15 ms·

While meds can definitely help, one month in is way too early to know if the change is long-term positive. This is especially true with stimulant medications.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> one month in is way too early to know if the change is long-term positive. This is especially true with stimulant medications. Agree. It's important to remind people that the effects of the first few weeks aren't like the effects for the next 10-50 years. It's especially concerning when people say the meds give them "more energy to do things" because that's more of a side effect that goes away after a while. The focus-enhancing effect is separate from the energizing/euphoric side effect that people experience in the first few weeks.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  I’ve never experienced more energy to do things nor euphoria from my stimulant meds. They make me less anxious and allow me to muster executive function that I struggle with otherwise. Not because I’m more focused or productive or whatever else people ascribe to the drug, because I’m less overwhelmed by the world that’s loud and fast and bright and complicated and dangerous. My brain and the world around me are quieter and more reasonable.
  - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    > They make me less anxious High-dose pyridoxine as an 'anti-stress' strategy https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10859691/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10859691/ Anxiolytic-like effect of pyridoxine in mice by elevated plus maze and light and dark box: Evidence for the involvement of GABAergic and NO-sGC-cGMP pathway https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0091305718301011 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00913...
  - thenaturalist 4y ago
    Same here. Your description perfectly matches my experience.
  - devde 4y ago
    Same here. If anything I actually feel a bit tired when they kick in throughout the day.
    - hirvi74 4y ago
      Same, I feel like I could fall asleep, but I know I couldn't if I tried.
      - khios 4y ago
        Have you tried? I can take a nap no problem on them. I would even say that they greatly help me falling asleep!
        hirvi74 4y ago
        I have tried, and I cannot. They help me fall asleep if I time the crash correctly, but other than I will have trouble falling asleep. If I stop taking them, then I have trouble falling asleep, so I am kind of in a catch-22 lol.
      - eyelidlessness 4y ago
        You might be surprised. My first prescribing doctor emphasized that an appropriate dosage wouldn’t disrupt sleep and might even improve ability to get to sleep. He wasn’t right about several other things, but on this he was exactly right. So much so that early on I took a morning nap about an hour after meds kicked in because I couldn’t stay awake. Now with a higher dose I don’t get so lethargic, but I certainly could sleep when the meds are effective, more than I ever could during daytime before.
        hirvi74 4y ago
        I guess I am on the wrong dosage then, because when they are in full effect, there is no way I could fall asleep. Stimulants do wonders for my hyperactivity e.g. I turn from Ace Ventura to being able to sit in an office. However, I would never say they calm me down in a mental sense. In fact, they kind of tend to do the opposite sometimes.
- BandOfBots 4y ago
  “more energy to do things” is directly correlated to the level of dopamine ADHD medication augments in our brains
  - Skgqie1 4y ago
    I disagree with this. For me, the energy is because I have to use less energy doing basic day to day shit. Unmedicated, it takes far more effort and work, and leaves less energy for later tasks.
    - ojkelly 4y ago
      Yep this is common. Imagine doing the dishes. Unmedicated, thats 2 or 3 tasks. Each with a high failure rate, and high cognitive cost. 1. Stop what you’re currently doing. 2. Decide you next task will be to wash the dishes. 3. Wash dishes. The spoon theory [0] covers this concept well, and can be a useful tool. > The spoon theory[a] is a metaphor describing the amount of physical and/or mental energy that a person has available for daily activities and tasks, and how it can become limited. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory
    - sedivy94 4y ago
      It’s amphetamine. The energy is from the amphetamine. The mechanism of action (norepinephrine and dopamine reputable inhibition) isn’t far from that of cocaine or methamphetamine. Let’s be real here. Amphetamine is known to skew one’s self assessment of their performance while on the drug.
      - ojkelly 4y ago
        > It’s amphetamine. The energy is from the amphetamine. Energy still comes from food, and if you forget to eat on stimulants your body will eventually catch up with you. Like coffee, stimulants let you better tap into that energy. > The mechanism of action (norepinephrine and dopamine reputable inhibition) isn’t far from that of cocaine or methamphetamine. Yep, they’re all stimulants. ADHD meds however, are manufactured in very controlled conditions, and taken in specific doses. Street drugs are more variable in quality, ratios, ingredients and strengths, and so not relevant to the treatment of ADHD. Methamphetamine is a legitimate treatment for the most severe ADHD cases, it’s often a last resort. It’s sold as Desoxyn. It’s rarely used, but it _is used legally and successfully_. > Let’s be real here. Amphetamine is known to skew one’s self assessment of their performance while on the drug. If you don’t need it, stimulants are going to have a different effect. People with ADHD are in my experience, going to be able to self-assess performance on their meds better than off them. Don’t assume one experience is universal, especially when we’re talking about neurodiversity. Even among those with ADHD, experiences are not universal. We may rhyme, but we don’t always repeat.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
