The effects of Ritalin?

Hello,

I feel like this is pretty important, considering I just went through something a little ugly. It may not be a directly related weight loss topic, but it had an effect on mine. I was diagnosed with ADHD last december and since january I started on Ritalin. At first it was 10mg, then 15, then 20, then 10 mg slow release tabs and the 10 mg regular tabs throughout the day.

I suddenly stopped my meds because I ran out and didn't have money to get the RX and my parents (who pay for my prescriptions cause I'm in college).

I didn't see a significant change in weight loss with the ritalin and it didn't have much affect on my diet (I have a rather stubbornly forceful appetite). I don't mind not losing weight on it at all, i'm doing this the healthy way.

But when I stopped suddenly I had a very dark mood (not necessarily angry, just listless) and EXTREME horrible fatigue. I could not wake up in the morning or stay awake. I stopped exercising, etc because I was so tired. I thought it might be from a vitamin deficiency or something, but then I looked up the effects of stopping ritalin and it had those exact symptoms. I didn't even want to eat. I was all kinds of messed up.

I got my meds finally and I'm fine now, but I'm wondering about the experiences of others with ritalin or adderall. also, this is a warning to anyone abusing ritalin or adderall to lose weight. it's nothing to mess with. Has anyone on these drugs had problems that affected their motivation or weight loss?

Bumping cause I moved thread to new forum

i've been searching for others hwo are on CC that take Adderall.  and it seems no one is answering their post.  One...they are afraid to admit a problem. or two. they are abusing adderall.  I have ADD, and have had it since i was in my teens, but finally was able to be on medication when I was an adult because my mother never agreed with it.  I started with adderall XR, which I think worked really well for me, I was in a medical course and our classes were like 9 hours sometimes plus labs!  But I didn't struggle as much as before, and my other cognitive behaviors stopped completely and my sleep paterns were better.  I still worke dout on it.  I was just getting back into the gym after dropping out of rescue swimming in the navy and was trying to get back down to a regular weight.  My appetite didn't suffer, but i was trying to cut calories anyway, because i was 148 pound at 5'2".  I had the motivation and actually i felt more motivated and focuse don my workouts, and even took them beyond what I would have normally done.  I would be a bit tired afterward, and lacked a real appetite, but ate more in the morning and afternoon anyways.  I stopped taking it when I got pregnant, and now i'm back on it, but since i have a different doctor, I am on regular Adderall.  I don't know if it's vastly different of the XR version, but the pills look diferent too.  I might have to ask her about that, these seem to make me a bit tired, but I also take other meds, and this is only my second day on it, at 20mg.  I can tell a slight difference in the XR and regs though.  The XR is just that...extended release, so it's a smooth seam in your brains abilities to function, with the stuff i'm on, it feels like i slip back into old habits, off and on throughout the day, instead of having a smooth stream of wellness.  This could be more because I am just starting back again, but I will ask my doc more next month.  Today though, I felt really motivated to workout because I had missed yesterday by going ot the docs, but I pushed myself hard, and ran longer and further than I did the week before, I would claim medicine had a big part to do with it, because I've been trying to reach my 4 mile mark without walking for a while so it was just time.  Afterwards though I was a bit sluggish but had a good appetite, but no taste for food in my mouth...so i ate small stuff, and more a couple hours laters.  I think that I will end up struggling though to get my calories in.  I need about 1800 on workout days and yesterday, I barely got to 1400.  Most of it was from honey in my tea, and ginger crystals though. 

From my research, when someone stops taking their adderall or ritalin abrubly, they can go through withdrawl, so they usually recommend slowly lowering the dosage instead of stopping suddenly

I had similar effects, but with Effexor XR for depression.  I became pregnant and didn't want to hurt the baby, so I stopped them.  My withdraw was beyond awful, and the depression came back hard.  I ended up in the mental ward at the hospital.  I ended up losing my baby anyhow.

I went back on Effexor after the miscarriage and came back around again, but later decided I wanted to get off a drug that had such withdraw effects.  I did some major research and found out that quickly stopping this drug in particular had really bad side effects.  So my doctor and I worked out how to decrease dosage step by step.  I even got empty capsules from a whole foods store so i could break each step into half steps (eg.  instead of going from 325 to 300 to 275 mg,  I could go from 325 to 312.5 to 300 to 287.5, etc.)

I finally got off of Effexor and am on 2 different medications, which together cover what Effexor is supposed to do.

Anyhow, I think while they know quite a bit about these drugs for ADHD and depression, etc., there is still a lot they don't know.

I would say to please allow yourself to be easy on yourself during these ups and downs.  Your body and mind are dealing with some complex balances.  Do what you can as far as the habits you are trying to follow, but if you don't exactly reach them, then let it be.