Side effects - Skeptical

[Autumnsoath]

Swim has had a mostly good relationship with Adderall for the past 2-3 months, but has a few questions.

Swim guesses his post about Formication was too long for anyone to read (81 views but no replies ). Swims gonna keep it short this time, for real. 5 days ago Swim had a terrible night of formication for the first time in his life. That day, swim took an adderall in the morning, and an adderall at night. Friend who is swim's source argues the formication was not caused by the adderall because it was too low of a dose. Swim is confused because the itnernet agrees, only mentions formication in chronic use or overdosing. Swim thought it was maybe from the lack of sleep, but Swim gets more sleep then his friend who takes Adderall and has no issue. So swim has come to one conclusion, Malnutrition maybe? Swim can usually force himself to eat when on adderall, but the week prior to the formication experience swim was broke, and craved cigarettes more then food, so swim went the whole week eating maybe 4 meals. Could this be the cause?

The bug feeling went away after about 36hrs, and swim went 4 days without adderall and put the experience behind him, but now it is bugging swim again because Swim decided to take an adderall today (final day of training on the new job, test, etc), and the feeling came right back. Off one adderall. During those 4 days off Swim still did not eat much (wasnt home much and still couldnt afford to eat out). Swim got paid finally, so is gonna start eating normally again tomorrow as well as taking his multivitamins again. Do you think this will get rid of it?


Sorry, thats about as short as Swim can get it. Swim has another question though. If Swim can get rid of the bug feeling, swim will probably continue taking adderall. But Swim, while researching about his Formication experience, has read a lot of bad stuff about the drug. Swim wants to know if most of these horror stories are from users who begin upping their dosage and taking a large amount everyday. Because Swim has been taking it for past 3 months or so, 5-7 days a week, but only takes 1 20mg a day and still has no desire to go any higher or take anymore. While Swim admits that the drug does feel like a crutch sometimes, Swim figures if theres very little to no drawbacks then it doesnt bother him. Swim figured if people who are diagnosed with ADD can be prescribed it their entire life and have no problems, he wont have any issues either as long as sticks to a prescribed dose. Is Swim terribly mistaken? If so, Swim wants to quit now while hes ahead (kind of).

Thanks.

[fiveleggedrat]

Eating 4 times in a week is a serious issue. I used to be an anorexic, not drug induced, and I lost a huge amount of weight. I was eating one meal a day then, too.

I suggest consulting a medical expert.

Formication is the feeling of things under the skin, correct? Jeeze. Sounds like Swiy is having this bad.

Please, make yourself eat at least once or twice a day, and make yourself take multivitamins. Swiy is missing out on serious nutrients.

When Swiy don't eat, Swiy's body eats itself. It starts with extra fat, moving to muscle mass. Keep in mind the brain and the heart are muscles. Heart damage can occur from starvation; at least that's what medical people have told me, after my issue with it.

Sometimes, a prescribed dose can be TOO much. Swiy might just be very sensitive. Perhaps 10-15mg dose would be better. Talk to your doctor.

Hope this helps ya!

[Autumnsoath]

Thanks.

Swim doesnt really want to see a doctor, for a number of reasons

But anyway, Swim doesnt think hes at the point to where hes harming himself yet (as far as the eating goes), but does recognize the problem and is gonna begin changing now. Like Swim said, Swim loves to eat, never had a eating problem in life before, and even when Swim begin taking the adderall, Swim still went 2 months with no problems. Swim didnt really enjoy the food as much as he used to, but had no problem eating as long as he remembered to, heh. It wasnt until about 2 weeks ago that Swim stopped eating. Not so much because Swim didnt want to eat, but because swim barelly had enough money for gas to work and back, and swim gets his adderall for free, so for those 2 weeks swim just used it as a way to save money. Swim figured he could take a free adderall a day, and save 20 bucks a day on food, which went toward gas money. Sad thing is, didnt even bother swim until he started feeling imaginary bugs crawlng on him one night . Swim just recently realized that the mild formication he was feeling all day/night at work has pretty much gone away now (3am), Swim doses today were 10mg at 10am, 10mg at 3pm, and 10mg at 7pm (I work until midnight).

Swim is just stumped when trying to figure out why he got the bugs. Swim has been taking the same dose, 20mg, a day for the past 2-3 months and never had a single problem like this before. Swim's friend thinks swim was sleep deprived when the bugs came, but swim begs to differ. Swim was actually getting decent amount of sleep that week, and swim has gon weeks or months on much less sleep then that before. This is why swim is now thinking it has to do with his nutrition. But on the otherhand, After first experience with the bugs, swim went 4 days without an adderall and on the 2nd day the bugs were completelly gone, until today when swim tried it again. Maybe its a combination of both. Or maybe swims body is just tired of it. Swim finds it funny that he cant find any other cases of this, or if he can, it's because of unuasually high dosages (200mg+)

Anyway, Swim is gonna start first thing tomorrow morning on getting his eating back on schedule (swim finally has a steady paycheck again). Meanwhile, Swim is still torn and undecided when it comes to Adderall. If he cant get rid of the bug feeling everytime he takes one, swim is definitely done with the stuff. But if he corrects his nutrition and that turns out to be the problem, swim will have a decision to make.

[fiveleggedrat]

Personally, I don't think the eating and the bugs are related.

Swiy is definately self harming if eating less than daily. Trust me there.

Swim understands how lack of eating happens. At least Swiy got lucky and caught it this early, before Swiy became an emaciated skeleton like Swim did. Starvation is very serious.

Pride Swiy's self on catching all this and being willing to stop taking the drug if it's causing problems and not raising the dose.

If Swiy is thinking that it's time to get off the stuff without being told he needs to, then he's on the right path and should follow his instincts.

Swim has always followed his instincts when it came to things like this, and it prevented what could have been some nasty addictions.

[Laudaphun]

To be honest, SWIM had to look up the word "formication"... lol although it may seem odd, SWIM has never heard this term before, although has heard of the experience some drug users get when coming down from long coke or whatever binges and get the feeling of bugs crawling over them.

SWIM is curious now... does it really feel like bugs? Why do SWIY and other people have the distinct feeling that it is a bug, and not just something else. Muscle twitches or something else... Please excuse SWIM's ignorance but what is it about this that causes someone to think it feels like a bug.

SWIM always stocks up on those carnation liquid nutrition drinks to try to keep more bodily input. SWIM also finds that the biggest cause of the worst constipation is... not eating. SWIM never had an appetite before and more or less made herself eat just cause she knew she needed to, but after put on ADD meds, it's even worse... cause she will just totally forget and not eat, and only realize it only after tryng to remember when her last meal was. LOL her family thinks something is wrong with her and is always dropping off food (which is good, cause SWIM is lazy when it comes to cooking. Especially when living alone cause cooking then means dishes to clean.
That may not be entirely true... as SWIM has a tendancy to wake up in the middle of the night and eat all kinds of stuff.

In a way, it might have turned otu to be a good thing because after some of that started to catch up with her, SWIM began actually paying attention to her health. The not sleeping thing.... that doesn't work either. SWIM discovered that she could spend several days without sleep and mostly feel normal despite lack of sleep... then couldn't figure out why exam scores would be so poor when she'd put so much time into them. SWIM never really used stimulants much, even caffeine so she was a bit unfamiliar with the meds at first.

This stuff can tear your body apart if not careful. The side-effects are the most troublesome in SWIMs opinion because they can sort of creap up on you without noticing them, as opposed to side-effects that usually are bothersome enough in acute situations that people try to avoid them (like palpitations, anxiety, etc...)