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talk to me about adderall
Chu
poopspeesRegistered User regular
poopspeesRegistered User regular
so, blah blah see a doctor yeah i know. if i make the commitment to pursue a subscription, i will see a doctor. i'm not gonna use any advice given to acquire stuff from a friend. i am looking for pre-professional advice and feedback.
i recently had the chance to try some extended-release adderall. i gave it a go (one dose) and it was pretty much the best day of my life. i was incredibly focused, i had heightened senses and reflexes, i felt light and energetic, etc. the best way that i can describe the sensation is this: you know how when you're congested, you get that kind of 'swollen head' thing going on, with fluid in your sinuses? this is the exact opposite of that. it felt like that momentary feeling of congestive relief after eating a pepper or using vix, but for 8+ hours. it was incredible. granted it was a good day in general (hanging with friends at pax), but physically and mentally i felt more healthy and able than i've ever felt- including marathon race days.
is this a normal reaction?
i don't think that i normally have bad focus. i got pretty good grades in school, i've worked 12 hour shifts and done fine, never 'spaced out' or felt inattentive. i don't think i've ever fit the popular rubric for an attention deficit disorder.
i guess i have a pretty intrinsically scathing view towards 'non-essential' drugs, as i've seen some pretty virulent addictions (to much more nefarious substances, though). i'm not sure how i feel about QoL improving drugs, assuming i don't have any sort of condition that requires correcting. but if i felt better and more lively from this experience (with no crash or trace of addiction- the past few days have put me back to 'normal', and no worse. i feel fine), maybe that is a correction.
anyway, looking for miscellaneous thoughts. and again, please no 'talk to a professional before seeking drugs'. i know. i am only seeking a preliminary reading.
thanks in advance!
i recently had the chance to try some extended-release adderall. i gave it a go (one dose) and it was pretty much the best day of my life. i was incredibly focused, i had heightened senses and reflexes, i felt light and energetic, etc. the best way that i can describe the sensation is this: you know how when you're congested, you get that kind of 'swollen head' thing going on, with fluid in your sinuses? this is the exact opposite of that. it felt like that momentary feeling of congestive relief after eating a pepper or using vix, but for 8+ hours. it was incredible. granted it was a good day in general (hanging with friends at pax), but physically and mentally i felt more healthy and able than i've ever felt- including marathon race days.
is this a normal reaction?
i don't think that i normally have bad focus. i got pretty good grades in school, i've worked 12 hour shifts and done fine, never 'spaced out' or felt inattentive. i don't think i've ever fit the popular rubric for an attention deficit disorder.
i guess i have a pretty intrinsically scathing view towards 'non-essential' drugs, as i've seen some pretty virulent addictions (to much more nefarious substances, though). i'm not sure how i feel about QoL improving drugs, assuming i don't have any sort of condition that requires correcting. but if i felt better and more lively from this experience (with no crash or trace of addiction- the past few days have put me back to 'normal', and no worse. i feel fine), maybe that is a correction.
anyway, looking for miscellaneous thoughts. and again, please no 'talk to a professional before seeking drugs'. i know. i am only seeking a preliminary reading.
thanks in advance!
Chu on
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This discussion has been closed.
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I took the GRE practice test and was zoning out by question 4. I was prescribed Adderall and went and took the real thing. My practice score was around 350, my real score was like, 1300. The stuff works if you actually have ADD. I didn't have any side effects, although I know some people do. But if you do have ADD, I do recommend it.
Of course, if you don't have ADD all you are really doing is taking speed, so... YMMV
Frankly, that's how amphetamine-family drugs feel. That's why speed, meth, etc. are so attractive to people.
The clear sinuses is also 'normal' for that class of drugs. That's why Sudafed (the good kind, that you have to ask a pharmacist for) contains pseudoephedrine, which is related to amphetamine and related drugs.
I'm not telling you that to scare you away. There is are some major differences between Adderall and amphetamine-related street drugs - not just in terms of purity, but the speed at which it's absorbed and metabolized by your body, making it less dangerous and ultimately less addictive.
Still, just like the afterschool specials say, more you do it, the less you're going to have that "best day ever!" feeling and the closer you'll come to dependency.
Some people will tell you that if you don't have ADD/ADHD and you don't have a prescription, don't do it. That is the "right" answer. I won't, though. Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with occasional use as long as you can keep it occasional. A lot of people can, and a lot of people can't. So you just need to do some introspection and honestly ask yourself, "Can I keep this under control?"
BTW, one other thing. Adderall (as do all amphetamines) interact with some common prescription medications - notably, a lot of the antidepressants are metabolized by the same enzyme in the liver. Combining Adderall with any prescription medication is asking for trouble unless you specifically know that they don't interact. Same with cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine. (A pharmacist can tell you this. You can ask any pharmacist "hey, does this cold medicine/prescription that I'm picking up today interact with Adderall?" and they'll be able to tell you without asking too many uncomfortable questions.)
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
So I'm pretty pro-Adderall with oversight from a doctor.
Legally, even giving away pain meds or stimulants only available by prescription is a felony. There are a fair amount of arrests in most major cities dealing with this. I know relatives and friends like to hoard medication and give them away to loved ones, but this is always a bad idea. I believe possession without a prescription is also illegal in most states, although I don't know how high up the legal creek you'd be (it's a felony in the few states that I've worked in).
