Ritalin Gone Wrong • Hacker News Board

Re: Ritalin Gone Wrong

#141

Post by bermanoid » Mon, Jan 30, 2012, 7:59 AM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #14

On a more basic level before even getting to treatment, imo it'd be useful to have more studies on what the distribution of some sort of trait called "attention" is in the population to begin with, perhaps in various common situations. That might provide some sort of baseline: if, for example, 90% of people have "abnormally low" attention by some measure in some situation, then the definition of "abnormal" is probabl…

I'm going to go against the grain here, and argue that "normal" is irrelevant - "desired" is the target here.

If people want themselves/their children to think/act a certain way, and this opinion is widespread, then it's completely valid to treat that as the target, even if 90% of the people in society need to be chemically modified to make them act that way.

Evolution isn't perfect, and at no point has it tried to optimize for happiness, it only goes for reproductive success, which we as individuals don't care too much about, at least in the short term. If there are interventions that we can impose that better optimize for happiness than letting us exist naturally would, we have no reason to avoid these interventions.

That said, I have no idea what the optimal desired mental function would look like...

Re: Ritalin Gone Wrong

#142

Post by georgieporgie » Mon, Jan 30, 2012, 9:39 AM UTC

pizza wrote: post #61

Ritalin (methylphenidate) and Adderall (Dextroamphetamine / Levoamphetamine) are interesting and powerful nootropics ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nootropic ). I haven't tried them yet, although I am looking forward to the day I do. However, they do have some serious negative aspects; they are addictive and come with a substantial 'crash'. This is where the racetams come in! The racetam family consists of nootropics…

I'm surprised I haven't seen more buzz about racetams on HN.

I recently started experimenting with Piracetam. It's too early to make a judgment, but I did seem to get a heck of a lot more done in the two weeks 'on' than in several weeks prior. I'm currently doing about 2g in the morning, and another 1.5g in the afternoon. I haven't directly noticed any effect, aside from perhaps a short period of mild dizziness one day.

Re: Ritalin Gone Wrong

#143

Post by vintagius » Mon, Jan 30, 2012, 10:20 AM UTC

What i never understood over the years was, why Ritalin was given to kids with ADD and ADHD.All though those two disorders are related,they do not have the same effect on a person.

People with ADD tend to be tooo calm and appear to be slow ,on the other hand those with ADHD (including me) tend to be too Hyper , our minds are at full speed all the time which affects concerntrating on things we do not enjoy.I found out that Ritalin works well for me by relaxing the pace of my thoughts ,which in turn allows me to focus on a BORING thing like a volumous book.

So now how can you give a person with ADD (Slow thoughts) a drug that will make them more slow and expect results.

My conclusion is that Ritalin works better for people who have ADHD then those with ADD,and the reason why results on the improvement that Ritalin has ,have varied time and again is because a drug that work for one group (ADHD) was also given to those (ADD) it does not work for.In such a situation results will never be consistant.

Re: Ritalin Gone Wrong

#144

Post by estevez » Mon, Jan 30, 2012, 1:24 PM UTC

Detrus wrote: post #98

psaccounts wrote: post #30

It is a shame that most people are unaware of the efficacy of Homeopathy to treat ADD, ADHD and autism-spectrum disorders. Do some research and you'll see how hundreds of thousands of people have been cured of these ailments using Homeopathy alone.

With the rampant abuse of market power by the drug companies with Ritalin and anti depressants, I wonder if homeopathy could be a helpful competitor. Magic water can't cause harm and takes some money away from you so you can't use it for something harmful. I don't remember the names, but a whole generation of anti depressants was shown to be completely useless and harmful. The initial studies were fabricated and/or g…

>The various decade long studies on Ritalin also show it to be largely useless and harmful.

Twenty seconds on Google Scholar would lead me to the opposite conclusion. Your source?

Re: Ritalin Gone Wrong

#145

Post by checker » Mon, Jan 30, 2012, 2:26 PM UTC

nandemo wrote: post #120

Groxx wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those sorts of comments tend to appear with another claim: persistent benefits. Which is something which the short-term solutions rarely offer. In that way, they're perfectly on-topic, and calling into question the use of the short-term solutions at all , especially when long-term benefits have not been shown (consistently, at all, take your pick).

Well, for starters, "reduce distractions" isn't very actionable advice in this context. It's equivalent to saying "cheer up" to people who have clinical depression. I'd be glad to be shown data that better diet and exercise are effective in the treatment of adults with ADD (which is the topic of this subthread). Of course, good diet and exercise are good for you, but that's not the point.

It doesn't have to be either/or, too. A combination of both might make him even more productive than one or the other. However, if diet and exercise are proven to be effective, they will likely have better long term health benefits than consistent stimulant dosing.

Re: Ritalin Gone Wrong

#146

Post by dlytle » Mon, Jan 30, 2012, 2:42 PM UTC

rue wrote: post #25

ulisesrmzroche wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped on 56mg for two months and did not have any withdrawal symptoms. You may want to talk to your doctor about this, withdrawal like the one you experienced is not very common, I think.

I'd be interested to hear why the GP thought tapering would be worse. It's almost universally the better option.

