Concerta: Yay or Nay?

I feel ill today.  Yesterday my Lamictal dose was upped to 125 and I’m still adjusting I guess.  I don’t know if it’s what I ate, or if I’m going to get my period soon (sorry if that’s tmi) but my stomach just hurts.  It’s maybe very slightly nauseating, but mostly just painful.  I feel more spaced out too and I’ve noticed that my memory is not as good.  I don’t know if its from this drug or not but I just seem to find myself zoning out more, or feeling helpless in social situations because mid conversation my mind will go blank and I can’t seem to find the right words, or I lose track of what we’ve been talking about or else I stop paying attention all together.

I took a test at the psychiatrists office testing my attentiveness to determine if I have ADHD and on Monday I went back and took it again after he prescribed me one Ritalin tablet.  I tested 24% better which is considered to be a signifigant difference compared to the average 5-10% improvement.  The downside is that the Ritalin made me anxious,  moody, nauseated, spacy and hyperfocused at the same time and by the end of the day I was extremely ragey and my nerves couldn’t handle anything.  I felt really sick and just plain awful.  I talked to my psychiatrist that same day and told him I wasn’t feeling great and asked if he could prescribe me Concerta instead of Ritalin to see if maybe the extended release would be easier on my system instead of getting the full dose all at once.  It didn’t help.  I took one yesterday and felt extremely nauseated all morning.  I felt a bit better after eating some lunch and I even felt half decent and energized after lunch so I actually went downstairs and worked out for like the first time in months.  After that it all went majorly downhill.  I began to feel nauseated again and nothing seemed to relieve it.  I became very spaced out to the point where when I was trying to crochet and watch a movie on my laptop I couldn’t do both, I could not multitask.  And as for watching the movie, I basically just stared at the screen more then actually taking in what was actually going on in the movie.  It was brutal.  I was supposed to go visit a friend last night but I had to text her and cancel because I didn’t trust myself to drive in such a state.  I couldn’t even think clearly, and even texting back and forth I had a hard time finding the right words.  My head felt funny all day too, kind of tingly on the very top.  I didn’t take one today because I had things to do and couldn’t risk having a repeat of yesterday.  If anyone reading this has taken Concerta, is this a normal reaction when you’re starting this drug?  And the bigger question is: will it get better if I stick it out, for even a week?  I’m taking the lowest dose which is 18mg.  I can’t imagine it would be any better on a higher dose.

Is there a better alternative to treating ADHD that doesn’t involve Ritalin or Concerta?  Let me know.

Spacing out

I feel strange today.  It’s cold outside so I stayed home basically all day working on a new piece of art and doing laundry and watching movies.  I actually felt generally good but I could feel this pressing saddness that was just off in the distance and I felt sort of fragile, like I could easily cry at any moment.  I’ve also been really spacy lately and it’s starting to really bother me.  I’ve been forgetting things more then normal.  My memory is already bad but it seems worse lately, like someone could be telling me a basic instruction and I would forget it instantly as soon as they were done talking and I acknoweldged that I understood.  It’s very frustrating.  I was at my sisters house tonight watching a movie and I plugged the kettle in to boil water and as soon as it clicked off and I got up to go make the tea I would instantly be distracted by something, like the movie or conversation and then sit down again and it would be gone from my mind.  My sister reminded me of the kettle so I got up and made my cup of tea and left it on the counter to steep and went back to the living room for a few minutes and again completely forgot about my cup.  A little while later my sister reminded me that my tea was probably ready and it bothered me a lot that I had completely forgotten about it.  I feel like my brain has been functioning like this for a few days now and I’m not sure why.  I’ve been making an effort to eat better, and get work done and trying to get in a decent amount of sleep.  I feel generally happier then I have in a while but this spaciness seems to be getting worse.  I’m not on any medications either so that’s not the problem.  Maybe it’s another sign that I need to be on medications?  I really don’t know.  I even feel this sort of fuzziness in my head and it’s a bit of a struggle to string together words to form clear thoughts that I’m trying to communicate…

I do not like this feeling one bit.