Adult ADHD - I'm Cheating Again

Yes, I know that this thread hasn't been active in like 7 years at this point, but since finding it in searching was helpful in finding what it was that I was prescribed way back when but never tried filling. After some incidents recently where my memory issues caused some considerable concern, I talked with my primary care doctor about it, and after having me take what seemed to be pretty much the same questionnaire (it still boggles my mind that this is all they really do to evaluate ADD/ADHD...) prescribed Vyvanse to see if it would help with it.

First off- as I said earlier, it really surprised me that all that it took to get a prescription for what a controlled substance was a several-page quiz where it would have been really easy to choose the answers to bias the result toward what you wanted it to be.

Second- holy crap is that stuff expensive! Even with the (one time, it seems) discount from the manufacturer it was still like $300 for a month's worth. Since today is the first day that I've started taking it (filled the prescription like 2 weeks ago- the day before the night all of the stuff with our dog started, and haven't really considered things to be 'normal' enough for it to make sense to start it until now) it's still way too early to tell if it's actually going to help, but if it does I may have to talk with the doctor to see if there's something that works essentially the same that isn't so expensive.

I believe the discount is good for 60 RX fills:

Discount card

But even with this we pay several hundred per month for my sons Rx until we reach the annual deductible. 
 

He has had great results with Vyvanse, and doesn't seem to have the same drop off in effectiveness that we saw with others. 

Every time I read threads like this I think, holy crap, that's me.  I wish there was some way of diagnosis that wasn't a self-reporting kind of deal though; human historical perception is notoriously skewed so it's hard to tell if it's all in my head or not. Definitely the difficulty maintaining attention to a conversation hits home.

@Ashyukun you mention memory concerns. Mine is....not good. Definitely not what it should be. I'd not heard of memory issues as being related to ADD/ADHD, and would be interested in hearing more about that aspect of it.

I got diagnosed at 38 with adhd. It sucks. Also, after a while, adderall sucks. 
 

at any time there is a thousand different things going on in my head, almost none of them are what i should be focusing on.  But i maintain fairly well. 

Two major hallmarks of ADD (not necessarily the H part) are "time-blindness" and poor recall.

In reply to No Time :

Thanks, I'll look into that. I think that's what I used (and brought it down by like $60), but it also said that I had no more refills- but that may be because the initial prescription was only for 1 month to see if it helped any. 

In reply to travellering :

100% accurate. 

travellering said:

Two major hallmarks of ADD (not necessarily the H part) are "time-blindness" and poor recall.

Yeah- I've long been more certain of having ADD and not ADHD, but there doesn't seem to be much distinction between them these days, just different types of ADHD. I definitely have issues with both of those though.

So far today it feels like I'm able to focus a bit better, though I'm still bouncing around between doing several things at once, it feels like I'm able to keep track of things a bit better when doing so and remember what I had been thinking about doing a few steps ago more clearly than usual. It's weird... to an extent it feels like there's a bit of a fog in my head but it feels like I'm able to stay more focussed. About the only physical impact I've noticed today was that earlier my armpits were sweating when I wouldn't have expected them to, but that may also have been because it's humid out and I had the window open (was only in the mid-70's, usually don't close it until it gets closer to 80). 

But.... given that Vyvanse is essentially an amphetamine- i.e., speed, and I'm not bouncing off the walls or feeling like I've got an abundance of energy (which is what several people I've known who didn't have ADD/ADHD but would take adderall to boost their productivity described it like), I'm leaning toward being on it being a step in the right direction.

I probably have it , but it was not invented yet when I was in school !

But  it's a little like Homer Simpson and donuts , I get distracted and head down a different rabbit hole or is that donut hole ?

I would have been in real trouble if the Internet was invented sooner , I had to go down to the main library to get my fix !

An FWB of mine noted one night I had literally every symptom of adult ADHD and because of my congenital heart defects, landed me on a Welbrutrin prescription.

