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Melody
Moderator
Reged: 03/20/03
Posts: 854
Loc: DrugBuyers.Com
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Please use this thread to discuss Ritalin - Methylphenidate
Thanks
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toe
GRAND Pooh-Bah
Reged: 10/10/02
Posts: 1522
Loc: MidWest USA
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Ritalin is a phenethylamine amphetamine meaning that it is highly abusable (chemical cousin to Ecstasy), so it's Schedule II, and therefore more difficult to get online than a lot of other things.
Methylphenidate is indicated for use in childdren suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. These children's bodies produce an excess of a "sleepiness" endocrine (forgive, I'm not a medical student doing my pediatricis rotation, I only played one while reading my mother's medical school textbooks as a preteen and then have proceeded to act them out for the past 11 years as the adult sister to an ADHD brother). In response to this excessive sleepiness, the body then "overcorrects" by sending the kids in to ADHD mode. Some "mothers" think that they are being responsible by medicating their children only when they send them to school, where they have to concentrate. Unfortunately. when a kid with ADHD isn't medicated according to plan, the body is going to be in a constantset of overcorrections, and the "unexpected" dose (which is every dose, if a child is only getting his 7am pill, and his lunchtime pill, 5 days a week, when school is in) is always going to result in an extreme reaction.
Take an ADHD kid who has been going wild out to lunch with his family and unable to settle down and eat, running around, introducing himself to all the other diners, and starts to cry when he's forced back to the dinner table. He's not on a proper regimin of his meds. So mommy gives him his medicine. Twenty minutes later, he's passed out over her shoulder. This is no benign drug you are talking about.
As far as your defense regarding "many individuals who have benifited from (off-label) use of methylphenidate for decades," I'm wondering how they got their hands on this drug in the first place. Ritalin has never been prescribed on-label for adult fatigue. There is a good reason for this, too. It's an addictive drug. Using ritalin to "fight fatigue" is a great starter for the definition of its primary theater of abuse: The bedrooms and dorm rooms of students all over the US popping, crushing and snorting, even injecting this drug so that they can stay up all night and (in this, their case is even more legitimate than your's) concentrate on memorizing the anatomy of the mitochondria, pick their way through the most awful, dryest memoir of George Kennan travelling pre-industrial Russia, memorizing 5 pages of conjugations for one-count 'em-one! French verb. And these students risk all the typical health risks associated with the use of speed. Further, because they are students, faced with 700 pages of reading a week and 70 verbs to memorize a week, when they start to feel their minds slow down, they have no choice but to pop another pill. Unlike your garden variety street drugs, methylphenidate poses a special predelication towards abnormal activity in the brain at much lower relative stimulatory doses.
Are you aware that after a routine 10mg morning dose of ritalin in a doctor-supervised ADHD pediatric patient taking all medications according to schedule, shortly after an antidepressant was introduced, the child walked out of his house towards the bus stop and, ten minutes later, fell down and had a grand mal seizure?
In case no one has picked up on this yet, the DEA makes a real arbitrary distinction between C-IIs and C-Is. The only difference between C-IIs and C-Is is that the AMA has guidelines on the use of C-IIs. When you throw out those guidelines, there is absolutely no distinction. Many C-Is, with no AMA guidelines whatsoever, are safer and less mind altering than their C-II counterparts, used AS instructed. (Bearing in mind that an opiate-naive person in acute excruciating pain is liable to get a swift shot of fentanyl- compare that to a hit off a joint or a line of coke) (Not that anyone here has ever used an illegal drug in their precious lifetimes)
Let me just hit you with some spare facts: Because methylphenidate is not a "true" amphetamine, it causes many more complications than its illegal counterparts do to provide the same amount of stimulation. It creates excess electrical activity in the brain that can lead to seizures and causes palpitations. You would be safer using cocaine or dexedrine in "reasonable amounts."
Do not fool yourself. You are abusing this drug. If you are suffering from fatigue, you need to get a CBC done and consult with your doctor on what deficiencies might be causing this. There are many legitimate herbal remedies for your problems, but chances are good that you also need a major lifestyle overhaul including diet, exercise, work, and play. Perhaps modafonil, a medicine that is actually marketed to promate daytime wakefulness might help you out here.