The reason I went cold turkey was that I was already seriously tolerant to my prior dose, and the doctor had recommended several months of tapering to reduce my tolerance. (I had been on that dose for about 5 years.) I couldn't afford to spend that amount of time eliminating my tolerance, because I'd be operating at such a reduced capacity (from withdrawal) that I'd risk my job.

So, instead, I took a week off coinciding with a long weekend, and just went off it completely. It sucked really bad, but I had some stuff in place to make sure I wouldn't be in as much danger as I could be. (I removed all potential weapons/poisons from the house, stocked up on "comfort food" so I wouldn't be tempted to get in a car, etc.)

I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, especially due to the suicide risk, but in my case (for various reasons) that risk was pretty much 0. (I'm aware that self-diagnosing suicide risk is really unreliable, but I have a few personal situations that make suicide impossible to seriously contemplate, so I'm pretty safe in that regard.)

Re: Ritalin Gone Wrong

#147

Post by _delirium » Mon, Jan 30, 2012, 2:58 PM UTC

bermanoid wrote: post #141

_delirium wrote: post #14

On a more basic level before even getting to treatment, imo it'd be useful to have more studies on what the distribution of some sort of trait called "attention" is in the population to begin with, perhaps in various common situations. That might provide some sort of baseline: if, for example, 90% of people have "abnormally low" attention by some measure in some situation, then the definition of "abnormal" is probabl…

I'm going to go against the grain here, and argue that "normal" is irrelevant - "desired" is the target here. If people want themselves/their children to think/act a certain way, and this opinion is widespread, then it's completely valid to treat that as the target, even if 90% of the people in society need to be chemically modified to make them act that way. Evolution isn't perfect, and at no point has it tried to o…

I have some sympathy for that argument, but I think we should still distinguish the cases and talk about them accurately. If the situation really is that 90% of people need some sort of intervention to reach the desired mental functioning, then we could just say that and argue for it openly; the pro-nootropics community makes those kinds of arguments, for example. I think when loaded terms like "abnormal" or "ill" or "treatment" are used, though, they're only really accurate if we're talking about pathological deviations from a species norm.

But actually my interest in what constitutes the "norm" is somewhat more basic; I think how human attention works is quite interesting as a subject of scientific study, and I wish there were more aggregate data on how it varies in different situations and across the population.

Re: Ritalin Gone Wrong

#148

Post by cullenking » Mon, Jan 30, 2012, 4:02 PM UTC

deno wrote: post #71

cullenking wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is another anecdotal response, but, the high definitely didn't go away, I just became more mentally accustomed to it. It's exactly the same for an alcoholic who drinks excessively everyday. After a month, the same amount of alcohol has less effect (to an extent). I strongly feel that if the parents of children on ADD meds actually used the meds themselves, many of them would decide on alternative treatmen…

You’re not supposed to use the medication “on and off,” if you want to avoid such side effects.

"on and off" for a period of 4 years can mean anything from every other day to 3 months on and 3 months off. I've experimented with them all, and for something which isn't built up systemically, like many antidepressants, as needed is 100% the way to go.

Re: Ritalin Gone Wrong

#149

Post by kpennell » Mon, Jan 30, 2012, 8:22 PM UTC

rkon wrote: post #27

Parents should really take note of the studies and conclusions in this article. As someone diagnosed with ADHD who has tried numerous medications (Adderall regular and XR, Vyvanse, Strattera, Focalin, and Wellbutrin) I have to say I would never ever EVER allow a young child of mine to take any of them. I can't even fathom how confusing and damaging the side effects of these medications could be to the fragile psyche…

I was given a slew of ADD drugs from ages 8-16 and finally quit them cold turkey after I realized what they were doing to me. It was pulling me up and down throughout the day. I was high and awkward in the morning and depressed as hell come every afternoon. This experience ended up changing me in good ways but it was very painful at the time.

I just wrote about it on Quora. http://www.quora.com/Attention-Deficit-Disorder/What-does-it...

My mom regrets putting me on meds and felt unsure about it at the time, but it was all the rage in the 90s. I think a young person with focus problems would get a lot more out of meditation, yoga, and being outdoors that they would out of these drugs, but I don't have studies to back that claim.

I just hope we look back on what we're doing and shake our heads, wondering how we could be so stupid to put millions of kids on amphetamines. Just like how we look back and laugh that we used to give children a bit of mercury to play with (with bare hands) in science class in the 50s.

Re: Ritalin Gone Wrong

#150

Post by kpennell » Mon, Jan 30, 2012, 8:25 PM UTC

cullenking wrote: post #67

deno wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ‘high’ goes away after two weeks of continuous use, but the cognitive benefits persist. This is exactly why ADHD medications work long term. > But in fact, the loss of appetite and sleeplessness in children first prescribed attention-deficit drugs do fade (…). They apparently develop a tolerance to the drug, and thus its efficacy disappears. Those are side effects in the context of treating ADHD. Here’s a great s…

I know this is another anecdotal response, but, the high definitely didn't go away, I just became more mentally accustomed to it. It's exactly the same for an alcoholic who drinks excessively everyday. After a month, the same amount of alcohol has less effect (to an extent). I strongly feel that if the parents of children on ADD meds actually used the meds themselves, many of them would decide on alternative treatmen…

My mom accidentally took one of my Adderalls one night (mixed it up with one her pills). She said the experience was quite enlightening to what I was experiencing every morning.