This stuff kicks ass. Not only have I noticed no mental changes or side-affects, but everything just feels a little "easier", as if my mental pumps are already primed. Typically, getting myself to do some tasks requires effort- i'll spin wheels for a good amount of time before I begin to do something, and because of that behavior I'll literally be on my feet until bedtime. Now however, little tasks like trash or cleaning small dishes takes little to no thought and stressful issues are handled easier.

Well, I survived the first day and more critically, night, of taking the new Vyvanse prescription.

So far I'd call it a mixed bag. The good news is that I'm pretty certain that it's a step in the right direction as far as helping with my focus & memory. I tried to describe what it felt like to my wife last night, and the best that I could come up with was that it kind of felt like my head was in a bit of a fog- but that counter to what you'd think, thinking through the fog kept things better aligned and (again counter to logic) slowed things down and aligned them so they weren't so scattered. I still bounced around between doing several things at a time, but it was easier to keep a train of thought between them and took less time when something slipped my mind to figure out what it was. 

It wasn't all good, though. About 12 hours or so after I had taken the dose I started to get a pretty bad headache that persisted through the evening. It's uncertain whether that was a result of the Vyvanse wearing off or from not drinking enough water throughout the day- I realized about lunchtime that I'd not had to pee nearly as much as usual and looked up the interaction between the Vyvanse and my BP meds and found that a common problem was dehydration so I'd been trying to drink more but may not have succeeded. I opted to not take anything for the headache, and thankfully it had dulled enough to not be a problem by the time I went to bed...

Which is where things got a bit more annoying. I didn't get much sleep last night- I initially just couldn't fall asleep, and once I did it seemed like I woke up far more easily than usual. Which was a problem last night since my wife was snoring way worse than usual (I eventually got up and grabbed my earplugs out of the bag I take out to the cabin about 4am) and our dog was a lot more restless than usual and kept adjusting position to creep further up the bed (potentially because of my wife's snoring). And unlike the problems I occasionally have with falling asleep where my brain just won't calm down to the point of being able to fall asleep, usually because it's still processing something from the day (this weekend was bad for that since my wife got on a suspense thriller movie kick so my brain was still kicking around things from the movies several nights) that wasn't the case last night- my brain was calm and I was tired, I just couldn't fall asleep as easily as usual. However, despite not getting as much sleep as ideal I really wasn't that tired when I woke up this morning. Hopefully this is something that will get better as my system gets more used to the Vyvanse...

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

Man, the key thing with any ADHD medication is that it takes a week (minimum!) for your brain to settle down on it.

Grind it out.  ADHD meds, like all psych meds, are a crapshoot.  The general "I'm a MOTHERberkeleyING HUMMINGBIRD!!!! feeling goes away, and you should calm down some.  You'll start to sleep better.  Make yourself eat, even if you're not hungry.

I took Vyvanse for about eight months and it worked great...until it didn't.  Like, fell-off-a-cliff ineffective after about six months.  I'm back on Adderall XR, which I've taken now for most of the last fourteen years.  It's still more effective than taking nothing.  

The side effects I've noticed with all ADHD meds are irritability and occasionally getting worked up about minor issues to the point that you're unable to function.  That, and I sweat like a hooker in church.  Did you know you can get prescription antiperspirants?  I didn't, but I do now.

On the whole, though, I wouldn't have gotten through the last decade and a half without them.  They got me through law school, and they help me focus in a very technical, detail-oriented profession that would have otherwise chewed me up and spit me out.

In reply to psteav (Forum Supporter) :

Honestly, yesterday and last night went a lot better than the first day and night did. I drank a LOT more water yesterday and had much less of a problem with headaches later in the day & night. Still took a while to get to sleep- and I've noticed that I haven't woken up slowly the last 2 nights, it's like *click* instantly awake- but got to sleep easier last night than the first night. I've tried pushing when I take the pill earlier each day (which works well since it's easier to get up earlier now) so I can get to sleep earlier. I would hope that it will only get easier going forward, though it will be more interesting on the weekends- especially Sundays when my wife also has the day off typically and we will normally sleep until around noon. Honestly though, I know it's better to try and keep a consistent sleep schedule overall, so this might not be a bad thing- it will just be a bit of an adjustment.

