How do different ADHD meds affect you?
Late diagnosis in April, I'm in my late 20s and a woman. I'm on extended release adderall (15 mg) and its overall helped my life a lot - I am less anxious and can get a lot of work done. It also improves my mood and makes me more interested to do thigns instead of sit in bed and brain rot. I also don't get overwhelmed and spiral as much.
But I feel horribly tired the next day (heavy body) and my dehydration and lack of eating has gotten worse. Before I was 140 lbs and now I'm 125 lbs. Which overall is nice for my self image issues, except I feel really weak due to lack of eating. I feel nervous exercising because I know I haven't eaten enough and it feels hard to eat full meals. So I have this hesitancy/lack of action to work out (and maybe scared because of my heart rate?),
I know its my own lack of taking care of myself that is making me feel this way. I need to eat more in the mornings, but my whole life I never really ate breakfast and only had 1-2 meals a day. And then the adderall if I don't eat makes me feel jittery and I always have morning diarrhea and nausea which makes it worse. And if I sleep in on the weekends I get anxious trying to figure out if I should take my meds - if I take them then I'm kinda setting myself up to have it until midnight and if I skip them I'm setting myself up to be exhausted, unmotivated and emotionally dysregulated (more sensitive, emotional and otherwise more prone to thinking depressing thoughts).
When I told my psych my concerns at first he said I just shouldn't sleep in and just try exercising. And some days on the weekends I really want to sleep in. But maybe I should ask about swapping to wellbutrin. I also have CPTSD so maybe getting an SSRI would be better, but I've been on three SSRIs previously before it was understood I have ADHD and it gave me jaw clenching that broke a tooth.
Anyways I'm wondering if other people have experience with other meds (wellbutrin, concerts, ritalin, vyvanse etc.).
Posted Dec 7, 2025, 10:46 PM UTC