Posted by med_empowered on October 4, 2005, at 4:17:49
In reply to Amphetamines and depression, posted by Schess81 on October 3, 2005, at 22:15:28
hey! I had a similar situation...60mgs/adderall (kinda high dose, I know) was RX'd for ADHD, but it helped more with depression...unfortunately, it also made me lose lots of weight, etc. etc. so I went off of it. I'm taking super-high dose St. John's Wort now, and I feel fine (this isn't a recommendation or anything...just my experience). Anyway, I seem to remember reading somewhere that kids who were given Ritalin tended to have more depression that kids who werent...they also tended to use illegal stimulant drugs (like cocaine, which is ritalin-ish) when they got older. This might just be an interesting coincidence; after all, ADHD people often have other mood disorders,and mood disorders up the risk of drug use and severe depression a good bit. It could also be that there was some kind of brain damage, but that kids today might not be affected...apparently, back in the day, ritalin doses were considerably higher than they are now; hence the term "Ritalin Kid"--the suspiciously happy and focused kid who can stare off into space for hours on end without complaining. So...who knows. Anyway, back to you. My **guess** would be that since you used a stimulant at RX'd doses which were pretty modest (in narcolepsy, by comparison, doses sometimes reach 180mgs of amphetamine), the odds that you did any sort of lasting damage to your brain seem **minimal** at most. I guess a good comparison would be coke heads...cocaine users often go through intense periods of sadness/despair following withdrawal; I read one study that showed that prolonged withdrawal actually allowed the brain to re-grow damaged neurons and what-not. So...my wild guess-timate would be that either a) your brain wasn't and isn't damaged at all or b) as long as you can avoid heavy drug use, any **mild** damage that happened to your brain will probably be repaired, if it hasn't been already. Have a good day!
poster:med_empowered
thread:562559
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051003/msgs/562641.html