Is there any Drug for Hyper-activeness ?

[karthik3k]

Is there any Drug for Hyperactiveness ??
I need it !

 

[iansmith]

Yes, it is called ritalin

http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofax/ritalin.html

 

[Moonbear]

A few things to consider before deciding to medicate the hyperactivity: cut back on caffeine (coffee, tea, chocolate) and excess sugar (beverages like fruit drinks can have a lot of sugar and people think they are "healthy" in addition to the usual junk food culprits) if you consume a lot of those; get daily exercise, and get a good night's sleep. Caffeine and lack of sleep can both especially contribute to hyperactivity or restlessness and inability to concentrate. If you make those modifications and it doesn't improve the problem, then consider there may be biological basis for your hyperactivity and consider medication.

 

[adrenaline]

also, make sure you are not bipolar and in a manic state.

 

[fafalone]

Sorry for the late reply, but I was just thinking I wanted to make a comment on this subject so I searched PF for 'ritalin'.

To address previous posts: I believe the hyperactivity component comes imbalances in the dopamine system, which is why dopamine reuptake inihibitors such as methylphenidate (Ritalin), amphetamine, dexedrine, and as a last resort actual methamphetamine are used to treat it. Here's my theory on why this works. I envision a structure system present in ADHD patients, and normally intelligent patients, that uses the dopamine system to regulate thought coherence (focus for those getting confused already). In normally intelligent people, the focusing system is in balance by way of appropriate extracellular dopamine levels. A DRI like Desoxyn (methamphetamine prescription tablets) corrects a lack of sufficient extracellular dopamine. The energy is always there in both people, but in ADHD patients the balance system is just not working right. When a normally intelligent (clarification: whenever I use intelligent I refer to those with IQs above 130, the std. dev. below that I call average) takes a powerful DRI such as Desoxyn, or cocaine since they can't get ADHD meds, they experience euphoria combined with extremely clear thought (sidenote, this isn't recommended or endorsed due to its illegality, but crushing up 60mg of Ritalin (that you have a prescription for) and snorting it (with 20mg pills, 6 rather large lines, doable), it virtually indistinguishable from cocaine even in experienced users. So since one can see that normal baseline subjects have it enhanced, the ADHD patients taking it are returned to the normal level. (If anyone with actual ADHD who has tried taking a much much larger dose than normal wants to verify/refute this hypothesis, by all means share your experience as long as you did it with legally obtained pills.

On caffeine and sugars: these do not work on the dopamine system (subsequently do not produce euphoria and thus are legal), however cutting their levels helps, but only a little, by decreasing total energy, which is mainly dopaminergic (seen by the difficult of staying up for 3 straight days with just caffeine vs. the ease of accomplishing this is methamphetamine

Where I'd like to take this thread now, is why adult-onset ADD/ADHD is considered to flat out not exist precluding it just being rare. If you exceed all the required DSM-IV criteria, why does it matter if there was a problem 20-30 years ago? Is there an alternate name for this treatment? Doctors know about it, but even if they think you need to be on stims, they can't do it because of government oversight requiring documentation of an incident prior to the age of 7. Thoughts? Feel free to comment on either the psychopharmcology or sched.2 drugs politics, I'd love to discuss both.

 

[adrenaline]

Adult ADD and ADHD is quite prevalent. These kids didn't suddenly stop having it when they grew up. They developed better coping skills but it is still a problem. Up until Stratterra was invented (norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor http://www.johnswank.com/Strattera.htm ,) it was always problematic keeping an adult on a stimulant indefinately. It was also assumed that the ADD or ADHD would not affect the adult since shool performance was no longer an issue... but this was a fallacy. Untreated adult ADD or ADHD results in poor work performance, more motor vehicle accidents, difficulty in interpersonal relationships etc. Now the psychiatrists know better than to just stop ritalin when a child reaches adulthood. Many will switch them to wellbutrin or strattera or even maintain them on their ritalin. Many adults are being newly diagnosed when their child gets diagnosed since many of them see themselves and what they went through and seek help from their own practioners or adult psychiatrists. This diagnosis did not go away or cease to exist.

 

[fafalone]

I completely agree with what you're saying. I have ADD (not ADHD), I've had enough psychology courses to be able to evaluate whether I meet the DSM criteria for this condition.
The problem is, this has gotten worse rather than getting better, so when I was younger than 7 it barely existed at all, so finding documentation of such an incident in the few remaining documents for that time is not likely, so I cannot have Sched.2 stimulants prescribed. Ritalin is also approved for depression, but you basically have to go to an asylum and be diagnosed with the most severe form of depression known to man to get it for that.
It's just ridiculous. A possibly related condition is a severe anxiety problem. SSRIs either didn't work (sertraline) or had extremely bad side effects (celexa), and benzodiazepines made me so tired I couldn't act normally even if I wanted to. Wellbutrin, after 3 months, started to have a noticable effect. I discussed this with my doctor (I am extremely well versed in this area) about Wellbutrin being a SDRI, but too weak to be fully effective, and told him about some clinical studies showing that ADHD drugs were highly effective in social phobia/general anxiety patients who did not respond to the other classes. I suggest methylphenidate, and my doctor concurred. However, in Florida, doctors cannot prescribe sched2 meds for purposes other than what they're approved for. Insane.

 

[fafalone]

It was also assumed that the ADD or ADHD would not affect the adult since shool performance was no longer an issue... but this was a fallacy.

I think the real issue was adults would be aware of what happened when you crushed up a bunch of stimulant ADHD meds...

