Posted by zeugma on June 2, 2003, at 22:03:41
In reply to Straterra at night ? Other questions....., posted by froggyanna on June 2, 2003, at 16:52:39
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my questions are:
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> 1. Has anyone else been advised to take Straterra at night? If so, is that decreasing your daytime sleepiness?
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I was advised to take Strattera in the morning. I have found it energizing so far.> 2. If you increased your dosage slowly, did you avoid the tiredness? The agitation? The irritability?
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I increased the dosage from 18 to 25 mg after four days, with some increase in energy. After about ten days on 25 I went up to 40 mg. No tiredness, agitation or irritability. But I DID feel irritable when I started on nortriptyline last summer. Noradrenergic meds have a tendency to cause irritability.
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> 4. How many days did you go before increasing?
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I have been on 40 mg since last Wednesday. I spoke to my dr. this morning, and he wants me to stay on 40 for at least another week.> 5. Was it a month or more before you started experiencing any real effect on your ADD symptoms? Are you MAINTAINING those effects?
I noticed ADHD benefits soon after beginning. The drug seemed (and continues to seem) ALERTING to me (unlike the experience of a lot of other posters, who became tired and sleepy on it. I have also been ravenously hungry since beginning this med. In my case that is quite good since i am underweight and weight loss was always the reason i've had to steer clear of stimulants.)
My ADHD symptoms are quite severe: disorganization, inability to get started, inability to perceive detail, hatred of following a set routine, etc. I believe Strattera, in conjunction with the nortriptyline, has helped these symptoms but I'm not sure how much of this is the Strattera and how much is attributable to the raised dosage of nortriptyline that kicked in soon before starting Strattera. The Strattera, though, feels very different from the nortriptyline, in a way that specifically helps with alertness.
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> Those are only some of my questions, actually. I'm just so eager to get my head straightened out that I'm feeling impatient, even though I KNOW that I have to give it time. I suppose that if someone had actually stabilized on Straterra they might not still be hanging around this discussion forum. But I sure would like to hear some real success stories. I am "afraid" to start taking the stimulants... at least not until I've done all I can without them.
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> Thank you VERY much for any and all advice you can offer!
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> froggyanna
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poster:zeugma
thread:133458
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030530/msgs/230970.html