Looking for doctor who might prescribe adderall

Family, Education, Health and Pets
21
There is also elpos.ch (in German, sorry), who might be able to refer you to a resource in your area.

I can see both sides of this, actually. I was diagnosed with ADD as an adult in the US, brought my test results to my primary care doc, and he prescribed ritalin for me under the condition that I consult a specialist here. I did see an ADD specialist in Bern, who prescribed Concerta for me (though I'm pretty sure my insurance paid for it - this was in 2009). I can't take Concerta, as it turns out.

Anyway, I respected the information he gave me as a specialist, but I had a difficult time interacting with him, just couldn't work with him as a patient. I went back and told my primary care doc and he was fine with it, and he continues to prescribe and I continue to take ritialin - although I'm about to see someone new and my meds may change.

Physicians and patients need to listen to each other. Sometimes patients know what works best for them, or at least can provide valuable input into their care, and physicians need to appreciate that. At the same time, there are different drugs and procedures .... sometimes for the better, and patients need to be open to that. So you may need to have an adderall subsitute. But it does sound like you might do better with a different doctor.

22
anyone here able to comment on the benefits to taking such medicine when you don't have add/adhd?

23
It cranks you up. Sort of like most of the benefits of speed or coke without most of the downsides (downsides as a creative drug user might see, not from a real health perspective)*. Except after being cranked for extended periods yer still going to crash hard. It's actively traded/bartered/sold among folks, if you are in the right crowd and get a scrip for Adderall you will find you suddenly have many new friends.

Pretty heavy duty stuff really. I'm surprised that it's freely prescribed to kids.

*EDIT- this is going generally outside of normal dosages

For some real life accounts of recreational Adderall use check the Erowid page here .

24
You might be just better of cooking some meth. West/Central Switzerland has plenty of hidden valleys, woods where a mobile laboratory would be feasible

25
I can't since I have ADD, but I imagine it works like this... You're more alert, more energetic, maybe more focused. The problem is that this stuff can make you way too hyper and crazy....like you're at high speed, and thus could be counter productive. I know kids in college who took meth and speed as a study aid, and I had a bf who told me that if I took a little speed, I'd probably calm down. I decided not to at the time.

Sort of like drinking a litre of coffee without the need to pee or stomach upset. Bzzzzzzzzz.

It won't work the same for everyone though, and the results might not be great. Plus the crash when you're coming down can be a bitch if you overdose.

26
I take a certain medicine for my eyes that's available via prescription in the US, but not in CH. I went to an eye doctor here explaining my problem, and she noted that the medicine was available in Germany, just not in CH. She could even write me a prescription that was fillable in Germany, but I would have to pay for the medicine out of pocket. So first advice is to find out which European countries have the medicine you need. Second step is to go there, see a doctor and pay out of pocket for the prescription.

Good luck. I know what it's like to just want the medicine you had back home that worked great.

27
just got back from my first of two appointments for ADHD.

I did not expect a young pretty female psychologist...

think Bebe Neuwirth as Lilith in Frasier, and younger and prettier

she spoke great english, and after listening to me babble on and on

incoherently with each question she asked... 20 minutes in, she said oh yes, you have adhd, I don't have no doubt... but we must follow the forms and I must ask and you must answer all the questions for proprietary sake... and sticking to the formula.

I've been staying away from sugar and processed foods and that has helped me bunches, she says that it seems I follow their nutritional program for dealing with adhd... and said I should get a little more exercise, and we should experiment with ritalin... just looked it up... seems it got it's name from the Swiss scientist's wife who sorta discovered it. Rita was her name.

Thing is, I've asked lots of people who have taken it and I'm wary of it.

I have a high school friend that is a professor at Harvard, he said if I do go with meds to go with adderall... which is why I'm here at this thread

Any way just saying I'd like to thumbs up Ace1's comment, they do care here, (the doctors) they do want to find the right approach. When I said I'd like to avoid ritalin, and maybe do adderall, she said it is probably not available here...

I'm thinking, since Novaris is a Swiss company and they make the ritalin, I'm sure it's a swiss thing to keep any competition away, so adderall may be really hard to get here.

28
Good for you! I'm glad you saw a physician and it sounds like she'll work with you. In some people these symptoms are very real and problematic without treatment. I've never taken adderall so I don't know the difference. I do know that everyone is different, so just because you have friends on adderall, and you knew people who took ritalin when younger, ritalin may still be ok for you. I take a small dose and I've never had an issue. With concerta, I had an unpleasant and constant buzz.