I knew day one. Three years have continuously confirmed what I knew day one. I wish I hadn’t been so afraid of meds that would help me.
- ojkelly 4y ago
  I’m exactly the same. I knew 40m in, right when it started to take effect. It was night and day. Like I’d just walked from a raging thunderstorm into a quiet sunny meadow, but I’d thought that I was in a quiet meadow my whole life. It was profound. There was a decade between me first seriously suspecting it, and that. Information about it is much easier to come by now, and more people talk openly about it. Without that, I probably would have struggled for much longer.
  - RHSman2 4y ago
    'Like I’d just walked from a raging thunderstorm into a quiet sunny meadow, but I’d thought that I was in a quiet meadow my whole life. It was profound.' That is profound. Also says a lot about us as humans. Glad it's not raging anymore
- mtsr 4y ago
  It’s not on you. An enormous amount of stigma surrounds the use of stimulant medication, even if it’s one of the oldest and most studied psychiatric meds there is. And the stigma is continuously reinforced by all the people who don’t need it abusing the meds. Sure, there’s also some risk for patients using them properly, but for them it does not compare to the sheer benefits provided by the meds.
  - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    You are not deficient in stimulants. So using them is not the answer. Instead, look to nutrition. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24321736/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24321736/
    - eyelidlessness 4y ago
TeMPOraL 4y ago
> This is especially true with stimulant medications. Hard to see how this is "especially true" with stimulants, given they're the rare case of psychiatric meds you can get on and off safely at any time, and the bulk of the effects appear in hours to days after starting the treatment (and disappear just as fast after cessation). Contrast with e.g. depression treatment, where it takes a month or more before it's clear if the drug even works on you, and which of the bad side effects have a chance of eventually going away. "Long-term positive" is impossible to know in individual, non-statistical sense, whether it's about stimulant medication, SSRIs, moving to another city, marrying, or starting a family - any of those is going to have cascading impacts on your entire life, and even if you think they're positive after a month/year, who knows, maybe few weeks from now you'll think they were negative. That (otherwise stupid) "Farmer's Son" story has a point here.
- terribleperson 4y ago
  I say it's especially true with stimulants not because of some perceived safety, but because at the start of taking stimulants you will feel great. This generally wears off within a few weeks and never comes back. The test of whether stimulant medications help you isn't if they help you at the start, it's how you feel about them six months in. edit: feeling great only applies to some stimulant medications and seems to vary from person to person. Personally, I hated the pharmaceutical stimulant experience but they still helped me. I would be taking meds right now if I could afford it.
- brian_cunnie 4y ago
  > psychiatric meds you can get on and off safely at any time Maybe you can get off them safely, but not always easily. My alcohol/drug recovery group is filled with people who couldn't easily get off them, like my friend N., who rather than swallowing his medication (Ritalin?), he crushed it & snorted it like cocaine.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > Maybe you can get off them safely, but not always easily. You're implying addiction, but in the more common case, people with ADHD can be apprehensive about getting off the meds for the same reason people with chronic pain can't easily get off painkillers, or people in general can't easily get off oxygen. > like my friend N., who rather than swallowing his medication (Ritalin?), he crushed it & snorted it like cocaine That's just drug use, not ADHD treatment. I wonder what your friend's dose was? Snorting instead of swallowing is massively increasing the absorption rate, but even then, I don't think you can get high like this, if you just do your regular regimen through the nose. But doing a week or month's worth of pills this way at once, I guess sure? I don't have the data handy, but IIRC the difference in dose size between therapeutic effect and drug abuse that leads to addiction is ~100x.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> one month in is way too early to know if the change is long-term positive. This is especially true with stimulant medications. Agree. It's important to remind people that the effects of the first few weeks aren't like the effects for the next 10-50 years. It's especially concerning when people say the meds give them "more energy to do things" because that's more of a side effect that goes away after a while. The focus-enhancing effect is separate from the energizing/euphoric side effect that people experience in the first few weeks.