But don't delude yourself. You are abusing ritalin. You are not the only one. ("Hey, kettle. You're black." I could have said at many times in my life.) But you are using a psychologically and physically addictive drug in a manner for which it has never been approved.
I know I sound like a be-yatch, but my data, though infused with emotion is based on facts, clinical trials, personal experience, and our own US Government's studies of young adult drug abuse, as well as multiple editorials that have appeared over the years.
Please go to see your doctor about this fatigue problem. You don't need to risk your heart and your brain to get through the day. (NOt always so easy to believe, I know).
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flippie
Member
Reged: 06/14/04
Posts: 147
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I would like to underline everything you said in the paragraph pasted below, because it is key:
__
Let me just hit you with some spare facts: Because methylphenidate is not a "true" amphetamine, it causes many more complications than its illegal counterparts do to provide the same amount of stimulation. It creates excess electrical activity in the brain that can lead to seizures and causes palpitations. You would be safer using cocaine or dexedrine in "reasonable amounts."
__
A lot of studies have been done on various phenethylamines (You've read Shulgin's books, right? I'm sure you have, you are obviously well-informed) and it is true that Ritalin is potentially a lot more dangerous than the more powerful "straight" amphetamines.
Interestingly, and I want to say up-front that I feel a little uncomfortable posting this because of the PC-wave that seems to have hit us, but I did read an article that suggested that at the time, Preludin was the prefered drug for WHITE speedfreaks who had their choice and black speedfreaks actively prefered Ritalin. Go figure.
http://www.iprc.indiana.edu/publications/iprc/factline/ritalin.html
Chicago: "The most intensive stimulant abusers...are those who prefer to inject...white IDUs on the North Side are reported to inject phenmetrazine HCl (Preludin)...black stimulant suers on the South Side prefer methylphenidate (Ritalin), or "west coast."
CEWG, Epidemiologic Trends in Drug Abuse, NIDA, 1995.
Weird, isn't it? I mean, say what you will about the DEA, but NIDA's science is usually on the ball, and they are usually quick to admit and retract mistakes.
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flippie
Member
Reged: 06/14/04
Posts: 147
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Although the DSM would probably refer to replying to one's own post to be some form of dissociative identity disorder, I forgot to mention something that might be mildly significant to the conversation.
Like many people, I take an SSRI daily (Paxil 30mg). I found out years ago that what I had read is correct - when you regularly take an SSRI, the drug Ecstasy will have almost no effect on you - the SSRI attaches it self to some of the same sites that the E wants to get to and blocks it. Not that I would want to because IMHO E is a "do it once learn what you can from it then grow up and move on" type drug, so no loss at all to me. All the less reason to worry about damanging my serotonergenic system in the longterm, which is what MDA neurotoxicity does (I know MDA is not MDMA, but a lot of MDMA/E sold on the streets IS MDA, and now, grotesquely enough, PMA - deadly stuff. During the one long-ago phase in my life when I was shooting a lot of meth, the needle-exchange lady who came out every month with 100 fresh points and a new sharps container said she used to shoot "Love Drug (MDA) in the 60s - s-h-e s-p-o-k-e l-i-k-e t-h-i-s to-you - she said her c10h12n2o levels were 40% lower than normal, so even though this is one isolated incident, it does demonstrate what NIDA has been saying about phenethylamine compounds for quite some time now - stay the hell away from them).
I won't get into the kids predosing with the 5HTP and Prozac, although there is some value to both.
So regular users of SSRIs won't get much/any effect (I could eat a gram of pure E and feel very little, except very uncomfortable) and since Ritalin IS chemically related (both being phenethylamines, meaning (naturally) that they are both aminoethylbenzene derivatives, I can't help but wonder if concurrent usage of Ritalin and an SSRI is either dangerous or at the least wasteful.
There is a LITTLE info here, but it is dated (note reference to DSM-IIIr)
http://www.biopsychiatry.com/methyl.htm
Anyway I just thought that might be worthy to mention. If you are a user of SSRIs you might think twice and then a third time about the potentially hazardous material called Ritalin. Besides, that chart in the URL I posted above I THINK showes current street prices. In the ghetto, Ritalin sell for $10 a pill.
