Whoops, forgot my Dexedrine...

I'm away from home today, and I forgot to bring my Dexedrine with me. Not a big deal, I was thinking of seeing how I do without it anyhow now that I'm taking 50mg of Vyvanse.

The last few days have been typical of dose changes. For the first 2 days in particular, I'm on a bit of a high in terms of productivity and mood. Things seem effortless. Yesterday, though, I noticed a bit of a low in the evening. I seemed more irritable than usual, but as always it could just have been an irritating day.

It will be interesting to see whether I get irritable this afternoon without the Dexedrine, and it will also be interesting to see how work and the evenings are next week now that the dose-change effects have worn off.

50 mg Vyvanse + 5 mg Dexedrine

I've spent a week on 40 mg Vyvanse with 5 mg Dexedrine at noon, and it has worked quite well. No more irritability or tension in the afternoons, and it didn't just shift to the evenings as I feared. Not sure why this is, but I bet it has something to do with how rapidly the medication wears off. Perhaps my body was getting rid of the Vyvanse very quickly, leading to a low, and the Dexedrine fills in this low so I get a smoother tapering off. I'll have to remember to ask my doc.

In any case, I've been finding that my ability to stay on track is better now in the afternoon than in the morning. Since this coincided with taking an extra dose of medication, it suggests that a higher dose of Vyvanse in the morning might be in order. I spoke to my doctor about this yesterday, and today I'm starting on 50mg Vyvanse.

40mg Vyvanse + 5mg Dexadrine

The tension and irritability never really went away. It was still there on Monday. While I was speaking with my doctor on Tuesday, I realized that it always started in the early afternoon. He thinks that I'm a fast metabolizer, and the vyvanse is wearing off partway through the day.

So, today I took 5mg of straight Dexadrine a little after noon. Definitely helped the tension & jitters so far. I guess I'll see what happens this evening when it all wears off.

40mg Vyvanse, Day 7

I think the stress/jitters are getting better gradually. I am very glad I decided to stay on each dose for 2 weeks. I'd have no idea what 40mg was really going to feel like if I was changing again today.

The big question now is: Is it really helping my symptoms? Again, I'm glad I'm not changing after only a week. I think it is helping. I'm finding it easier to stop distracting myself when I'm at a tough spot, which was always my big problem. I'm starting new jobs more easily, and sticking with them more easily. That's a big deal.

My hardest time is when I'm between big tasks. That's when I have to look around at what there is to do and pick the next thing. There are usually a few big things I could tackle, and a whole bunch of small things. I get paralyzed. The small things seem trivial and meaningless. The big things seem like too much of a commitment. Sitting down and doing an analysis of the options is way, way too formal, of course!

The frustration of trying to choose, combined with no clear deadline for doing so, leads me to distract myself. This leads to more frustration when I realize I've ended up getting nothing done.

I was in this situation yesterday, and I pulled through. I picked one thing and just did it, and I got it done. I started to distract myself, but every time I was able to snap out of it relatively quickly. Maybe the meds make it harder to fall into the numb, semi-trance state of self-distraction. They make that prefrontal cortex planning section of my brain keep saying, "Hey! Hey! Stop it! You have something to do!"

I remember thinking before I started the meds that the side-effect of irritability might not be so much due to the meds themselves. Maybe it's just that once you take the meds, you find yourself no longer able to ignore all the crap you've been putting off for so long. That would irritate anyone.

40mg Vyvanse, Day 5

Definitely less jittery today. I still find myself doing these big sighs, though, like I do when I'm really stressed out by something. I feel stressed out. Is it justified? Is it just that my life right now happens to be stressful?

Hard to tell. It feels justified, of course. When I step back and review what has actually happened in the last day or so, though, I'm not seeing the big stressful stuff. I think the meds are still making me feel on edge.

This is very different than the first 30mg. That made me feel calmer, if anything.

Today was better than yesterday. Tomorrow may be better still. We'll see.

40mg Vyvanse, Day 4, Evening

Productivity today was good. Mood, not so good. I've been jittery and kind of irritable since around noon. Low-grade headache. Not even a very typical headache, more like occasional aches shooting along different parts of my head. I haven't taken anything for it yet, because I don't want to mask any side effects.

Also kind of stiff, probably because my jitters/irritability have been causing me to clench.

40mg Vyvanse, Day 4

I had less trouble getting to sleep last night, though I did end up waking a few times. I'm working on a bit of an odd problem right now, though, and I was waking up because I was dreaming about it. This is not unusual for me when I work on something right before bed. I'm not going to blame the meds right now.

Otherwise, I feel good this morning. We'll see what the day brings.