Trial results for Straterra and Wellbutrin for adult ADHD were pathetic. But there's no fear of losing your license for prescribing them, so they became the first line of treatment,

 

[adrenaline]

Have you tried stratterra anyway? The dozen or so adults I have seen on it state it has helped them tremendously. Though the clinical trials may have been small , the after market word out among practinoners is that adults are doing great on it. As for what you said about stimulants, quite a few of the psychiatrists here do use stimulants if anxiolytics and mood stabilizers /antipsychotics don't help the individual with either their anxiety as well as depression. Georgia laws are much more lenient about off label use of drugs.

 

[Moonbear]

fafalone, I just want to clarify my earlier comment about caffeine and sugar, since you brought that up in your first post to this thread. I wasn't trying to suggest either of those is responsible for ADD or ADHD. The reason I suggested ruling both out is that someone who does NOT have ADD or ADHD but consumes a lot of sugar and caffeine may exhibit some symptoms that lead them to self-diagnose themselves or for a physician who isn't well-versed in the subject to misunderstand the symptoms. As you accurately pointed out, if someone truly has ADD or ADHD, cutting out caffeine and excessive sugar will not make the problem go away.

As for trying to relate ADHD to energy levels, I'm not sure that's accurate. It's not so much having more energy than people without ADHD, as where that energy is directed. There are people who just seem to have endless energy who direct it into a few miles of running in the morning but who nonetheless can sit still and focus on a lesson once class starts, so just because they seem to have this excess energy, it isn't leading to ADHD.

The observation that it's getting worse rather than better is interesting. There could be two directions to explore...1) you actually are getting better, so now the medication dosages are too high and are having stimulant effects rather than just controlling the ADD, or 2) long-term use of the stimulants and/or natural progression of the disease is making the neurons even less sensitive to the effects of the drugs, so they aren't working anymore. I know long-term studies are few and far between, so I'm wondering if any exist that have looked whether any of the drugs work differently in adults diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood (who had untreated symptoms in childhood) vs those who have been on medication since childhood. Does long-term use of medications make it any harder to treat in adulthood?

 

[indoubt]

i do have that problem too
i don't take medicine, but there are something i can always do to reduce it: sleep less and work hard. this makes me calming down

hopes this help!

 

[fafalone]

As for trying to relate ADHD to energy levels, I'm not sure that's accurate. It's not so much having more energy than people without ADHD, as where that energy is directed. There are people who just seem to have endless energy who direct it into a few miles of running in the morning but who nonetheless can sit still and focus on a lesson once class starts, so just because they seem to have this excess energy, it isn't leading to ADHD.

I should have mentioned the distinction into psychological energy and physical energy... while levels of one can clearly affect the other, I think it's easy to see that they're distinct from each other. For example, my original reply to the thread was made after over 72 hours without any sleep whatsoever. My body was exhausted, but my mind was still revved up, since I'm on a dopamine reuptake inhibitor, both energies are increased which brings me to replying to Stratera,
I have not tried it but I don't think it would be too helpful since a lot of the ADD symptoms result from the chronic fatigue, which itself is psychological rather than physical, since I maintain an optimum 8-10 hours of sleep each night, have a good deal of daily physical activity, take vitamin supplements... and have had several lab tests done to rule out iron deficiency, thyroid problems, etc. However it's not a cognitive problem in that stress and/or depression do not exist at levels that would cause such a severe problem.

 

[Moonbear]

You said you replied earlier after over 72 hours of no sleep, then later say you maintain an optimum of 8-10 hours of sleep. Is this lack of sleep considered a typical ADD symptom, or is this something you experience that is atypical? Of course it would be hard to focus if you are exhausted all the time. Have you ever been evaluated to rule out a sleep disorder? Maybe you're treating the symptom (inability to focus) rather than the cause (lack of normal sleep).

Every time I read the literature on ADD, that's actually something I always come away with, that it's a constellation of symptoms that are being treated, but the cause isn't known. It may be more than one cause, and one of those could be a sleep disorder.

 

[Moonbear]

What do you know? People are studying the relationship between sleepiness and ADHD possibly being related to a sleep disorder!

Sleep. 2004 Mar 15;27(2):261-6.
Sleep disorders and daytime sleepiness in children with attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder.
Golan N, Shahar E, Ravid S, Pillar G.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Children with attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD), in spite of being hyperactive, still benefit from treatment with stimulant medications. We hypothesized that children with ADHD are in fact sleepy during the day, and we sought to test it objectively. DESIGN: Single blind comparative study SETTING: University medical center PARTICIPANTS: Thirty-four children with a previous diagnosis of ADHD (mean age +/- SD, 12.4 +/- 4.6 years) and 32 matched controls (mean age, 12.0 +/- 3.6 years). INTERVENTIONS: N/A. MEASUREMENTS: All participants underwent a full-night polysomnographic study followed by a multiple sleep latency test (MSLT). RESULTS: Sleep latency, total sleep time, and sleep efficiency were comparable between the groups, yet children with ADHD were significantly sleepier during the day than those in the control group (mean MSLT score of 21.9 +/- 5.5 minutes versus 27.9 +/- 2.0 minutes, P < .005). Of the children with ADHD, 17 (50%) had signs of sleep-disordered breathing, compared with 7 of the control group (22%, P < .05). Five of the ADHD group had periodic limb movements during sleep (15%) versus none in the control group. Children without sleep-disordered breathing or periodic limb movements during sleep had the lowest nocturnal sleep efficiency and total sleep time. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that children with ADHD demonstrate objective daytime somnolence, which may explain the beneficial effects of treatment with stimulant medications. Primary sleep disorders, especially sleep-disordered breathing and periodic limb movement disorder, should be looked for in children with ADHD.