Most people here seem to be well-educated and from all different walks of life, but I'd wager that most of you have read Brave New World. I want Huxley's Soma. The ultimate ecstasy drug with no bad side effects. Social and technical progress might slow - but we wouldn't care. Is that wrong? But that is a topic for another thread again...
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toe
GRAND Pooh-Bah
Reged: 10/10/02
Posts: 1522
Loc: MidWest USA
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I am familiar with some of Shulgin's work, and I've also read some of his stuff, as well. However, to be perfectly honest, the PDR and the BNF are my Shephards, I shall not want. . . as a the international lay pharmacologist's prayer goes, I believe.
One thing I would like to clear up regarding my earlier statement about the grand mal seizure brought on by the use two drugs prescribed to a child suffering ADHD and taken as prescribed. One was ritalin, as I made clear above. Unfortunately, my description of the other drug as "an anti-depressant" may have been misleading. The drug in question was Effexor--probably first generation, before XR. Effexor strongly inhibits both serotogenic reuptake and reuptake of norepinephrine, and weakly inhibits dopamine reuptake. (Note that Paxil also inhibits reuptake of all three, but because "it is a potent and highly selective inhibitor of serotonin. . .reuptake" and "has only very weak effects on norepinephrine and dopamine reuptake," it is classified as an SSRI.) Thus, you can see that , as far as potential interactions caused by the stagnation of nuerotransmitters go, Effexor is in quite a different class than any of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Effexor itself carries a seizure risk--a much higher one than an SSRI-- and thus is drug which should certainly not be taken concurrently with methylphenidate, which fundamentally lowers the seizure threshold.
Unfortunately, I cannot comment on the threat of seizure with Serraxa, the norepinephrine-reuptake inhibitor approved in the past year as the first non-scheduled drug for the treatment of ADHD, either in combination with methylphenidate or without, since my PDR is from 2001. Presumably the AMA's party line on this would be to do as much to discourage concommitant use of the two as possible, regardless of the safety issues.
However, I don't mean to dismiss any concerns that you might have about the possibility of a neurological event occuring during concommitant use of an SSRI and methylphenidate. I'm sure anyone who has ever had the experience of going on OR off an SSRI, especially those with the shorter half-lives (like Paxil or Zoloft), in particular in the care of a careless doctor, couldn't help but notice unusual neurological activity. Particularly evident in the clinical trials were neurological events including: numbness and tingling sensations (paresthesia) and overall bodily weakness (asthenia), tremors, excessive tiredness, dizziness, insomnia, and nausea. These side effects accounted for dropout rates, amongst the different trial groups tested, between 10 and 20%. Further study shows that the likelihood of experiencing all of these adverse neurological effects is dose dependant.
KISS (that's to me, BTW) Paroxetine obviously does a number on your brain, and not just in the ways you want it to. The adverse neurological events mentioned are only those that would be considered extremely common. I would definitely argue that Paxil let's your brain's guard down, which means lowering the seizure threshold.
Most SSRIs do this to a greater or lesser degree, and if you have ever had a grand mal seizure, you are hyper-vigilant about anything that might strike you as an unusual neurological event. In general, if you feel like your brain might be creeping on you, let's hope you--or anyone, for that matter--would have the sense not to add ritalin. Because, while SSRI's may lower the seizure threshold, methylphenidate actually causes them.
However, my inquiries have yet to produce an instance with an SSRI such as that with the Effexor. In the PDR records of the SSRIs that I have looked at (and I have looked at almost all of them, because I have been on almost all of them) I have found no SSRI that will send you to the hospital if you combine it with a drug in a reasonable amount, unless that drug is mentioned on a little yellow sticker on your prescription bottle.
