Who has experience with ritalin or other stimulants?

[alecc]

I have a few general questions and wonder if someone could provide some answers or experiences.

1) Do those stimulants cause addiction in therapeutic doses or do they lose their effect and you want to go higher and higher with your dosage?

2) When you get on stimulants do you have to take them every single day because otherwise you experience withdrawal or mental impairment? Or could you also take stimulants on and off, whenever needed?

3) How well are stimulants combinable with other antidepressants, like SSRI?

4) What's the smallest daily dosage of Ritalin you'd have to take to feel an effects? Could you also simply decide to take 5mg of slow released Ritalin 2 times per day or would such low dosages not do much and then you could as well stay off it?

5) What happens when the effect of the ritalin/other stimulant wears off after a few hours? Do you then experience depression and have to take your next shot? Do you basically have to take the next dosage before the prior dosage wears off in order to avoid crashes?

6) What side effects did you gets from ritalin or other stimulants? Since these drugs have a long list of scary side effecs I'm pretty intimidated by them. But my doc made it look like it's no big deal and most people tolerate ritalin well. But the side effects list is still scary and they definitely wouldn't write down side effects in there which are exaggerated.

[macc noodle]

I am not a doc and do not know why you are being prescribed Ritalin.

However what I can tell you is that a family member was prescribed Ritalin for ADHD when aged 9 and remained on it until 17. It was a godsend for the treatment of the condition.

Upon cessation, they suffered no withdrawal.

Speak to your doc and voice your concerns.

Macc

[Worriedgirl87]

I took Ritalin for a month.
It gave me bad anxiety.
Doctor switched me to Dexedrine. I LOVE IT! So much smoother and no crash

I don't take it everyday either. Just when I need it.

No withdrawals .

---------- Post added at 13:26 ---------- Previous post was at 13:25 ----------

Every add medicine is different so it's hard to answer those questions.

But I prefer instant release tablets. They start working in 20 minutes and you can break them in half.