Over 6 weeks on Elvanse now, and it’s great. It helps with one single symptom only, though: I can just get on a task and see it through, no procrastination, far less pain.

But that’s all. I’m just as senile, forgetful, fuzzy; the quality of my work did not improve. I go to a place on a 1 hour trip and forget to pick up the main thing I was there for. I ask everybody what they want to eat, open my laptop to order it, and forget all about it, until the hunger kicks in and I wonder why it’s so late and nobody got food.

I appear in meetings on time and well prepared now, but when I open my mouth, it’s still letter salad.

Basically I’m this Joe Biden who rushes to the task like the Flash, and then goes full Biden once he gets there, just looking around disoriented.

It FEELS even worse than before, but I think that is because doing more means more error, more senile.

Still, even if it would stay like this, my life would have changed for the better.

But I wonder: This one symptom could be fixed from the short-term “high” which is certain to decrease over time, not from the intended effect on the prefrontal cortex. Just like opioid painkillers helped me with exactly this as a side effect, but only for 3 months.

So we’ll see whether stims are right for me in the long run.

  • chert@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2·
    13 days ago

    Oh wow, you explained how I feel about vyvanse so well! It gets me to start tasks (the correct tasks) and focus a little better, but I’m still scatterbrained.

    My biggest issue is evenings, when it wears off I am unmotivated and useless. If feel sad that I take the medication and it helps for work hours only.

    • AddLemmusOPEnglish
      1·
      12 days ago

      Yes, crashing pretty hard sometimes. But it’s a great blessing, even just 3 good hours per day, or 30 good days in a year can change a life.

      Have you been taking it for long? My worry is that this kind of effect that we are talking about diminishes greatly after a while, because it is kind of similar to how coffee, opioid painkillers etc. improve this and may not be based on big changes in the prefrontal cortex. 2 months for me so far, slowly going up from 12 to 24 mg as it diminishes.

      I also wonder about another thing: The fact that a low dose works well on me & gives me such a high, and the relatively low duration could mean that I just metabolise it faster, like on the very lower end of the half-life range.