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A large part of the blame lays on her. IMO adderall's mechanism is much more severe on neurons than methylphenidate. It's very well proven that amphetamine/met

A large part of the blame lays on her. IMO adderall's mechanism is much more severe on neurons than methylphenidate. It's very well proven that amphetamine/methamphetamine increases the level of free dopamine in the cytosol which are prone to auto-oxidation to quinones. This wreaks all sort of havoc over the long-term. Methylphenidate(ritalin) and its stereoisomer stay cleanly outside the presynaptic neurons and only blocks NET and DAT from pumping NE and DA back inside the cell. Unlike amphetamine, it doesnt disrupt the pH gradient of the vesicle membrane and cause an abnormal amount of dopamine to leak and accumulate in the cytosol. Personally, I would never take adderall/vyvanse/dexedrine. As a counterexample, let me give you my experience. After being prescribed focalin, my gpa shot through the roof. This stuff actually improved my health. How? Instead of pulling all nighters and procrastinating like I used to, this stuff allows me to get work done weeks early and go to sleep on time. I learned calculus in 1 week, bought a piano and taught myself how to play moonlight sonata 1st mvt and kiss the rain in 3 weeks (working on bach air in d major at the moment). Oh yea, I also read the entire lehninger biochem book and bernard milller's advanced organic chemistry for fun in my own time. Then a whole world of research papers were discovered through the uni library subscription :> This stuff allows you to learn at an alarming rate if used properly. I don't drink alcohol on days of studying because it prevents LTM formation, you're basically wasting your time studying if you do this. Also I never waste my time with people while medicated. This stuff can make you socially awkward and kill your sense of humor. Take it only for the singular purpose of learning and getting work done. I took extra care with my health, ate blueberries, avocado, eggs, brocoli, meat, etc., lots of lycopene, astaxanthin, R-lipoic acid, melatonin and 8 hours of sleep. Tolerance will go up very slowly with frequent breaks and essentially goes back to zero with a month break. For adderall, this will take much longer, some people will even develop permanent tolerance that will never go away. On days when I dont take focalin, I sit around, sip on a beer and browse HN ;)

n3rdy 14y ago
> A large part of the blame lays on her. I'd say all the blame lays on her. When you know your gaming a system by either buying a drug from a dealer, using a crooked doctor to write your prescriptions, taking more than your prescribed dosage, and not reading the warning label on the bottle every time you take a dose out of it, its hard to believe that you didn't understand the consequences of what you were doing. I'm prescribed adderall and your comment dissuades me from taking it 100x more than this article does, even more than the warning label does. Even if you were exaggerating anything, I found more keywords to research from just the first paragraph than I would get out of 10 of these types of NY Times articles.
- thelogos 14y ago
  Check out Dr.Sulzer's research. A lot of these studies are very hard to understand without some organic chem and biochem background. Reading the abstract is simply not enough feel the significance of these research. The other problem is access to these articles through journal subscription is quite expensive. I always figure that methamphetamine does some long-term damage, but when they found melanin accumulation in the neurons by examining brain slices, it was pretty alarming. The mechanism of action between amphetamine and methamphetamine is too similar to rule out the possibility of long-term damage. It just doesn't make sense to take adderall when dexmethylphenidate (focalin) gives most of the benefit without ritalin's side effects. In the long-term, I'm still quite leery of dexmethylphenidate, particularly how it acts as a releaser at high concentration. I haven't come across any papers that describe its mechanism of action as a releasing agent. This is another reason why I only use it to study and practice piano. As long as you're learning, it's easy to justify that the benefit outweigh the cost.
powermeat 14y ago
I noticed my tolerance to adderall going up. I did a 4 day juice fast and now I'm a lightweight again.

n3rdy 14y ago

> A large part of the blame lays on her. I'd say all the blame lays on her. When you know your gaming a system by either buying a drug from a dealer, using a crooked doctor to write your prescriptions, taking more than your prescribed dosage, and not reading the warning label on the bottle every time you take a dose out of it, its hard to believe that you didn't understand the consequences of what you were doing. I'm prescribed adderall and your comment dissuades me from taking it 100x more than this article does, even more than the warning label does. Even if you were exaggerating anything, I found more keywords to research from just the first paragraph than I would get out of 10 of these types of NY Times articles.

thelogos 14y ago
Check out Dr.Sulzer's research. A lot of these studies are very hard to understand without some organic chem and biochem background. Reading the abstract is simply not enough feel the significance of these research. The other problem is access to these articles through journal subscription is quite expensive. I always figure that methamphetamine does some long-term damage, but when they found melanin accumulation in the neurons by examining brain slices, it was pretty alarming. The mechanism of action between amphetamine and methamphetamine is too similar to rule out the possibility of long-term damage. It just doesn't make sense to take adderall when dexmethylphenidate (focalin) gives most of the benefit without ritalin's side effects. In the long-term, I'm still quite leery of dexmethylphenidate, particularly how it acts as a releaser at high concentration. I haven't come across any papers that describe its mechanism of action as a releasing agent. This is another reason why I only use it to study and practice piano. As long as you're learning, it's easy to justify that the benefit outweigh the cost.

powermeat 14y ago

I noticed my tolerance to adderall going up. I did a 4 day juice fast and now I'm a lightweight again.