Today was my first day going back on stimulants after a 2.5 year break and so far it feels okay. I can focus on my studies without having too much emotion. This has the unfortunate consequence of me probably being less active on the forums, or if I am active I will be more serious.

Also you may talk about your experiences with stimulants here.

This has the unfortunate consequence of me probably being less active on the forums

Aww. Darn. That totally sucks. Really feel bad. Furthest thing from internally cheering right now. This 100% did not make my day.

what's it to you if I post on here

Edited 11/10/2017 02:29:54

1) I currently take 54 mg of Concerta every day or when I feel like it.

PROS

-Massively clearer thinking, the purest form of weaponized autism. I jumped into the top 20 on the lvl ladder just because I started taking Concerta and raised my test grades. AUTISM IS UNSTOPPABLE. Its almost cheating.

-Lazer focus. If I decide that I want to study for 10 hours straight then I can do it no problem. Because of the lack of appetite I can't be distracted by food and consequently I can't be distracted by bathroom breaks. Because of the Insomnia, I can't be distracted by exhaustion or tiredness.

-Great motivation. I have so much more motivation. The difference is night and day.

CONS (but can also be PROS)

-No appetite. I have to force myself to eat. One day I ate a bunch and then took Concerta. When the medicine kicked in after about 1 hour, I threw up everything I ate because of the Concerta.

It isn't too much of a problem because my BMI is 23.9 though which is healthy and kinda skinny for an American.

-Insomnia. If you take this at 5pm at night then you won't be able to go to sleep for 10 hours. The good news is if you need to cram for tomorrow's test, you can purposefully take a 54 mg to study ALL night and you will still remember EVERYTHING you studied the night before.

-Concerta causes me heart problems. My heart beats really hard and really fast for a long time. It beats so hard I can hear it. At one point, I couldn't even move for 20 minutes because my heart felt like it was going to explode. This is what stimulants do.

-After Concerta wears off, I crash hard. I can't study or even do anything requiring energy. I just fall asleep.

That is my experience. Now some history....

In the 1st grade, my parents started taking me to Crossroads and getting me medication among other things to deal with a hella lot of issues I was having at school. But because I got such good grades, I could not apply for a disability waver from the school. My problems were behavioral and social.

So from the 1st grade to some time in 8th grade, I was on everything known to man. Strattera, Adderall, Concerta, Ritalin, ect. I probably still have records on how it worked out.

Anyways, off the top of my head, there were several lasting effects from those drugs.

1) My constant lack of appetite lead to me being incredibly skinny. To this day, I weight half as much as my brother who is only 2.5 years older. (Everybody in my family is literally obese).

2) I got excellent grades and was so good at math that I took Algebra in the 7th grade and Geometry in the 8th grade.

At some point during the 8th grade, I got sick and tired of being so skinny and so I simply decided to stop taking the medication against my parents and my doctor's wishes. I recently started taking Concerta again 4 months ago. We started me out on 18 mg, which did nothing, then 34 mg, which did a little but not enough, and now we on are 54 mg which is a bit overkill but it gets the job done.

Also, you should know that concerta is just an extended release of Ritalin. So, while I have my morning pill that I take, I can also choose to take a Ritalin which kicks in after 30 minutes and lasts 2-3 hours. This is really nice if I have to delay my inevitable crash at the end of the day by 2 or 3 hours or if I need to stay up for 2 or 3 hours to work on homework.

I am 19 and I go to college.

Edited 11/10/2017 03:12:15

You've basically described all the symptoms good and bad of stimulants. They're all pretty similar. They're pretty much all (to my knowledge) amphetamine drugs. If you want to be relaxed yet focused at the same time they're great, but not so great for eating and sleep habits.

I take Vyvanse, but I've been on pretty much all of them in the past except Adderall. Right now I'm taking 30 mg to ease onto the medication; then I will take 40 mg and probably take 50 mg eventually since that's the dose that worked well in 10th grade. Vyvanse has a 10-12 hour release so you take one in the morning and it lasts the whole day. That means you don't have much leniency with it; you pretty much have to take it in the morning or it will wreak havoc upon your sleep.

There's a certain way to make stimulants work; you have to adjust your life around them. You can go wrong with them and they can mess you up, but not as bad as some other psych meds like SSRIs. Stimulants really chance your personality so you have to adjust the way you approach people. Off meds you might appeal to an entirely different group of people than on meds so you will probably end up juggling acquaintances.

Like you I'm 19 and in college.

Edited 11/10/2017 03:30:19

I never experienced any type of addiction to any of these drugs. It always pissed me off how they screwed with my eating and sleep habits. Lately, I see the benefits which is why I started but I have to forcibly remind myself to take the amphetamines.

My doctor wanted to put me on Vyvanse, if Concerta didn't work but I am working just fine with Concerta. If you wouldn't mind, could you keep me posted on your experiences with Vyvanse? Just in case, I decided to change it up.

Sure no problem man, I think the thing with Vyvanse is it doesn't have as huge of a crash; its a smoother transition. Worked really well for my parents in high school because they didn't have to deal with my crash shenanigans.

Ok?

This is a tangential point. One of my favorite books is the biography of the mathematician Paul Erdős, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, by Paul Hoffman. He was described by Hoffman as "probably the most eccentric mathematician in the world." He spent the better part of his life living out of suitcase, while travelling from university to university without ever making any one place his home.

And he used amphetamines. Except for a brief period of one month, when he was challenged by a friend to stop using them, Erdős used amphetamines until his death. He claimed that with the drug his thought was fruitful, but without a blank page remained blank. It is said that he was one of the prolfic mathematicians of the 20th century, having published some 1,500 mathematical papers during his lifetime.

A wag at Time magazine called him the oddball's oddball. One of his many eccentricities was his special vocabulary which gives a measure of the man's humor.

Some examples of Erdős's vocabulary include:

*Children were referred to as "epsilons" (because in mathematics, particularly calculus, an arbitrarily small positive quantity is commonly denoted by the Greek letter (ε))
*Women were "bosses" who "captured" men as "slaves" by marrying them. Divorced men were "liberated."
*People who stopped doing mathematics had "died," while people who died had "left."
*Alcoholic drinks were "poison".
*Music (except classical music) was "noise".
*To give a mathematical lecture was "to preach".
*To give an oral exam to a student was "to torture" him/her.

Erdős is pronounced Air-dish.

Amphetamines will get the job done.

I take Adderall. Good stuff.

Good luck.

"This has the unfortunate consequence of me probably being less active on the forums"

I'm sorry, which part of this was unfortunate?

Thanks for sharing Erdős sounds like a cheeky lad

Fortunate for you maybe

"23.9 though which is healthy and kinda skinny for an American. "
fck
htf is that skinny

Have you ever been to America?

Once. I was one.

Might wanna up your dosage a bit. Looks like it's not working.

It's having its desired effect.