Just started Strattera. I feel superhuman, but have some questions about the side effects.
Just started Strattera. I feel superhuman, but have some questions about the side effects.
I'm only on day 2, but I feel so able to concentrate, it's ridiculous. I know it's expected to take weeks to start working, but I'm feeling it already. I spent the morning reading wikipedia, catching up with work, and doing laundry that I hadn't done for weeks. Now, I'm gonna go out to eat at a restaurant with a friend and his kids. Is this what NTs feel like all the time, just able to focus without struggle and the motivation of looming despair??
However, I slept maybe 30 mins last night even though I took 12 mgs of melatonin throughout the night, and my male genitals are not working well. I also feel a bit irritable.
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Did anyone on Strattera have a similar experience? And did the side effects eventually go away?
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If so, how long did they take to subside? If not, what did you do about it?
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Did this ability to focus last too?
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I started at 40mg some years ago; I did indeed feel superhuman, but my sleep suffered periodically and I had some other side effects -- morning nausea sometimes, especially when combined with coffee.
I found ways to cope: reduce coffee intake, have some plain yogurt in the morning, as the protein seems to help buffer the stomach, medicate early in the morning (6:30am) and exercise hard after work to promote better sleep. Still, it was a drag, and too easy to miss a beat in my routine.
I had to quit taking Strattera for two years while attempting to become a pilot, but it turns out the FAA hates ADHD kids and once that fell through, I resumed at a much lower dosage of 25mg. While I don't feel quite as capable at the lower dose, the side effects are significantly more mild and I generally don't notice them. I still make sure to medicate no later than 7am, as a precaution, but there's no correlation between being medicated and having poor sleep.
TL;DR stick with it for a few days and don't hesitate to ask for a lower dose if you can't hack it. The drug does a world of good for me, and it promotes habits that persist even when I go unmedicated for awhile (e.g. on weekends and often while on vacation).
That sucks about the pilot stuff, but I'm happy the med works for you and thank you for sharing your experience and advice!