If you are getting a "best day of your life!" feeling, then you are getting a stimulant euphoria. It's subtle, not like most illegal stimulants, and it's designed that way. You say "i got pretty good grades in school, i've worked 12 hour shifts and done fine, never 'spaced out' or felt inattentive.", and this points to not having a sort of disorder amenable to stimulant therapy. Only a medical professional can really figure out if you have a disorder, though, so take my words with a grain of salt.
Disclaimer: I am a medical professional who has had a couple of months of training during my school years in addiction medicine. I've seen the worst of it, but I've also seen many many "casual" users who got busted. They were normal people, for the most part, and a lot of them weren't informed of the legalities of prescription drug sharing and possession of drugs without a prescription. A common mantra was "I didn't know it was a felony, and now I have to carry this for the rest of my life to every job that I apply for."
Organichu: "I got pretty good grades in school."
Me: So did I, until I reached junior year in high school, and later college. I got straight A's until my Junior H.S. year, because up until then I was smart enough to make do without studying at all. After that, my inability to study took its toll until I actually failed out of college.
Organichu: "I've worked 12 hour shifts and done fine."
Me: By the end of a five hour shift I was getting jittery. If I was in a boring position on the work floor, I would regularly fall asleep out of boredom. If I wasn't doing something all the time, each hour was torture.
Organichu: I've never 'spaced out' or 'felt inattentive.'
Me: Every single day in class, I would almost fall asleep out of boredom. I would blank out in conversations, ask people to repeat themselves multiple times, etc. Unless something was constantly engaging, I couldn't do it.
In conclusion, you most likely were experiencing the stimulant high. If I, for example, took Adderall, the only experience I would have would be the silencing of that God-damn constant noise in my head that's with me every freaking day.
This is not to say it's not a very useful tool. Probably too useful, in many cases. Hence rampant abuse on college campuses and so on.
thanks for the advice, everyone.
Of course you feel better and more lively. Lots of drugs do that. You're heading down a potentially nasty path if you choose to pursue this course of action.
I like to think of it as a cloud that was lifted, or a fog that's been cleared up.
OP, sounds like you just got high :P
I've been diagnosed with ADD ever since I was a kid, but didn't start taking meds for it until Middle School. The thing is, I have a rather unknown type of ADD called Passive/Overfocused ADD, which is caused by too much blood flow in the frontal lobes of my brain. So while I do exhibit some of the more classic ADD symptoms, my main problem is that I think in loop patterns, making it very, very difficult for me to multi-task, shift gears and just dive in to things right away. The worst result of this is that it makes it next to impossible to move on from things, so for example if I get a negative thought it will constantly repeat itself in my brain, causing the worst kind of depression you can think of.
Most branches of Adderall just make you concentrate more, but that can backfire tremendously when you're depressed, cause then all you do is focus on that depression even more than normal. We're talking just slammed so hard you can barely function throughout the day until it wears off.
I didn't find out I had this specific type of ADD (much less it existed) until a month ago (i'm 22). Since then it's been much easier for me to moderate myself and take steps towards improving it, and one of those things is the type of Adderall I take. Before I used to take something called Concerta (which had extremely negative mental side effects). I tried a few more things until setting down with something called Vyvanse, which is the best balance i've come across with so far.
All i'm saying is do some serious research on what kind and type of ADD you have before making that decision. Go find some decent ADD books and look up common factors in what traits you exhibit; it will save you a hell of a lot of time, money and effort down the road.
(Note for all legal references I looked at United States Code 21 U.S.C. 844(a). Adderall is a schedule II controlled substance, other drugs that are on that list are cocaine, heroine, and opium. That means having it without a prescription (that's right, just having it) is a violation of federal (and also STATE) law [which means it doesn't matter what your state law says you could go to federal prison]. Using adderrall without a prescription carries with it additional penalties. Not to scare you some more (but it might), those penalties are remarkably stiff for even having one dosage of adderall. (Federal law puts it at one year minimimum for first offenses if you go to trial, and it gets worse after that) These penalties are worse if you want to go to college, law school, med school or any highly specialized form of education. Why? because for those kinds of instutions you MUST report prior convictions before plying your trade. If you lie about your past criminal history, even once, you'll be disbarred (for lawyers) and you'll likely not be able to practice elsewhere.
Adderall is NOT a tool, it is a medicine and should only be used when you've been diagnosed with a condition warranting its use. From what I can discern there are numerous people on this forum who use this medication because of diseases they have such as ADD, ADHD, and other simliar and related disorders. These are debilitating problems for individuals and this kind of medication can sometimes be the only way these individuals manage.
Finally, you should NOT be seeking advice about controlled substances from people who are not licensed or knowledgeable about that medication. (everything I got was from wikipedia or my knowledge from having a father as a doctor: this kind of knowledge doesn't suffice). That is why you HAVE to see a doctor. Anyways, I'm not a doctor, I don't play one on t.v. But I have read plenty of criminal law cases, and I know that using these kinds of medications and having them without a prescription can lead to some pretty nasty consequences. Take this seriously, stop getting advice from people on a forum and go see a doctor.
Anyways this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adderall
And the Physicians Desk Reference will tell you everything you need to know about Adderall (go to your local college library and they might have a PDR somewhere)
I am actually going to lock this thread, though. I think you've probably got what you wanted, more or less, and really the next step is going to be to talk to your doctor. I really doubt he's going to give you any kind of script for this purpose or without need, so don't get your hopes up.