ADD Medications, Long Term Effects You Should Be Aware Of.

Adderall, Ritalin, Dexedrine, Concerta are the names of drugs used to treat ADD. These drugs are more often than not end up being misuse for some reasons. It was even shown in one episode of the Desperate Housewives where Lynette, the character that had hyper boys end up taking their medications so that she can keep up with them. This is a common scenario of ADD medication abuse.
Take some time to reflect on this account.
Mike is a successful attorney with a very hectic schedule. More and more demands are being made on him, and if he wants to make partner at his firm in record time, he has got to find more hours – and more energy.
He was having drinks with a pal and telling his friend how he is not sure if he can keep up with his hectic schedule let alone working towards making partner. His friend told him that he too was in Mike’s condition a not so long ago but ever since he started taking Adderall few months back, life has taken a positive turn. It was easy to get his physician to prescribe him the medication as all he needed to do was confess that he can’t pay attention as well as stay organized at work. All this was worth it even if he did felt a little jittery.
True to what his friend had told him, Mike found that getting himself prescribed with Ritalin was very easy. His friend was also right about the extra energy this medication provided him and with that, and for the first few weeks; Mike found himself working like crazy without the need to rest. He was also winning like mad! Mike also found that he had lost weight in the process; something that was so hard to achieve before this.
Three month down the road, Mike began experiencing problems. He was loosing sleep and had often slept for no more than three hours at night. His moods became unpredictable and he was also becoming bad tempered. He had often taken this out on his wife and kids for no apparent reason and refuses to listen to his wife when she tries to point this out to him.
Meanwhile, at work, Mike’s coworkers began to observe some paranoia. Mike was positive that attorneys with whom he previously professed to have a close working relationship were now gunning to get him fired and trying to sabotage his cases. No one seemed to know what he was talking about.
A visit to a different physician revealed the problem. Use of stimulants was causing these symptoms and he was taken off the medication. Just two weeks later, his symptoms had disappeared.
ADD medications are dangerous for those who suffer from ADD as well as those who don’t. They have the same effect as cocaine. Like cocaine, they increase the amount of dopamine available to receptors which then translates into a calming effect on the body.
Second, even though the goal of using these stimulants illegally is to get that calming effect just like they observe in those who have ADD, they get the opposite effect.
Non-medical users of these stimulants are college students and housewives. This is very much tied to their strong need to be more energized, get more attention as well as get high. The methods of taking them are like normal drugs or, for better effects of the drug, crushed and snorted.
The public should be exposed to more knowledge of long term effects of the substance since the use of these substance have rose higher over the years.
Even if the drugs are used for a short period of time, it can still can have significant effect on brain and its chemistry. For instance, drugs that are used to produce calming effect can actually destroy dopamine receptors thus making it less effective for calming. Here are more side effects:
- Significant losses of grey matter in the brain – what does that mean? This is stuff in your brain that surrounds the corpus callosum, which is responsible for the communication between the two hemispheres of your brain.
- functions like feeding, drinking, activity level, etc will suffer due to deficits in the hippocampus.
- Associated with a pattern of abnormal brain structure that looks like the deficits in early dementia and schizophrenia seen on MRIs.
Here are more side-effects:
- Paranoia
- Insomnia
- Extreme feelings of hostility
- Anorexia
- Depression
- Short temper
- Poor attention span
- A feeling of “being on the edge”
- Psychosis
- Memory loss
- Hallucinations
- Severe mood problems
Once you are using these drugs, you will find that you will gradually need to increase the amount of intake in order to get the same effect. It is in a way a loosing situation for you if you do decide to use these drugs.

Article Source: http://www.articleopus.com

As a leading practitioner in the field of treating attention deficit disorder, Jimmy Brownen has had man years of experience in the treatment of such disorders. For more information on adderall or vyvanse, please visit his site today.

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