Drink plenty of water while on Vyvance and possibly other ADHD medication might help you.

[sharkticon]

When I first started taking ADHD medication I didn't think it was working. I just seemed to have lots of negative side effects. I went a couple years without trying anything again until life got really bad and a therapist asked if I had tried Vyvanse. I ended up having a lot of the same issues and was very disappointed. I scoured the internet for many of the negative side effects where some didn't seem to be very common. I think the biggest one was this intense soreness in my back and neck muscles, and a pain or tightness in my chest. I thought maybe it's anxiety. A person online suggested drinking lots of water. So I gave that a go.

I now drink 20oz of water with my Vyvance first thing in the morning, and then drink lots of water through the day. After doing that the medication started helping and the negative side effects subsided. It's sad because ADHD medication would have helped me sooner had I known this. And it's something that a doctor, therapist, and psychiatrist did not catch.

I think it recommends staying hydrated on the bottle, but I didn't think much of it. I figured, if I felt thirsty I would drink water, or that feeling thirsty doesn't bother me that much especially if I'm really engaged in something; I'll just drink some water later. I'm pretty sure through my entire life I have not been drinking enough water. And you can imagine that if your body and brain are not getting enough water plus having some Vyvance dehydrating you, your probably not going to be feeling too great. The lack of water was counteracting much of the good that the drugs were doing. Because I could feel that they were working but the side effects were just too much. I would get feeling depressed and irritable and anxious. Still had low motivation. And a really hard time getting out of bed in the morning.

But I would say by far the biggest thing was the upper back and neck pain was the worst. And it was odd that it would get worse on the meds and then a better at night, and then I would start getting stiff necks easily where I couldn't rotate my head. My doctor thought it might be heartburn at first because I would feel this tight almost stabbing pain in my chest. When I started drinking lots of water and doing some neck and shoulder yoga/stretches. It pretty much all went a way. I was so grateful. And then then later I told the doctor that I could feel it sometimes but it wasn't that bad, and that's when we found out I had arthritis in my upper back. Which I guess is fairly uncommon. But somehow I could never really feel it without a combination of ADHD meds and dehydration. Odd right? So I felt I really needed to tell this story for people that have ADHD and arthritis, and also for all ADHD people because I noticed it helped, or eliminated all the other negative side effects I was having. And it's funny now, because I still don't feel like drinking water most the time until I start drinking some. And then I end up realizing I'm actually quite thirsty and end up guzzling a bunch of it.

[Neurolancer]

Hi there! Thank you very much for sharing this unexpected advice. I take Adderall and buy vans and other meds and walk around in a state of dehydration all the time. As you say, I’m just not thirsty, until I take a sip of water. I’ll give this a try. Anything to boost the effectiveness of my medication.

Thanks again!

[sharkticon in reply to Neurolancer]

Yeah, and let me know if it helps. I'm really curious about this one because I have not seen much about it on line.

[Msmoneypolly]

This matches my experience of ADHD meds. Some good and bad. I was also put off due to the bad side effects that seemed to cancel out the positive effects. I also have anxiety and suspected it was made worse on the meds. I feel mine is bad enough as it is without the added meds induced side effect. It’s hard to keep going with it. It’s definitely worth giving it another go and giving the drinking more water a try.

[sharkticon in reply to Msmoneypolly]

I think it's worth giving a try. I got very anxious because of all the side effects, and I think it caused me a lot of anxiety. I just kept thinking stuff like is this really working, am I doing this right, maybe drugs don't work, am I harming my body. Once I started drinking enough water and just focusing on the things I needed to do, the negative side effects went away. It would be super cool if this worked for you too.

[Adhdgirl89]

I started taking it today. I was hungry feeling, which is also a sign of dehydration. I'm thinking water will be a good plan of action. Thanks