eyelidlessness 4y ago
I’ve never experienced more energy to do things nor euphoria from my stimulant meds. They make me less anxious and allow me to muster executive function that I struggle with otherwise. Not because I’m more focused or productive or whatever else people ascribe to the drug, because I’m less overwhelmed by the world that’s loud and fast and bright and complicated and dangerous. My brain and the world around me are quieter and more reasonable.
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  > They make me less anxious High-dose pyridoxine as an 'anti-stress' strategy https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10859691/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10859691/ Anxiolytic-like effect of pyridoxine in mice by elevated plus maze and light and dark box: Evidence for the involvement of GABAergic and NO-sGC-cGMP pathway https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0091305718301011 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00913...
- thenaturalist 4y ago
  Same here. Your description perfectly matches my experience.
- devde 4y ago
  Same here. If anything I actually feel a bit tired when they kick in throughout the day.
  - hirvi74 4y ago
    Same, I feel like I could fall asleep, but I know I couldn't if I tried.
    - khios 4y ago
      Have you tried? I can take a nap no problem on them. I would even say that they greatly help me falling asleep!
      - hirvi74 4y ago
        I have tried, and I cannot. They help me fall asleep if I time the crash correctly, but other than I will have trouble falling asleep. If I stop taking them, then I have trouble falling asleep, so I am kind of in a catch-22 lol.
    - eyelidlessness 4y ago
      You might be surprised. My first prescribing doctor emphasized that an appropriate dosage wouldn’t disrupt sleep and might even improve ability to get to sleep. He wasn’t right about several other things, but on this he was exactly right. So much so that early on I took a morning nap about an hour after meds kicked in because I couldn’t stay awake. Now with a higher dose I don’t get so lethargic, but I certainly could sleep when the meds are effective, more than I ever could during daytime before.
      - hirvi74 4y ago
        I guess I am on the wrong dosage then, because when they are in full effect, there is no way I could fall asleep. Stimulants do wonders for my hyperactivity e.g. I turn from Ace Ventura to being able to sit in an office. However, I would never say they calm me down in a mental sense. In fact, they kind of tend to do the opposite sometimes.
BandOfBots 4y ago
“more energy to do things” is directly correlated to the level of dopamine ADHD medication augments in our brains
- Skgqie1 4y ago
  I disagree with this. For me, the energy is because I have to use less energy doing basic day to day shit. Unmedicated, it takes far more effort and work, and leaves less energy for later tasks.
  - ojkelly 4y ago
    Yep this is common. Imagine doing the dishes. Unmedicated, thats 2 or 3 tasks. Each with a high failure rate, and high cognitive cost. 1. Stop what you’re currently doing. 2. Decide you next task will be to wash the dishes. 3. Wash dishes. The spoon theory [0] covers this concept well, and can be a useful tool. > The spoon theory[a] is a metaphor describing the amount of physical and/or mental energy that a person has available for daily activities and tasks, and how it can become limited. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory
  - sedivy94 4y ago
    It’s amphetamine. The energy is from the amphetamine. The mechanism of action (norepinephrine and dopamine reputable inhibition) isn’t far from that of cocaine or methamphetamine. Let’s be real here. Amphetamine is known to skew one’s self assessment of their performance while on the drug.
    - ojkelly 4y ago
      > It’s amphetamine. The energy is from the amphetamine. Energy still comes from food, and if you forget to eat on stimulants your body will eventually catch up with you. Like coffee, stimulants let you better tap into that energy. > The mechanism of action (norepinephrine and dopamine reputable inhibition) isn’t far from that of cocaine or methamphetamine. Yep, they’re all stimulants. ADHD meds however, are manufactured in very controlled conditions, and taken in specific doses. Street drugs are more variable in quality, ratios, ingredients and strengths, and so not relevant to the treatment of ADHD. Methamphetamine is a legitimate treatment for the most severe ADHD cases, it’s often a last resort. It’s sold as Desoxyn. It’s rarely used, but it _is used legally and successfully_. > Let’s be real here. Amphetamine is known to skew one’s self assessment of their performance while on the drug. If you don’t need it, stimulants are going to have a different effect. People with ADHD are in my experience, going to be able to self-assess performance on their meds better than off them. Don’t assume one experience is universal, especially when we’re talking about neurodiversity. Even among those with ADHD, experiences are not universal. We may rhyme, but we don’t always repeat.