Honestly, I've not really had much of an overstimulated 'hummingbird' feeling at all since starting it, which honestly surprised my wife a good bit since she hasn't really believed that ADD/ADHD was my problem- but the fact that taking essentially 30mg of amphetamines hasn't had me bouncing off walls and feeling (as one person I know who took Adderall, as they put it, 'recreationally' described it) 'like a superhero' has changed her mind. I've also not had and real problems with eating- but then, a) I've never really had a problem with appetite- if I'm not puking my guts out I've generally got a healthy appetite and b) I really could use not eating quite as much on the whole and have been planning on trying to get back to being better about both portions and sweets- something that has been easier over the last few days.

Probably the biggest thing that I've noticed is how much easier it is to keep things in my memory over longer periods of time. Perfect example: I have an older iPad Mini that is 90% of the time just used as my alarm clock and sits on my nightstand. I only really use it around bedtime or when we're out at the cabin, so when it complains that it's time to update it I tend to not end up doing it for a while because I only see it right before bed and don't want it running the update in the middle of the night and interrupting the 'sleep sounds' that it is usually playing overnight. But last night the update reminder popped up, I made a mental note of it before dismissing it- and then when I got up this morning actually remembered that I should run the update. Something similar happened when making my morning (now decaf....) tea. For those that don't know, teas have a pretty specific steeping time- if you steep them too long, they get bitter and taste nowhere near as good. Usually I pour the hot water into the pot with the tea and then go off and do other things for a few minutes and don't pay as close attention to it- today, I actually remembered to look at the clock and note what time it was so I could pull the teabags out 4 minutes later- and did that successfully too.

Last night was the first night that I slept pretty much normally- fell asleep pretty quickly when I went to bed, didn't wake up at all that I remember, and felt like I woke up a bit more normally (though still felt like I had an easier time waking up, especially since I was getting up at least an hour earlier than I usually would on a Friday).

One interesting thing I didn't expect to be impacted: Counting. Not like, "Wow, now I know more numbers and can count higher!" but not losing track almost immediately when I try counting something. This mostly comes into play when I'm swimming because I typically constantly lose track of what lap I'm on- the AppleWatch has been a godsend for this. Yesterday I decided that I finally needed to pick up a third (for now- a fourth wouldn't really be out of line) display case for my LEGO Collectible Minifigures, but figured counting the ones that I didn't have in the existing cases would be smart. Usually I'd lose track easily and have to be doing a lot more physical count (like touching them and moving them around) and probably using my phone or something else to keep track- but I had a much easier time with it than usual, I'm guessing because it was just easier to focus on that task.

I do have to note that it's clearly not a case of 'everything is perfect now!' I'm still a bit forgetful, especially when stressed or dealing with a lot of things at once. Last night on my way out to get dinner and a few groceries, the second item my wife had asked me to pick up slipped my mind for a minute- but it was a lot easier to think back and remember what it was than it has been in the past. Also last night, when I got back home and was trying to get in the door after a horrible experience picking up our dinner (drive through line didn't move for like 20 minutes after I'd ordered, half the food was cold and the shakes were half melted, and they still forgot something that I thankfully caught at the window and got fixed), I spilled a bunch of the melted shake on myself and was trying not to spill more or drop the food when I finally got the door open and was rushing to put things down and get my shirt off to rinse so the chocolate didn't stain it- and forgot my keys in the door. Ironically, I think that the meds were still helpful as I did actually think to wonder where they were when I was getting ready for bed last night and didn't immediately see the house key's keychain when I put everything away, but I did still forget them in the door until my wife was leaving this morning (and I thankfully saw and snagged them before she noticed).

Still- on the whole, I'm pretty happy with how it's worked out so far.

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

Over time, you'll probably lose a little weight, too. I was diagnosed at 51. After my workup, my doctors said I'd had it since I was four! They prescribed Wellbutrin and it totally turned my life around. It was like tuning out the static on an FM radio - 3 days after starting my prescription, I woke up and - nothing -. It was a great feeling at the time, and I can still get choked up thinking about it. Life's been a lot better since. 

