Anyone Using Strattera ???

Normark

Normark

Joined
Nov 7, 1999
Messages
6,651
Hey Guys..

Anyone using Strattera for adult ADD ??

Any bad side effects ??
I have some...

Drop me a note if you would like to discuss it..

ericn@mnsi.net

ttyle

Eric....
 
My son (17) was on it for about 4 months last fall, after being on Ritalin for years and years.

We had to take him off of it because he developed a reallly short fuse and bad temper. It also made his mild OCD symptoms much worse.
 
Hey Dani....

I replied this is right after you did,, however it vaporized somehow after I pushed the post reply button...

Now I can't sleep,, so I'll type it...

Interesting about your son's reaction to it...
I hadn't experienced anything like that,, however I wasn't on it for longer than six days the first Go round...

After the third day, I started feeling symptoms of Strattera, and they were to say the least uncomfortable to painful...

The symptoms mimicked a prostrate condition, which when I looked them up, all pointed towards an inflammed prostrate or even cancer...:(
By accident I found a post about Strattera and it's side effects...
A light went on,, and I discontinued it.

Doctor said to stay off it for a period and then start again to see if thats what it was...

Sure enough.. I started them today, and I actually started feeling side effects only several hours after the first dosage....

On the flip side,, I'am enjoying a 8 hour body buzz,, one of the reasons I can't sleep....

Why did you take your boy off of the Rit ??(boy,, had a typo there!! Damn "T" too close to the "R"... LOL

I'm thinking about going back on it again,, however the last time I was on it,it turned me into a Gabber mouth,, and I couldn't stop talking..Got a lot of work done though,, and a Ton of Cold calls on the phone....

Very interesting though..
I hope your son is doing better,, or will find the right drug or combo of drugs...

I've taken several different things from anti depressants to Zoloft, and a bunch of other crap,, and they all make me feel like a zombie,, with MAJOR tunnel vision, and can't think further ahead than a day or two tops...

The thing I found the helps is several wicked strong cups of coffee in the am..Without it,, I'm a frigging basket case..I need something that lasts a little longer though...

ttyle

Eric....
 
I'm intersted to hear any stories about strattera-I have add,(both childhood and adult) and when i see the commercials-I think "man, that's me!" But I'm not really int the mind altering drugs..but if it works..
 
Hey Dijos...

Yes,, I'd be interested hearing some more findings on it as well...

From what I understand,, most people don't have any side effects,, and it works Very well for them...

If you try it,, start off on a low dosage, and if you have any symptoms which you don't normally have,,stop it right away.. They clear up in about 3 days...

Anyone Feel free to drop me a note if you want to know the details of what I found while on Strattera.. I think it's important for people to know..

ttyle

Eric....
 
I am rising 63 and have struggled with ADD all of my life. That I did as well as I did is sometimes a marvel to me, but it was "Boys will be boys" when I was a kid and nobody knew from nothing about ADD back then. I was on dexadrene back in the late 1990s and it made me irritable and grouchy as all Hell. So did Ritalin. Now I am on Adderal, a 20mg delayed release capsule in the morning and a 10mg regular pill at lunch, and it works pretty well. My son is on Stratera and likes it A LOT and suggested that I might. But my pshrink/neurologist said that it had a bad effect on sleep and since I already have Sleep Apnea and Restless Leg Syndrome, it was not the choice for me. God, do I wish that I had had something like Adderal available to me when I was younger and could really take advantage of it!
 
Hey Fuller....

Yaa your like me,,fell through the cracks as a kid..
They put it off as me being a trouble maker, yada, yada, yada...

I couldn't and still can't learn by watching.. I have to do it,to learn how to do it...

As for Adderal.. I asked for that from my Doc,, and he said it was just recently pulled fro the shelves in Canada..Caused heart conditions,,heart attack, or aggrivated heart conditions,,something like that...

I'm going to back on Rit I think... Give it a try again.....

Thanks for taking the time to reply..

ttyle

Eric...
 
