Just started Strattera. I feel superhuman, but have some questions about the side effects.

Unfortunately I don't have the posts handy, but it was discussed in the sub on Reddit for ADHD that sometimes starting new meds can cause a sort of euphoria feeling early on. I've definitely had that sort of feeling before when I've went a while without then got back on them. For me it tends to last anywhere from a day to a week.

Just be careful and give it the amount of time your doctor said it would take for them to work for your body to get used to them. Especially if you aren't sleeping. That's really not good. Might be best to try and stay in some, as this can be somewhat like a manic episode.

Unfortunately, what you're experiencing right now is the "adhd meds are just coke" sort of thing. Here's your coke effects. Mania and sleep deprivation.

Sidenote, strattera did literally nothing for me. Glad it's doing something for you.

What I read about melatonin is that you should take it a couple hours before you want to sleep.

Yeah made my dick weird too. Didn't really go away for me either until I quit the meds. I mostly quit because it made me super emotionally irregular though.

In my experience ADHD meds don't mix well with lack of sleep. So make sure you get enough sleep or eventually you might find yourself feeling like a zombie.

I started at 40mg some years ago; I did indeed feel superhuman, but my sleep suffered periodically and I had some other side effects -- morning nausea sometimes, especially when combined with coffee.

I found ways to cope: reduce coffee intake, have some plain yogurt in the morning, as the protein seems to help buffer the stomach, medicate early in the morning (6:30am) and exercise hard after work to promote better sleep. Still, it was a drag, and too easy to miss a beat in my routine.

I had to quit taking Strattera for two years while attempting to become a pilot, but it turns out the FAA hates ADHD kids and once that fell through, I resumed at a much lower dosage of 25mg. While I don't feel quite as capable at the lower dose, the side effects are significantly more mild and I generally don't notice them. I still make sure to medicate no later than 7am, as a precaution, but there's no correlation between being medicated and having poor sleep.

TL;DR stick with it for a few days and don't hesitate to ask for a lower dose if you can't hack it. The drug does a world of good for me, and it promotes habits that persist even when I go unmedicated for awhile (e.g. on weekends and often while on vacation).

this makes me so glad I gave up trying to manage my ADHD with anything other than caffeine, 12mg of melatonin is A LOT. You must be borderline tripping rn lol. Every medication I've tried kicks my insomnia up to 11 and the comes with a slew of other side effects. Hope this all levels out and works for ya tho

New meds can start working right away, but it'll take your body a little bit to get used to it.

Make sure you're taking it as early in the day as possible. Meds are like caffeine, they'll keep you up at night. Not to mention, taking too much melatonin or too late can keep you up instead of making it easier to sleep.

All that focus and lack of despair is good. The meds are helping you focus on things you should focus on, rather than worrying all the time.

Stick with it for a month, be conscious of the effects of the meds, and if things don't get better, talk to your doctor.

I had urinary retention and premature ejaculation and sleep disturbances that never resolved.

I started on 10mg and am up to 50mg now, about two months in. I have experienced no side effects whatsoever, except the first day I took it in the evening and then was a bit buzzy at bedtime. I also haven't noticed any of the positive effects yet, though I have heard it takes a while for that to kick in and that you may not even notice it due to how gradual it is.

I experienced a bunch of side-effects that pretty much all disappeared after the first ten days. I read online that they cleared up for most people, sometimes taking a month. The only side effect I have now is an increased heart rate approximately 15bpm but it's still considered in the normal range and exercising helps. I feel slightly less able to focus after a couple of months of taking it, but I'm definitely a lot more productive than I was before so it might just be my perception of the effectiveness. Emotional regulation was my biggest ADHD issue and atomoxetine helped a lot in this area and it's effective all day long so that was a big plus for me.

For me I noticed minor benefits after 4 days, and it took about 2 weeks for it to more fully kick in.

Personally the other side effects ended up with me going off it. The focus benefits stayed, though the low mood it turned out it was causing took 3 weeks to go away after I stopped.

my male genitals are not working well

This is a common side effect.

I also had trouble sleeping when I first started taking strattera. I switched to taking it around noon to 1 rather than before bed, and that seemed to deal with the issue after a few days. I didn't take it earlier than that because I drink coffee in the morning and I found that taking it within a couple hours of caffeine would give me heartburn or nausea. The intense focus lasted a few weeks and then settled down, but it was still quite helpful for the next five years or so. It eventually seemed to lose effectiveness after about five years and I'm not on it anymore. Regardless I'm in a much better place now than I was before I started it and I do think the drug can be given a good part of the credit.

I do remember having the same thought as you though, is this what it's like to be neurotypical? You just decide to do something and then do it. Wild.

I'm on adderall so my experiences may be different. The super human rush lasted about two weeks for me until my body settled into it. I'm on 10mg a day, but my doctor prefers a two day a week "drug holiday" so I don't develop a tolerance.

I slept better the first few weeks because I was exhausted as it wore off from actually doing things. I started to sleep poorly again after that, but I'm now taking 50mg of trazedone a night and sleep like a champ. If you frequently take melatonin your body doesn't respond to it as well. I was taking 10mg a night before my doctor recommended trazedone.

My only side effect is very slight tremors in my hands, but they lessen over the day. The focus is still there, but I definitely have to put forth more conscious effort a few months in. I'm on anti depressants as well so my genitals gave up years ago. I had serious temper problems which are VERY reduced.

My advice: take it easy! You can burn out a little trying to do all the things right now. Get a task app, put reasonable chores or goals on a schedule. Try and use your brains new reward system to build healthy habits. You can actually have habits now! Crossing things off a list will actually feel amazing. When the meds effects start to chill out, you'll be able to lean into your little routine and keep getting things accomplished.

Very happy for you- that holy shit I'm functional now feeling is so awesome. DM me if you need anything! 💓

I took strattera for a very short time many years ago when i was still in elementary school. I remember that it worked well but i was also not good about remembering to take meds every day. I stopped taking it after the first time i missed a dose. I only took it for a few days but the first time i missed a dose it felt like i had super ADD. Like i couldnt even concentrate on the things that i wanted to do let alone my school work. I switched to adderal after which worked much better for me.

I've had 1 seizure in my life, it was while I was on Strattera.

Damn, I just started this med and I feel like it’s fucking me up. Fast heart rate, severe mood swings, worsening anxiety and depression, etc. Anyone else experience this? I’ve been taking 25 mg for just under a week.

I'm a dude as well who's on 60mg and started with 40mg

For me the "I feel like a damn super human getting shit done WTF, is this how it is for other folks?" lasted about 3 days before starting to amp down.

I also had a bunch of other side effects but basically all of them went away between a couple days and about a month. Though I am more thirsty in general so I'm drinking more water but that's probably for the best considering how often I'd simply forget to drink water.

The... uh... member effects seem to only be an issue for me for the first few weeks. Though currently (4 months later) the "member" can't really be used within 12 hours of taking it as climax takes a long time, it takes a lot more work, and it doesn't feel as good. In fact during that 12 hours climax and building to it is kinda meh. Afterwards though it's back to being great but just taking longer, which by virtue of feeling great again is pretty cool.

The sleep quality is one that was really rough for the first couple days while I still felt super human but when the super human feeling went away my sleep quality improved, though still wasn't great for about 2 weeks. I'd recommend doing what you can to improve sleep hygiene though, it really helped being strict about that.