[temporaryvector]

It took some time to find a combination of medicine that worked for me, and I was pretty lucky as far as that is concerned. So my first bit of advice to anyone considering medicine is to stick with it and follow directions. It's also important to find a psychiatrist who will work with you, in my experience (your mileage will vary) it takes roughly a month or sometimes two to see if something is working, so sticking with it (unless you start having really serious side effects) is important even if it appears not to be working. Also, a good psychiatrist, in my experience, will give you a phone number so you can reach him at almost any time with questions and concerns.

As far as medication itself goes, I started with Atomoxetine (Straterra) and that barely worked for me, I also tried Methylphenidate in extended release form (Concerta) which does work but came with an annoying amount of anxiety. What works best for me is Lisdexamfetamine (Vyvanse), which is basically extended release amphetamine. I take 70mg daily in the morning and it works really well and doesn't produce any side effects for me. 70mg is considered a large dose, but seeing how I can sleep well and even take naps during the day (if I want), and have no anxiety, irritability or tachycardia when taking it, it seems to be an appropriate dose for me. A friend of mine suspected he had ADHD and took a much lower dose of Vyvanse (10 mg), and he was shaky and irritable right away, so in the end his diagnosis wasn't ADHD but depression, which can have similar symptoms.

Also when I started, I took fluoxetine and clonazepam to help with depression and anxiety that was caused by living with untreated ADHD, but I'm not taking that anymore because I don't need to, following doctor's advice, of course, never stop taking anti-depressants by yourself, withdrawal can be harsh if you don't take care and taper the dose off gradually. These helped me keep my mood in the right space so I could get started on working towards fixing my problems. Now I'm just taking Vyvanse, and while the dose might decrease in the future, it's likely that I'll be taking it for the rest of my life, or at least until heart problems make it impossible to keep taking it.

I hope this helps, even if it's more information that you asked for. The point I wanted to make is that while medication is there to help, it doesn't magically make the problems go away (even if the right combination can feel that way), and the same symptoms can mean many different things, so psychiatric medicine can involve a lot of trial and error, especially if you're unlucky. I found it very important to keep careful track of how my state of mind changed as I took the medicine and to report it as accurately as possible to my psychiatrist.

[toyg]

Thank you, that's way more than I could hope for. Great to see it's working for you.