Women-Fast Med Metabolism- what are you taking?

[CeeJ49]

Hi All,

My long acting med (Metadate) fizzles about 5 hours after I take it and short acting Ritalin fizzles after about 2.5. Anyone (particularly women) have this issue? Bonus if you’re also on an SSRI? Want to ask my doc about specifics.

[Robinadhdc]

This happens to me too! I'm taking 60mg Vyvanse (and 100 mg sertraline). Vyvanse is meant to last 12-14 hours. I only feel the positive effect 0.5-3 hours after taking it. I hope someone leaves advise.

[CeeJ49 in reply to Robinadhdc]

I’m on 100mg sert. too!

[Robinadhdc in reply to CeeJ49]

snap hahaha

[Nicole00]

Hello again! (I promise I’m not stalking you , it just so happened that your post popped up in my email again lol) I’ve found I have the same issue! I’m currently on 70mg of vyvanse. While I find this dose works amazing for curbing my ADHD symptoms, it’s not lasting long enough. I have class at 8:30 and the meds take about 2 hours to kick in, so I take it at about 6:30 am, then go back to sleep until it’s time to get up. Because I take it so early it’s wearing off in the late afternoon, and I’m completely useless the rest of the day.

I went back to my psychiatrist to talk about getting a booster for the evening (which he agrees is the best move), but with the 70mg I’m having an increased heart rate I didn’t have a problem with at 60mg. It’s not unusual for my resting heart rate to be anywhere from the high 90s all the way up to 120 on the 70mg. It’s not uncomfortable and doesn’t bother me, but I knew he would be concerned about it because over time it’s not healthy. It is definitely partly caused by my anxiety which I mainly get in public or when I’m doing schoolwork. Yesterday I checked my Apple Watch BPM readings for the day, and low and behold, every-time I “did” any studying my BPM was consistently above 100, but when I was just sitting on twitter or doing whatever else it was just in the mid 90s. Even after the meds wore off yesterday my BPM was still in the upper 90s though which confused me because before I started the medication my resting BPM was way lower. I don’t know if it’s because I was subconsciously stressed about the fact that I wasn’t getting anything done keeping it up or if the meds will continue to affect you even after they “wear off” .

Anyways, my doctor decided that he can’t give me the booster right now bc of my high BPM with the 70mg and doesn’t want to knock me down to the 60mg since this is the first time I’m having good results. He wrote me a script for 3 more weeks of the 70mg and told me to just continue to take it in hopes my body will adjust and my BPM will go down since I’d only been on the 70mg for 4 days at that point. I’m really hoping this will actually happen because I really need the booster, but I also need to 70mg. Obviously each day is different, but for the most part I’m severely struggling to get anything done once the medication wears off. Between having so much work to do and struggling to get anything done in the evening, I am studying and doing homework from the time I get up until I go to bed. And I’m still not getting everything done. It’s just becoming exhausting to spend my entire day doing/ attempting to do work and still falling behind more and more each day. Yesterday morning I took a 3 hour chem exam, and by the time I was done and ate lunch my meds were wearing off and my brain was fried from the exam. I needed to study all day for my bio exam that is tonight since I didn’t have time to study for it before the chem exam, but guess who didn’t study a single thing all day. It’s just really frustrating because I was doing so well the beginning of the semester and really thought this was going to be the semester that I actually did well, but now it’s just turning back into how every other semester was. I think I’m going to go back to taking my meds when I actually get up. This way they are kicking in after class when I’ll be starting my work to get a few more hours out of it.

After reading back through this I realize this isn’t at all helpful to you, but I guess I just needed to rant to someone who probably understands the struggle. The only advise I have for maybe making it last longer is protein protein protein. My doctor even told me last appointment to eat protein a couple hours before it’s going to wear off to help with making it last longer. I hope you are able to find something that works for you!

[theycallnemo]

Hi! I'm not a woman but do possess a body that menstruates and stuff, and had a similar problem with focalin "going through me too fast". I am on an SSRI, though I wasn't put on it until after I switched medications, so idk how relevant that is. The medications I take now don't conflict each other, if that's your concern.

Anyway, for awhile I had a morning dose and a midday dose of focalin, but my speedy metabolism caused it to "wear off" later in the day. So I was switched over to Daytrana, which is a patch you wear on the hip or upper arm.

Daytrana lasts up to 9 hours, and the transdermal option is good for fast metabolisms. One issue I've run into is forgetting to remove it, which can result in difficulty sleeping until you do so, but other than that I've no complaints. The SSRI I take is Zoloft, and the two did not interfere in my experience. Hope that helps!