I'm glad to know I'm not alone in this boat. I was diagnosed with ADD 5 or 6 years ago. They put me on Ritalin for a while and it did awful things to me. It only helped a little for a very short period of time and then I would go into these un-comfortably numb periods of feeling dead to the world and barely able to function. After that I figured that I had done OK for over 30 years with no medication and I would get by without. I'm on enough medication of various sorts as it is, as far as I'm concerned.

I've been trying to deal with the ADD through what I would call practical techniques. I usually keep a list of things I need to do and try to stay on the list as much as possible. I usually pick 3 things at the beginnning of the day and focus only on those until they are done. Zone out periods are good for me every so often. If I try to hard to concentrate when it is difficult to do so, I let myself take a few moments to let my mind wander. It is one of the reasons I end up on here. :o

I remember when I was diagnosed, I thought "Bull crap." Then I took the stupid stare at the blank screen and watch for little symbols and press the button test (I would have done much better if it had distributed M & Ms like they do with monkeys). Doctor said the little printout proved I had ADD, and I thought, "Bull crap." Then I read the book "Driven to Distraction" which I checked out of the library. I looked at my wife and told her somebody wrote a book about me! :)

Cincinnati has one of the (supposedly) best treatment centers for ADD. They don't take insurance and are EXTREMELY expensive. Basically the kind of place that Bill Gates would send his ADD kid. I asked them if they were in business to help people with ADD or make money. They wouldn't answer my question! I told them they should know that ADD people don't suffer fools easily.

My old church had a seminar for adults with ADD that was run by the women that wrote "So You Meand I'm Not Stupid, Lazy, Or Crazy?" They were so disorganized that it never went anywhere and I skipped the last couple of meetings. Is that emblematic or what?
 
Normark said:
Hey Fuller....

Yaa your like me,,fell through the cracks as a kid..
They put it off as me being a trouble maker, yada, yada, yada...

I couldn't and still can't learn by watching.. I have to do it,to learn how to do it...

ttyle

Eric...
Click to expand...

Hmmm, that sounds awfully familiar.

"You are very bright, but you just aren't living up to your potential Paul. I know you can do better." Yeah thanks. You are a boring teacher was my usual mental retort.
 
Hey Paul...

Yaaa it does sound about right Eh...
I had a techer in high school who literally wrote like a doctor, and filled the borads to capacity, then scribbled in small empty spaces where he needed more room...

About 3 weeks into the class I was completely lost,, had absolutely No idea what the dumba$$ was talking about.. Stood up,, claned up my things, handed him the text book, tossed my notebook in the garbage and walked out... Spent the rest of that year in the library during that period...

To top it all off,, the last week of grade eight(on our school trip) I was hit with panic attacks,, so I spent the first week constantly in the washroom tossing my cookies.. I got called to the office,, and was suspended for skipping school,,and they never believed me that I never left the school and spent those periods in the washroom...Heck are you kidding skipping school? no, way,, I didn't want to get into trouble!

So on that note,, do any of you guys also suffer from panic attacks, and treat it with Ativan ???

Ativan basically saved my life,,and my marriage...

I still get hit with PA's however it is much bettr under control,,and the only real time I get them is going to the dentist. I've got REAL issues with dentists!.

A one hour appointment at the dentist costs me 3 days of sheer panic,,not eating,,and drugged to the hilt just to get me in there.I get rides to the denstist now, because I almost caused a head on coming home I was so drugged up...

I carry ativan on me 24/7, and never leave home without it...

WoW,, nothing like spilling my guts to 17,000+ people in one shot Eh..
Well if it helps just one person,, I'll be happy..

BTW.. One other thing...

What are the negative side effects of ritalin ??

ttyle

Eric...
 
Eric,
I have had a couple or three panic attacks. Never at a time that really made any sense because I couldn't figure out what was causing them. One doctor told me that people may have panic attacks well after whatever event may have triggered them, or there may be no trigger at all.

One of my biggest problems with ADD is that I hate social situations with more than a few people. Bars where everyone is talking loudly and at the same time make me crazy. I am trying to keep up with all the conversations at once. When I used to feel that I should go out to bars and clubs to meet women and socialize I would drink more than I should just to mellow out. I didn't know I was ADD then. I also realized that I had never met a woman worth meeting in a bar, and never made a new friend. I rarely go to such places now unless it is to hear live music.

