decrease in Adderall "euphoria" time

[LimbFromLimb91]

SWIM is prescribed the actual brand-name Adderall IR (20 mg), and feels that the "rush of enthusiasm" length has decreased. This is especially troublesome since SWIM needs to earn as many credits as possible by summer.

the "rush" kicks in about 20 min after the pill is swallowed, but the it has only lasted about an hour at the longest in the past few months (while it used to last about twice as long, if not even longer).

Methods of maintaining the "euphoria" for a longer period of time would GREATLY be appreciated!

[Phrost]

Sounds like you're developing a tolerance. The easiest way to lengthen the rush would be to re-dose, possibly split the dose or increase the initial dose. Taking it on an empty stomach with an antacid like TUMS would help with the absorption. The harder way would be to stop taking it for a couple days to lower your tolerance. The desperate way would be to combine it other stimulants, but this put greater strain on your body. Takin a daily multivitamin couldn't hurt.

[Lost in the world]

Originally Posted by Phrost

Sounds like you're developing a tolerance. The easiest way to lengthen the rush would be to re-dose, possibly split the dose or increase the initial dose. Taking it on an empty stomach with an antacid like TUMS would help with the absorption. The harder way would be to stop taking it for a couple days to lower your tolerance. The desperate way would be to combine it other stimulants, but this put greater strain on your body. Takin a daily multivitamin couldn't hurt.

SWIM cant remeber his source for this one but SWIM is questionable of the TUMS idea, as SWIM vaguely remebers reading that antacid will actually DECREASE the absorption of adderall, not help. There is some type of "formula" to re-dosing based on your tolerance and how to sustain. But SWIM is not perscribed and only knows through perscribed SWIYs, who take IR's. The times when to re-dose vary depending on tolerance but basically to sustain it only requires about half your initial dosage. So if 30mg IR gets you where you wanna be try redosing 15mg about 20-30min before your ideal plateau level. For this situation, SWIM thinks about an hour after initial dose. Sry SWIMs knowledge ends there on that formula SWIM was told once. Third and more redoses either wait longer to take or they are taken sooner, SWIM cant remember. SWIM has tried combining different caffinated beverages to sustain with little help for euphoria. Best advice given is to take a week or two off. Fortunatly, SWIMs noticed that though addy tolerance builds relativly fast, it also decreases fast too. SWIM will do binges leaving 80-100mg the norm, but giving a couple of weeks off and 40-60mg will do the trick again.

[VashYsk]

Just as SWILost said its all a matter of tolerance SWIM is prescribed adderall and received no euphoria for awhile after SWIM was first prescribed SWIM took a few days off and the next time went back took 1 and felt like he had taken 4 when he had the tolerance.

if you don't want to take days off go to your doctor and say it isnt working as good as it used to and you can feel your ADHD not under control as well as it was when you first started taking it. Tolerance is common with Amphetamines and your doctor knows it will probably write you a script for 30mg adderall or a script for 2 20mg a day or something like that.

[cra$h]

just stop for a week or 2. god forbid you have to do things while sober.

[ShawnD]

Originally Posted by cra$h

just stop for a week or 2. god forbid you have to do things while sober.

Or even just days off would have at least some effect.

You go to school monday to friday, but what about saturday and sunday? Try not to take any on those days. Give the brain a 2 day recovery period every week.

You could also try is lowering the dosage to the minimum that works, and just take more pills when they are needed. If you're taking 10mg per day instead of 20mg, tolerances are a lot slower to build up, and the 2-day weekend will be more effective at preventing a tolerance.

Another thing that your doctor probably didn't tell you is that a lot of ADD symptoms, and health problems in general, are caused by poor diet, poor sleep quality, and overall lack of sleep. Examples:
-a lack of iron causes fatigue, called anemia.
-a lack of zinc stunts growth
-being overweight or having a deviated septum can cause sleep apnea
-lack of sleep, specifically rem sleep, is a direct cause of poor memory, fatigue, depression, and low attention span

Try taking a daily multivitamin, go to bed earlier, sleep in a room with absolutely no lights or sounds (turn your computer off at night!), and stop taking drugs before bed. Alcohol screws up rem sleep; don't drink before bed. A lot of sleep aids are anticholinergics, which also screw up rem sleep, so don't take sleep aids. No coffee, no tea. Don't take Adderall at night either; only take that in the morning.