eyelidlessness 4y ago

I knew day one. Three years have continuously confirmed what I knew day one. I wish I hadn’t been so afraid of meds that would help me.

ojkelly 4y ago
I’m exactly the same. I knew 40m in, right when it started to take effect. It was night and day. Like I’d just walked from a raging thunderstorm into a quiet sunny meadow, but I’d thought that I was in a quiet meadow my whole life. It was profound. There was a decade between me first seriously suspecting it, and that. Information about it is much easier to come by now, and more people talk openly about it. Without that, I probably would have struggled for much longer.
- RHSman2 4y ago
  'Like I’d just walked from a raging thunderstorm into a quiet sunny meadow, but I’d thought that I was in a quiet meadow my whole life. It was profound.' That is profound. Also says a lot about us as humans. Glad it's not raging anymore
mtsr 4y ago
It’s not on you. An enormous amount of stigma surrounds the use of stimulant medication, even if it’s one of the oldest and most studied psychiatric meds there is. And the stigma is continuously reinforced by all the people who don’t need it abusing the meds. Sure, there’s also some risk for patients using them properly, but for them it does not compare to the sheer benefits provided by the meds.
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  You are not deficient in stimulants. So using them is not the answer. Instead, look to nutrition. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24321736/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24321736/
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago

TeMPOraL 4y ago

> This is especially true with stimulant medications. Hard to see how this is "especially true" with stimulants, given they're the rare case of psychiatric meds you can get on and off safely at any time, and the bulk of the effects appear in hours to days after starting the treatment (and disappear just as fast after cessation). Contrast with e.g. depression treatment, where it takes a month or more before it's clear if the drug even works on you, and which of the bad side effects have a chance of eventually going away. "Long-term positive" is impossible to know in individual, non-statistical sense, whether it's about stimulant medication, SSRIs, moving to another city, marrying, or starting a family - any of those is going to have cascading impacts on your entire life, and even if you think they're positive after a month/year, who knows, maybe few weeks from now you'll think they were negative. That (otherwise stupid) "Farmer's Son" story has a point here.

terribleperson 4y ago
I say it's especially true with stimulants not because of some perceived safety, but because at the start of taking stimulants you will feel great. This generally wears off within a few weeks and never comes back. The test of whether stimulant medications help you isn't if they help you at the start, it's how you feel about them six months in. edit: feeling great only applies to some stimulant medications and seems to vary from person to person. Personally, I hated the pharmaceutical stimulant experience but they still helped me. I would be taking meds right now if I could afford it.
brian_cunnie 4y ago
> psychiatric meds you can get on and off safely at any time Maybe you can get off them safely, but not always easily. My alcohol/drug recovery group is filled with people who couldn't easily get off them, like my friend N., who rather than swallowing his medication (Ritalin?), he crushed it & snorted it like cocaine.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > Maybe you can get off them safely, but not always easily. You're implying addiction, but in the more common case, people with ADHD can be apprehensive about getting off the meds for the same reason people with chronic pain can't easily get off painkillers, or people in general can't easily get off oxygen. > like my friend N., who rather than swallowing his medication (Ritalin?), he crushed it & snorted it like cocaine That's just drug use, not ADHD treatment. I wonder what your friend's dose was? Snorting instead of swallowing is massively increasing the absorption rate, but even then, I don't think you can get high like this, if you just do your regular regimen through the nose. But doing a week or month's worth of pills this way at once, I guess sure? I don't have the data handy, but IIRC the difference in dose size between therapeutic effect and drug abuse that leads to addiction is ~100x.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]