So, chances are, Paxil and 10mg of ritalin a day are not going to give you a seizure or arrythmia. Nonetheless, please bear in mind that 1) Paxil causes drowsiness, fatigue, and general weakness in a very large percentage of it's patient population, and the higher your dose, the stronger the side effects. 2)Any doctor who prescribes Paxil should be willing to reckon with these adverse affects. . .If the benefits of the medication outweigh the side effects, the doctor should be ready and willing to prescribe a safeadult alternative to combat the adverse affects. Otherwise, alternate medications should be pursued.
Because it is a mind-altering drug, a stimulant, it's simply not a good idea to self administer methylphenidate if you are in treatment with an anti-depressant. What goes up, must come down.
--------------------
"It's the end of the World as We Know it. . ."
-REM "and I'm seeking asylum in Canada"-toe
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Sidamo
Newbie
Reged: 11/25/03
Posts: 31
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In response to Flippie's opinion on the detriments of Ritalin (methylphenidate) which is quoted here, I wrote some comments in rebuttal.
Please see this discussion thread for my comments.
In a nutshell, I respectfully disagree with Flippie about the relative danger of Ritalin vis a vis many other helpful drugs. However, I understand the point of view of those who feel strongly that Ritalin is bad. In my experience, it can be a real help to those with a genuine need, and the ability to regulate themselves.
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flippie
Member
Reged: 06/14/04
Posts: 147
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Sidamo:
Thank you for the great post. I wish that I could argue with you on the subject, but it looks like you have me outthunked at this point. I cannot argue that a lot of people are genuinely more productive and socially acceptable when they are on Ritalin, and not that I am admitting that I have ever used it illegally myself, I have probably once or twice stumbled on the edge of a carpet and accidently shoved one or two up my nose.
I do know plenty of people who happily buy them on the black market, and I posted a URL earlier that showed the results of a study that indicated that the black community prefered Ritalin to Preludin, which was the preference of white people in the area. I realize that sounds weird, especially to anyone who had an opportunity to try Preludin - I wonder if this site will automatically blank out the phrase "spontaneous orgasm the second the needle comes out"
Gotta love those phenethylamines. 
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freddds
Stranger
Reged: 01/22/05
Posts: 7
Loc: LA
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Quote:
This forum is not to discuss suppliers. This thread is to discuss Re: Ritalin - Methylphenidate and not the compnaies offering it. We have other forums for that.
Thank you for your support.
Edited by Melody (08/08/05 06:31 PM)
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AngelWolf13
Veteran
Reged: 07/07/04
Posts: 523
Loc: w/ my '91 EG-4 in SoCal....
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i am glad they don't make me take ritalin or concerta anymore. dexedrine is without a doubt and hands down the most, if not the only effective treatment for my adhd (severe). been on the same daily dose for years, what a difference, and a lifesaver!
from what i am gathering on this thread, it seems to me that dexedrine is way safer than ritalin. if this is true, then why does ritalin seem to be easier to obtain than dexedrine? does this have to do with the cost of manufacture? the availability of chemical components (seems unlikely), perhaps? it seems, nowadays, the safer the drug, the less likely it will be prescribed....
anyway, thanks all!
cheers, angel
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freddds
Stranger
Reged: 01/22/05
Posts: 7
Loc: LA
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WHERS DID you come up with this ??
Thanks Fred
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BamaChica
Veteran
Reged: 05/28/04
Posts: 696
Loc: Resident Bad Girl....
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Angel... i would like to know more about Dexedrine for your ADHD...my son has uncontrollable ADHD..or so that is the "label" they have given him. He is 11 and has been on Concerta,Strattera,Metadate,Ritalin, and Adderol, and now he is back on Metadate. He isnt really hyper, nor is he "bad" like you see some kids with behavior problems..He is near genius level IQ like most people with ADHD, and its just that he cannot seem to pay attn in school, and his Dr. is thinking that he falls in the 20% of people who's ADHD is not controlled by meds. he hasnt mentioned the dexedrine, so Im wondering if this is something they only use in Adults? Any info you can give is appreciated! thanks!
Holli
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AngelWolf13
Veteran
Reged: 07/07/04
Posts: 523
Loc: w/ my '91 EG-4 in SoCal....