Not trying to troll. Just throwing some ideas out

[GForce]

I'd just like to add that I've been prescribed both name brand and generic IR and there really was no difference, so everything here is applicable to both.

[Hollow Hippie]

@Lost in the world,

Actually antacids increase amphetamines (meth, amp, dextro) absorbing rate. Base pH levels in the stomach prevent the amphetamines from breaking down as rapidly so more is absorbed. Acids (lower pH substances, i.e coffee) will opposite this effect and make less amp absorbed.

[GForce]

Just to add, the stomach's normal pH is about 1 or 2. The only thing you really can do is alkalize your stomach, in other words make it more basic, but not actually basic. So perhaps raise the pH to a level of 3 or 4. Anything higher has got to be bad for your stomach. I mean, if you were to drink Draino or something it would probably burn a hole right through your stomach. @Cookie, I'm not assuming you thought this or anything, I'm just clarifying that the objective isn't to turn the environment in your stomach into a basic one. Also, I'm not sure if it is the rate that is affected as much as it is the bio-availability and how much amp actually makes it to the blood stream. As for acids, you generally want to avoid juices like orange juice as citric acid is, well, acidic. Coffee isn't that great of an example because it has a pH of 5, which is closer to a neutral pH (7) than it is to the pH of the stomach. Coffee may diminish the effects of amps for other reasons, but it really isn't going to make your stomach an even harsher environment. Your stomach acid is made of Hydrochloric acid which is a strong acid (pH 0.1, sometimes even negative given the right molar conditions) so I don't think you'd worsen it unless you ate/drank things of equal pH, like lemon juice which has a pH of about 2.3. Coffee, if it didn't have caffiene, would probably produce positive effects because a pH of 5 will raise the pH of the stomach (although it would be marginal). My chemistry is rusty but Cookie is completely right in saying the environment of the stomach is harmful to amps. Unfortunately there really hasn't been much research and experimentation on changing the pH of the stomach and taking amps, specifically, so there is no source other than word of mouth to tell you how much alkalizing is appropriate. It is more of a general assumption based on chemical rules. Scientists take for granted that you can increase the pH of the stomach and that would be beneficial to pharmaceuticals since your stomach doesn't absorb them. I haven't seen much testing to try and prove/disprove the hypothesis though.

[Hollow Hippie]

Thats what I meant :P I just am lack of words sometimes.

[GForce]

Yeah, I didn't think you didn't know because you were actually talking about something relevant, I just like fleshing things out because the same questions tend to get asked here.

[Hollow Hippie]

Better to be extremely accurate then lazy for information

[GForce]

Yeah, even if people are just going to ask the question again. I'm hoping I can find something significant though to add to the Adderall guide. There are still unanswered questions from a long time ago that get discussed here (on this board) frequently and still aren't really answered.

[paperstreet]

Using antacids while on adderall has been pretty negative for swim. Now don't quote swim on this but swim believes that the l-amphetamines that are in adderall are what make antacids suck for adderall use. The absorbtion/elimination times for d and l-amphetamines are different. Swim thinks that the l-amphetamine is eliminated from the body slower, so taking antacids to prolong adderall efficacy actually prolongs and increases the l-amphetamine more than the d-amphetamine (which is the good kind).

This results in a crappy feeling and makes it much harder to sleep for a much longer time. SWIM recommends not using antacids with adderall, but to each their own.

By the way, don't take this as fact, it is merely speculative, swim is gonna look for more concrete information on this.

[Hollow Hippie]

SWIM is still awake and stimed a bit since 2 pm (elasped 9 hours 30 minutes.) Tums work well, though SWIM's stomach hurt.

[GForce]

What a coincidence. I can't sleep, as usual, because of my prescription. I'm prescribed clonazepam partially for this reason but that barely knocks me out like it used to. I'm considering boozing because I have to get to class tomorrow and I need some sleep. Would probably not be the best idea though, so if we come down to like 4am EST then I will consider more drastic measures.