Quitting Adderall

Quitting Adderall

Day 1: 4/9/2013 nighttime

6 months have passed since I began taking Adderall. It has helped me tremendously with being able to deal with my stress load as well as with motivation and writing laboratory reports. However, I feel as though it has negatively affected my test taking abilities since it takes me longer to actually finish problems because I am writing more and more and becoming more elaborate with my answers even though it is not needed. The more I have become involved in r/nootropics, the more I have realized my mistake with beginning it in the first place. It has not increased my cognition, only simply allowed me to work on things for longer. The more research I did on it, the more I realized how bad it was for me. I found out today that research on its neurotoxicity indicated that dopaminergic neurotoxicity was present in squirrel monkeys [found here] (http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/content/315/1/91.long). Secondly, this has also been shown to be present in mice albeit in different dosages here which I have known since beginning the drug, but my psychiatrist dismissed my fears saying that I shouldn’t worry about it mice. Ritalin has been found to be neuroprotective and it seems like a good idea to make the switch (to me at least), but this would be at least 3 more months down the road because I still have 3 months of Adderall left and I don’t want to risk any more damage to my brain or my heart (since both could possibly be cardiotoxic. Also, even though there has not been enough research on the topic, I do not want to risk getting Parkinson’s disease as well as being dependent on it my entire life. It has also made it really difficult for me to keep a stable hand while working in the lab and since I want to become a doctor I don’t want to have to deal with this problem later on because dependence may be more of an issue. I have taken breaks before off Adderall but quitting forever will be difficult. I don’t have issues with abusing the drug (in regards to taking large amounts of it) and have never really had a psychological need to keep taking it. The only thing that I have experienced before while taking my breaks is severe depression because normally you are supposed to taper off of it. The depression goes away after two days and this log is to keep track of how I am feeling.

I plan to quit by substituting caffeine in at the times that I normally take Adderall and possibly 3x a day if needed. Then I will return to my normal cycling of caffeine to using it 4 x a week; once a day on the weekends and twice a day on days that I don’t have to work in the laboratory. Here goes nothing.

Day 2: 4/10/2013 12:09 pm

Took 30 mg XR x 1 7:30 am this morning. I will not be taking my second dose at night which is 10 mg IR.

I mainly took XR today because I have a test and didn’t want to be negatively affected by quitting right before my test began.

Day 3: 4/11/2013 7:00 pm

I feel like shit right now. I felt on top of the world for 30 minutes this morning but then I became extremely sad, unmotivated and tired for the rest of the day. I think I did a good job of hiding what I was feeling in regards to my classmates but it was extremely difficult. I don’t feel like I need Adderall per say but rather that a whole wave of negative emotions that were suppressed by Adderall have come back all at once and it is much too overwhelming. I screwed up my culturing at lab today because of how horrible I felt, my coworkers did a good job of not making a big deal out of it. Somehow I managed to do my Biology reading and finish my Spanish readings today, probably because of caffeine even though I didn’t feel like it helped that much; I need to sleep now, everything is just too much for me.

4/11/2013 11:00 pm

Woke up from my nap and feel slightly better. I still don’t feel like 100% right now though.

I am going to brush, floss and get ready for bed. It is going to be really easy to fall back asleep at this point.

Day 4: 4/12/2013

Today is so much better. I am at 90% and I am happy to say that the worst part of my withdrawal is over. The caffeine is making a bigger difference today.

Day 5: 4/13/2013

I feel normal again. I am so glad that this is over. It is time for a nice, long run.