In reply to Pushrod :

I've definitely noticed the appetite suppression side of the Vyvanse... I'm still hungry when I'd expect to be, but just feel full sooner and am eating what I'd call more reasonable portions.

I've got zero doubt I've had it since childhood as well... from what I've seen so far, I imagine that being on this in college would have made a massive difference in how I did there (I did well enough, but was horrible about studying for any length of time) and I have zero doubt it will improve things at work as well (again, I do pretty good- but I get distracted easily and on occasion will make stupid mistakes because of it).

Taking amphetamines may help you with some things in the short term. Altering your brain chemistry, and hormone production has effects. Some of those effects can be permanent. Just because your drug dealer wears a white coat, doesn't make them less dangerous.

For what it's worth I am not directing this at any one specific person, but feel this needs to be said generally. Not as an admonishment, but just something to consider. Legal drugs are part of the leading cause of death for people under 45.

Pushrod said:

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

Over time, you'll probably lose a little weight, too. I was diagnosed at 51. After my workup, my doctors said I'd had it since I was four! They prescribed Wellbutrin and it totally turned my life around. It was like tuning out the static on an FM radio - 3 days after starting my prescription, I woke up and - nothing -. It was a great feeling at the time, and I can still get choked up thinking about it. Life's been a lot better since. 

I've noticed i've lost a few pounds around my waist and my abs have more definition; pretty nice!

I have a friend who was diagnosed at 51 - she isn't hyper; she just can't pay attention. She was on Vyvanse and is now on Adderall, because the former was really expensive. She's an engineer, not a doctor, but her explanation was that, strictly speaking, Vyvanse isn't amphetamines until you metabolize it, at which point it is. Adderall is amphetamines before you swallow it. She also said that Adderall has significantly improved her ability to do her job (large municipal water projects)  and be a parent (two teens).

I'm glad this thread popped back up. 

As a surprise to no one who remembers me on this forum, I was diagnosed with ADD, specifically adult onset ADD. 

The thing is, it just got less controllable as an adult.  Its always been there.  My mind is wired differently.  I tried the meds route, but for me, physical activity has been the best therapy.  Meds only work for about 8 weeks before the symptoms start coming back.  Then the docs would start increasing doses which would then last another 8 weeks.  Then I would hit a wall where the side effects would override the usefulness of the meds.  I would stop for 6 months and then start all over again.  

I like being able to process multiple things at once.  I don't like it when my brain decides to block everything at once to focus on what it wants to focus on.  Makes for interesting pacing on projects.  I need some sort of physical labor every 3 hours.  Walking, push-ups, sit-ups, something.

 

I'll definitely be keeping an eye (figuratively) out for if I see a decrease in effectivity of the Vyvanse. I'm definitely with procainestart's friend- Vyvanse is unreasonably expensive, and if we weren't like $200 from hitting our deductible for the year and its cost to us dropping considerably I'd likely be talking with my doctor about similar but less costly options... and will likely be considering doing so at toward the end of the year before our deductible resets and it jumps back up to being super pricey.

In reply to Racebrick :

There's definitely reason to be cautious, regardless of what the drug/medication is or where it's been coming from- but at the same time, as this thread is testament to- there are definitely times when those drugs are a definite help and, in some cases, a life saver, to people. I doubt many of us went on to any of the medication without a fair bit of research and consideration of what the consequences might be. 

My fiance was diagnosed with adult onset ADD at the beginning of the year. 

It's helped her tremendously with work. 

Anyone find a good non-stimulant medicine for adhd? Like to treat the disorder, not just throw more amphetamine salts or other stimulants at it?  Im off my adderal for now.  I take frequent breaks from it once i feel like its lost effect. 

In reply to TJL (Forum Supporter) :

Wellbutrin has some effect for some people, but it's generally an antidepressant.   Strattera does berkeley-all in my experience.  IIRC, it was developed as an SSRI that didn't help depressive symptoms, so they tried to rebrand it as an ADHD medication.  It had literally no effect on me when I took it for three months prior to getting on Adderall.

When I asked my psychiatrist about non-stimulant treatments, she mentioned cognitive-behavioral therapy as about the only thing that showed long-term promise.