Posted by rach3 on February 25, 2006, at 23:16:17
So I'm pretty much always having a hang up with being on ADD medication. I am 19 years old, a student-athlete and I take an antidepressant and a stimulant. I became bulimic when I was about 16, was on and off low dosages of anti-depressants for a couple years and in and out of 11th and 12th grade of highschool, doing homeschool to, I guess somehow relieve my anxiety and feed my obsession to exercise and be alone. Anyways, I come from a very holistic and active family and developing an eating disorder was absolutely hellish because it was more normal to have eccentric eating and exercise habits in my family. I was so miserable as a senior in highschool that I begged for treatment. Finally my parents let me go to an intensive outpatient eating disorder clinic. I did really well there, and terminated at about 60-70% recovered. I then left for college to play tennis and arived at a school I did not fit in. I was pretty miserable my first semester and could not focus worth anything. I saw a doctor and began taking Adderall which several doctors had tried to put me on for years due to my struggle to focus in school. In addition to this I began to take Lexapro. Basically Lex helped lots and so did the Adderral, but I hated the high it gave me. I hated feeling like sh*t at the end of the day and feeling on top of the world when I was on it. I took it on the weekends and pretty much needed it to go to class adn function during the day. I have gone through small bouts of getting off of it for a week or 2, feeling very clean but then I start to be really disorganized and lazy again with my school work. I transferred schools after my freshmen year in college because it did not cater to my major and it was not a good envronment for me. Small baptist liberal arts school with 1800 students, agh, It was so cliquey. So now I'm in my hometown at a large state university that I enjoy much more and I like tennis a lot more here as well. So I switched doctors due to loation and this new one was a med freak. I became dtrmined to figure out my freakin med dosages and was frustrated with all my ups and downs. With him I experimentd with higher dosages of Adderral XR, 2 dosages a day and so forth. Basically the Adderrall makes me snappy as hell, irritable and up and down. I hate that feeling but I struggle to get outta bed and go to class if I don't take it. Meanwhile I still take the lexapro, a bit more, and still I am not exactly happpy again and still have a few over eating issues when IM stressed. so , i switched doctors again because I wanted to see someone who knew more about eating disorders and someone who did not prescibe medication for every little symptom. The last doc wanted to take me off of Adderral and put me on a mood stablizier to help my bad moods and irritability. I got mad at him and told him my bad moods were from binging on sugars and the ups and downs of Adderral. Anyways, I am now seeing a med doctor at my eating disorder clinic and she wanted to raise my lexapro a little but since I don't take a high dose and switch me from adderral to concerta saying that it would make me less irritable and it has a more steady onset and offset. So that is what I am doing now and I definitely do not feel it kick in or wear off as much and I sometimes I dont feel it much if I didnt sleep well the night before. I guess I like it more, but It just sucks because I really like stimulants but I really hate how I "like" them in that way. I don't really abuse them on a horrible level, occassionally I will have a small cup of coffee so I can wake up a bit in the evening and I know tat doesnt sound all out addictive but it's the thought that is addicting. I obsessively think about my stimulants and think about my energy and this and that. So that is how I know I am somewhat addicted. Anyways, I have hang ups with taking it for those reasons. I love feeling "high" and I hate feeling low. So, yea and I also struggle so f*cking much to focus and get stuff done in school so it helps with that. I just wanted to get some stuff out there and if anyone has any thoughts about it please feel free to throw it out there. Excellent, thanks.
poster:rach3
thread:613358
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20060205/msgs/613358.html