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hi holli,
i am sorry to hear your son has adhd. actually, it sounds more like he has add (sans the hyperactivity). both add and adhd are treated effectively with the stimulant meds you indicated above. what i didn't know is that 20% of adhd sufferers are not helped with the adhd meds!
myself, i have had pretty bad adhd all my life. doctors usually say that kids w/ adhd grow up into adults with add, that the hyperactivity part wears off with age. i'm like, what, 37, and w/o my meds i am still extremely hyperactive. it is ridiculous, honestly, for someone my age to be like that.
throughout my life these are the meds i have taken for the condition and how they affected me...
cylert (pemoline)... no good, might as well have taken caffeine pills, made me jittery, did nothing to help me focus.
ritalin (methylphenidate)...helped a little, calmed me down, somewhat effective for my "hyperness", but didn't help my concentration. wasn't completely comfortable on it.
concerta (methylphenidate, sustained release)... almost exactly the same as ritalin, but, for me, anything sustained release seemed to be a lot less less effective, frankly. sounds strange, but my doctor understood that. i asked him if i could try dexedrine or adderall so he put me on dexedrine for a month.
dexedrine (dextroamphetamine)... wonderful! was effective 15 minutes after the first dose. i was calm and my concentration, while still not perfect, was dramatically improved. no temper tantrums (honestly, even at my age, i used to wake up and be on a rampage and bouncing off walls, still do when i forget to take my morning dose). i actually eat well and sleep better on dexedrine. the only problem i have with it is that, especially in the morning after i take my firse dose (2 x 10mg.) i am so much more calmer than i am normally, i frequently take a nap. it's hard to explain, but it doesn't make me feel light-headed or woozy or anything like that. i guess, just i feel my mind is clearer and because i am so active/angry otherwise, once my mind has had a chance to calm down, i tend to breathe easier and relax. plus, i am an "active" sleeper.
when i told my doctor how wonderful the dexedrine was, i asked him if the next step would be adderall. he said, no, if the dexedrine was effective, no need to try the adderall. plus, while adderall is essentially almost the same thing, dexedrine is a "purer" form of amphetamine, and because of that i figure less "other" unwanted effects as opposed to adderall which, imo, is "adulterated" dextroamphetamine. i surmise that adderall was invented #1 to make money on a new patent on an old idea, and #2 to make dextroamphetamine less "abusable". iow, to put a bunch of other [censored] in it that not only make it in essence weaker than the original, but also to discourage abuse by making it "uncomfortable" at high doses (i.e. the amphatime derivatives and other junk they put in there to make one jittery and anxious at higher doses, something pure dexedrine won't do) and harder to crush, snort and/or inject. either way, if there's all that other rubbish in the adderall, there is a good possibility i wouldn't feel as comfortable on it as i do on dexedrine. another thing to consider is your son might be like me in the sense that perhaps the sr (sustained release) or xr (extended release)stuff just isn't effective. that's usually what adderall is. i really don't get ups and downs on the immediate release stuff, so that's no problem with me.
strattera, i haven't tried, but i do not have much faith in non-amphetamine stuff. my doctor told me that though it would be easier to rx strattera as it (like that damned cylert) is not a sch II drug , he highly doubted it would be effective for me anyway, so he didn't waste my time. (i had a really great doctor!)
metadate, afaik, is also methylphenidate and if ritalin and concerta wasn't effective for him, i can't see why in the world his doctor would rx this! don't mean to be rude to his doctor, but i think that is silly. and, no, dexedrine isn't something they use only for adults. i think you should ask your doctor about letting your son give them a try. i mean it, it was the ONLY thing that ever worked for me, truly a lifesaver!!! oh, before i forget, i wanted to ask you if your son thought any one of the drugs he has tried has been more effective than the others and if so, in what way(s)?
the really frustrating thing about add/adhd, and i'm absolutely sure your son feels this way, luckily you're a good mom and caught it and are proactive in it's treatment (bravo to you!), is that even though he has a very high iq, it is tough getting anything done effectively or finish anything. the problem is we think faster than we are able to do things or talk, and we can't catch up with our brains. we think of a million things all at once and it is [censored] near impossible to train ourselves to think about one thing at a time. on dexedrine i am down to 50 or 60 thoughts at once.  i don't normally ever tell people this but i score a consistant 139 on iq tests, even with my adhd, and it drives me crazy that i can't ever get anything done! i am certain your son feels the same way, and as i can relate, i do sympathize. it's improtant that you understand this. i had a very traumatic childhood at home, partly due to undiagnosed adhd.