I know what you mean about sharing in a public place, but "fork it." If people don't like me the way I am they can keep on moving. :cool: Like you wrote, if sharing helps one person then it is worth it.

BTW I love the people that have tried to tell me that ADD isn't real. How would they know? I do believe it is over diagnosed sometimes, but don't try to tell me it isn't a real state of being. I don't even see it as a problem all the time. Having ADD has some benefits too. My brain runs full tilt, I was always good at spitting the answer out quickly in class because I was usually trying to anticipate what the instructor was going to say. If something interests me (knives for example) I find it very easy to hyper focus on the subject. The problem comes when something doesn't interest me. ;)

I've had a couple of those classroom moments of walking out in disgust. Mainly in college. I took a Folklore class that I loved. I took the next level of it and the same guy taught it using the same notes verbatim that he had used the semester before (I used the same notebook). I stopped attending regularly because it felt like a huge waste of time. He decided to chastise me in front of the class. I decided to point out that he had not taught a single new thing that semester so far and pulled out my notes and syllabus from the last class. He looked like he was going to have a heart attack or blow a blood vessel. Luckily it was early enough in the semester that I walked straight to the registrar's office and dropped his class.

I have read that some people believe that many famous people and early Americans had adult ADD. Ben Franklin being the one that comes to mind first.
 
You may want to add a couple capsules of Nordic Natural Pro-DHA to your routine. Research has shown that people with ADD/ADHD diagnoses have difficulty converting essential fatty acids into the right form, which requires an enzyme called delta-6-desaturase. Either the enzyme is genetically deficient for you or it just might not function properly. People with ADD/ADHD may have as high as a 50:1 ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 EFA's, where the normal balance is 5:1 and should probably be 1:1 or 2:1. The nervous system and brain ARE fatty acids, so it makes sense that this imbalance will alter normal function. It's worth a shot. If you're interested in this drop a reply in here and I'll see if I can get a more accurate dosing recommendation for you.
 
Normark, I was on Vioxx for my osteoarthritis until Merck pulled it, then my doc put me on another cox-2 inhibitor which also was pulled from the market. As I posted elsewhere, the Thursday that they pulled Vioxx, there was this damned fool research doctor from Nader's medical PIRG (public interest research group) spouting about how Vioxx did nothing that ibuprofen did not do for you, so why have it? Well, I was taking 12.5mg of Vioxx twice a day for a total of 25mg and it takes me 600mg of ibuprofen to reach the same level of relief that I got from 12.5mg of Vioxx. This means that I would need to take 1200mg of ibuprofen a day, minimum, to get relief. Would you care to make any predictions on what that would do to my digestive tract? Stupid bastard!! BTW, the dosage at which Vioxx became dangerous was something like 200mg a day or 8 times the recommended dosage.

And now, they have discovered that ibuprofen in large enough doses can cause the same circulatory problems that overdoses of the cox-2 inhibitors can cause. But you won't see a great hue and cry to get ibuprofen off of the market because it is a generic drug, available over the counter so that the medical insurance companies don't have to pay for it. They could care less if you overdose on it. But the cox-2 inhibitors were ALL still under patent with no generic versions available and were extremely popular and effective at pain control for osteoarthritis. With an aging population, this meant ever increasing costs to the insurance companies, so they paid for the studies that are getting the cox-2's pulled from the market. It was a good investment for them. But the FDA screwed them by recommending that the cox-2's be continued with added warnings so that people can make their own risk/benefit decisions.

Now we get to Adderal. Yes, there have been studies that show overdosing on Adderal can cause circulatory problems. But overdosing on any medicine can and will cause problems. And Adderal is relatively new with no generic form. Hmmmmmm? I know that any of the ADD medicines can cause blood pressure problems, as they are all stimulants of one form or another and, if you have untreated high blood pressure or overdose on the ADD meds, you WILL have problems. Adderal is effective for me in the form in which I take it and my doctor has said that she does not believe that there are any risks at the level of dosage that I am taking, a total of 30mg per day. But my pshrink/neurologist has shown herself to be something of a minimalist in her prescriptions.
 
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