ADD meds report, three days in:
– Mon: first day on Vyvanse (20 mg), I took it late (noon), had a deadline, stayed up ’til 3 a.m., not a good test in any way, so mostly considering that a wash, although it did let me know that I wasn’t going to have any dramatic side effects, which was good. Got a lot done that day, felt happy and productive.
– Tues: second day, took it in the morning, felt happy and productive, nice day overall, though also a very long workday due to evening event, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Not sure there was any dramatic effect I noticed. Slightly restless sleep, but I was so tired from previous night’s short sleep, I did mostly sleep.
– Wed: third day, took it in the morning, happy and productive all through the workday. Around 5 I was having somewhat stressful political conversations, and driving home with Kev, got quite frustrated and crabby about that. Didn’t want to do anything when I got home, but actually had to do some stuff, which was annoying. Mostly had shaken bad mood by 8, went to bed at 11 — slept poorly, waking up every few hours.
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NEGATIVES:
Insomnia is a known problem of ADD meds, and if it continues, I’m probably going to try reducing the dosage — my doctor said given my size, it would be totally reasonable to cut the pill in half and try that. Figure I’ll give it one week on 20 mg first and see, though. I’ve also been too heavily scheduled to exercise this week (barely time to breathe!), so hoping that when I add daily exercise back in, that will help with sleeping.
The crankiness when the slow-release med wears off (about 8-10 hours after taking it) is a known result, commonly called a ‘Vyvanse crash,’ and a common way of managing it is to add a microdose of Adderall or something like that around then, to ease you down. If it seems like an ongoing issue, I’ll probably try that.
POSITIVES:
It’s harder to assess the positive effects than the negative. I’ve gotten a lot done this week, and felt happy and calm doing it — fairly intensive work on various projects, that required a lot of high-level administrative thinking.
I also, and this surprised me, felt like a better mother this week — I was calmer and more patient with the kids than I have been lately, better able to take time with them and make it fun for all of us, even though the week overall is an unusually busy one (several evening events).
OVERALL:
Next week is a more normal week, schedule-wise, so I should a) actually get to write and see how that goes, and b) get a better sense of how this affects my everyday life. My overall plan is to try this for a month and then reassess.
Oh, and yesterday was mental health awareness day. Hope this post contributes a little bit to people’s understanding of mental health. Hello, I’m Mary Anne, and I may have a mild version of ADD — it is not debilitating, but it does seem to be interfering with full and healthy functioning of my life. We’ll see how attempting to treat it with this med works!
Onwards.