I just realized that my insurer didn't pay for my ritalin this year - I get it refilled twice a year (200 pills at a shot). For adults, you have to make sure that your doctor writes a letter to your insurance and then they'll cover it - our insurance merged with Visana early this year and that fell through the cracks for me. It wasn't much money (CHF 60), so I missed it.

29
Thanks for the heads up, tomorrow I go for the computer tests and such, they said I didn't need to, but would like to have my results to add to their ongoing study.

30
An update

I started the Ritalin last Thursday... that stuff is not my thing, I was hoping for the initial effect of the pill in the movie Limitless... and one of the things I got was like the "dry mouth" scene of Jim Carrey's in Me Myself and Irene and severe depression at the end of the day and sleeplessness

Had an appointment yesterday and discussed all the negatives... only positive I could list is that I lost 2 Kg in a week... I'm now trying Focalin and it is better. She said that Adderall was in the process to be available in Switzerland but a couple people died with heart complications so they stopped the process... I've also been doing a lot of research on natural supplements and food source Dopamine boosters and DTA blockers and how hormones work in the body and brain... very interesting stuff

31
Sorry the Ritalin didn't help. Sounds like my rxn from concerta. The long acting and higher dose was too much for me. The first few times I took Ritalin I fell asleep, so we are all different. Let us know what works for you! I take a little fish oil, but other than that, no supplements. Hope you find something to help! For me, just knowing that it wasn't laziness or stupidity helped a lot!

32
I'm just a bit curious: do you have to take Ritalin every day? For the foreseeable future?

What made you decide to get tested in the end? Was your condition so bad it was interfering with daily life?

For some time now I've been suspecting I might have ADD. No hyperactivity though. I discussed it with my mother in the past, who has been working with lots of children who were diagnosed with ADD and ADHD and she told me she wouldn't be surprised if I have it. But for some reason we decided not to go the official route and have it diagnosed. In the end she asked me: "Do you really want to be on meds for the rest of your life?" And my answer was: "No."

For some reason I'm afraid that if they do diagnose me with it and once I get used to the medication, I won't be able to live a normal life without meds anymore. But on the other hand, getting diagnosed with ADD would explain a LOT. What you said about feeling stupid and lazy sounds so familiar to me.

Either way, if I do have it, I probably have a very mild case. But it seems to be getting worse, or it's just annoying me more over time. Right now I'm just trying to live with it. In my opinion, every disadvantage has it's advantages too. So my negatives are that I'm pretty disorganized, that no project is ever able to hold my attention for very long, that I'm not able to sit in one place for too long etc. But on the up-side of things I do get very enthusiastic about new things, in the beginning I can also muster an enormous amount of energy for it and if I do manage to get my focus on, I can get a lot of work done very fast. I already decided that sitting behind a desk all the time is probably not for me. Nor do I want to write too many reports or get buried in paperwork.

Not judging you at all for going the medication-route by the way, just wondered what made you decide to get yourself diagnosed in the end.

33
I'm trying to look for a thread where i explained my whole thing....i'll post a link when i find it.

My question is, if there is a medication that you tolerate well, and it helps you, why would you care if you take it for the rest of your life?

I take a low dose of ritalin (10 mg). It helps with anxiety, which screws up my ability to filter. For me, ADD expresses itself as anxiety. Sometimes i forget. I feel better on it than not, but if i skip it, it's ok. If i have to go to a party, some place with lots of people and noise, i might take an extra ritalin.

Ritalin has also been used to treat post chemo fatigue. I think it helped there too, though i never increased my dose - i just took extra naps.

34
Because sometimes the real implications of taking medication over a longer period of time only reveal themselves after a while.

Take the Diane pill for example. Or, from my own experience: I used to take Doxycycline as 'harmless' treatment against acne. Until I found myself having vertigo-problems after using it for some time. I contacted my GP and according to him it couldn't possibly be a side-effect from the Doxycycline. He said it was probably caused by stress.. Back then I believed him.

If I now google "doxycycline" and "vertigo" I can't believe I was stupid enough to believe my GP. The vertigo issue haunted me for a very long time and made me feel quite miserable too. (Even though I was stubborn enough to stop taking my 'medication' relatively soon after my first 'attack'.)

Drugs usually don't only come with positive effects, they usually have a bunch of (possible) negative side-effects too. Since Ritalin and Concerta have not been available on the market for very long, I wonder can't help but wonder how much they really know about possible side-effects after long term & daily usage.

Again, I'm not trying to judge and I'm not trying to freak you out either. But for me, to even consider taking any form of drugs for the foreseeable future on a daily basis, the positives would *really* have to outweigh the negatives BIG time.

35
They've been around (prescribed) for over 50 years, that's quite a while.

36

Fair enough. You don't freak me out at all. In my case, the positives outweigh the negatives. End of. It's no magic pill, but it helps a lot.

