that is so nice of your mom. Go and enjoy your vacation. 🙂
REPORT ABUSEHi Andreano. Welcome.
I am sorry you are going through or went through (the thought of going crazy). I can totally relate and it scared the @#&! out of me. I seriously thought I need to be committed to a mental institution and I felt really alone. I was soooo scared. It was months ago (before I realized I was suffering from untreated ADD). I had pushed myself too hard and became the most physically sick I had ever been and then the “insanity” kicked in (more specifically, the fear of loosing all control and not being able to get anything done and i was going to end up at the bottom again). I couldn’t sleep a wink it was horrible. I had placed so much responsibility and demands on myself, not realizing that my ADD mind couldn’t handle it.
It sounds like with the stress of your mom, you need to figure out how you can get help with that. It is a huge stress and responsibility on your shoulders. I understand how humbling it is to ask for help. It is the hardest thing to do because I like to think I can do everything all by myself.
Welcome. There are a lot of nice people here.
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