see? when i am not on my dexedrine? it took me no less than 2 and a half hours to complete this ONE post. after every couple of sentences i either start looking at other things in the room or i leave to do something else. i cannot believe it is 3:00 am already! more like 3 hours then... if i think of anything else i'll try to remember to post it. please let me know how things go with the doctor, ok? good luck and best wishes to you and your son.
cheers, angel
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AngelWolf13
Veteran
Reged: 07/07/04
Posts: 523
Loc: w/ my '91 EG-4 in SoCal....
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Quote:
..He is near genius level IQ like most people with ADHD, and its just that he cannot seem to pay attn in school, and his Dr. is thinking that he falls in the 20% of people who's ADHD is not controlled by meds.
hi holli,
i just reread your post again, pondering over what you said about your son's doctor's opinion that the meds your son had been on were ineffective.....
i have another thought. i cannot say, of course, whether or not your son has add. if he does then it should be treated by all means. but, i was thinking that, perhaps, your son is simply too advanced for his classes. it is known that if a child is very intelligent, in your son's case near genius level, then he would have problems paying attention in class because he is bored. a class that doesn't really teach him anything can't stimulate him. i wonder what would happen if he were allowed to jump ahead a grade or two. i don't know of that would pose new social problems, but he might be more attentive if his mind was challenged. he sounds like a very bright young man. you must be very proud of him!
just a thought. please, still keep me posted.
angel
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DMDIPP
Stranger
Reged: 03/23/05
Posts: 4
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This forum is not to discuss suppliers. This thread is to discuss Re: Ritalin - Methylphenidate and not the compnaies offering it. We have other forums for that.
Thank you for your support.
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cleo911
Veteran
Reged: 08/22/02
Posts: 617
Loc: The Hague
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This forum is not to discuss suppliers. This thread is to discuss Re: Ritalin - Methylphenidate and not the compnaies offering it. We have other forums for that.
Thank you for your support.
Edited by Melody (08/08/05 06:35 PM)
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RZeta
Stranger
Reged: 10/06/04
Posts: 15
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I used to be on methylphenidate for ADD for quite a long while. I was on 10 mg of the generic IR methylphenidate TID. The problem with methylphenidate, however, was that despite my increase in attentive qualities, the drug only lasted an hour...if that. I have since switched to the (d)-amphetamine SR capsules (generic for Dexedrine Controlled-Release Spansules) and the difference is night and day. D-amphetamine is much smoother than methylphenidate and has far fewer cardiac and PNS side-effects. As for Adderall, I was on Adderall a long time ago (Adderall XR did not even exist at this point) and found it to be about the same as enantiopure (D)-amphetamine, but with more cardiac effects (bad). In my opinion, there is really no need for Adderall to even be on the market (it could easily be replaced by difference formulations of (d)-amphetamine). The only reason it is on the market is one reason and one reason alone: $$$. Since (d)-amphetamine is long off-patent, Shire "invented" a new formulation of amphetamine salts and called it Obetrol (for "obesity-control"), but then soon shifted the indication to ADD and it took off like a rocket.
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shami
Stranger
Reged: 04/04/04
Posts: 3
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Many of you seem to know a great deal about these meds. i was woundering if anyone had an opinion about my situation. i am prescribed Lamictal (like nerotin) and Cymbalta for bipoler. but i take tremidol for pain and sometimes a bit more because it feels good. but i read that tremadol could lower the seizure threshold.
tremidol comes with the warning that you shouldn't take it when taking SSRI's because it can result in manic states of seizures.
does anyone know anything about the relationship between these things? also, i was looking for the safest stimulant considering all of the above, but from what i read in this thread the leagal stuff (ritalin) is more risky than the street stuff (meth amphed.) with the risk centered arond the seizer issue.
Thx!
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