People have lots of individual reactions to medications. There are medications i can't tolerate, but ritalin isn't one of them. In the end, we each have to make up our own minds. If you think you might have some attention abd processing issues, there are lots of things to do without meds, and i do some of those as well.

37
Ok, a bit longer than what I thought, but still not *that* long. And just because they have been around, doesn't mean they were prescribed in the way that they are now. At least in the Netherlands medications like those only became popular in the last 10-20 years.

Cannabis has been around for a lot longer and they are still researching it and discovering new implications that are caused by lifelong daily usage.

I guess you can say this for everything, that we are never aware of possible side-effects. Look at how smoking used to be considered as 'cool' and 'harmless' and having a tan as 'healthy'. Not to mention how the food industry is tempering with our food nowadays...

But yeah, the whole 'possibly getting ill due to supposed harmless medication' was a real eye-opener for me and something I would not like to repeat...

38
Ritalin 70 years (1944-ish)... studies and research started in the 1950's

Concerta is slow release, while possessing the same ingredient as Ritalin, it has other chemicals added to ration out the methylphenidate... which means to me the uptake is in the intestines not in the stomach.

Short-Term Effects

The effects of Ritalin, both adverse and desired, are similar to the effects of amphetamines.

Low doses

Appetite suppression

Wakefulness

Heightened alertness

Euphoria 21

Impairment of voluntary movement

Headache

Irregular or rapid heartbeat

Nausea and vomiting

Skin rash

Some people may experience drowsiness 22

High doses

Exhilaration and excitation

Agitation

Muscle twitching

Dilation of pupils

Confusion

Hallucinations and paranoia

Flushing

Increased blood pressure and pulse rate

Dry mouth

Vomiting

Fever and sweating

Delirium

Seizures, followed by coma 23

Anxiety and restlessness

Excessive repetition of movements and meaningless tasks

Formication- the sensation of bugs or worms crawling under the skin 24

Long-Term Effects

The long-term effects of therapeutic doses of Ritalin are not clearly known. Some studies have shown long-term use of Ritalin may suppress growth in both height and weight, while other studies contradict this finding. Minor growth suppression and weight loss does occur in children under long-term psychostimulant treatment, but some have suggested that weight loss may be more common in children who weigh more than the average for their height before they begin taking Ritalin, and growth deficits may be partly related to ADHD rather than the medication.

So my side effects with Ritalin, slight nausea, loss of appetite, dry mouth, rollercoaster emotions, numb manly bits and loss of libido, ruminating and severe depression between doses... last dose at 1400, then restless sleep, waking to urinate 2 to 3x a night.

If there was a noticeable improvement of concentration, I could try to live with the other side effects... well that loss of my manly bits is not something I'll live with for a gain in concentration... maybe when I'm 80 that loss will be ok.

The Focalin xr... was good the first day, as all I had was dry mouth and nausea, no rollercoaster emotions... slight restless sleep... each days following dose, changed me completely into a zombie.. nothing was sharp in my vision, always foggy blur in the periphery, nothing was funny, exciting or laughable, manly bits were gone, hunger came at 6pm but the food was tasteless and unsatisfying... nausea and severe dry mouth and mouth sores and really restless sleep and having to urinate 3 to 4x a night... oh and my concentration factor was blown out of the water... way less than without meds.

I told the doc yesterday all this, and she suggested concerta... I said don't want to experiment with any more meds for a couple weeks... from all the reading I've done, it seems that I must be one of the 30% that anything with methylphenidate does not help concentration and only suffer side effects.

I would be willing to try Adderall, as it is a different molecular makeup of amphetamines... oh the the other thing about Switzerland that just seems stupid... a "pharmacist" can't dose out 7 or 10 units for a trial... they give you a bottle of 30... in the states, a doctor writes an rx and says 5 tabs, the pharmacist dispenses 5 tabs.

I'm reading up on St. Johnswort, Eleuthero, Ginkgo biloba and amino acids to increase dopamine and reuptake inhibitors of both dopamine and NE...

there has to be a better solution with less negative side effects.

39
Doctor, who?

40
So what are the side effects of leaving something untreated? Untreated anxiety for example, has its own side effects, limits on what you can do. For example, i used to have a really difficult time driving....too many distractions. That's not just ADD but it contributes.

But people (and i don't mean you necessarily) tend to discount the impact of things that are "all in your head". In my case, the side effects of the meds were less than the effects of what was going on in my head without them.

Sometimes you don't need the meds, like an antibiotic for a cold, or maybe that headache just needs a good stretch and hydration rather than an ibuprofen.