Which ADHD Meds Worked the Best for Me

I Am Not a Doctor, Nor Do I Play One on TV, So I Am Not Dispensing Medical Advice, Just Personal Experiences

Dear Reader Friends,

It’s your OG ADHD friend Denise with this timely message about ADHD meds. Why is it so timely? Well, really, it’s not timely. I mean, it’s top-of-mind timely for me only because I just discovered my ADHD meds comment on Quora.com got 32.5k views, which I’m told by Quora is a big f*cking deal (my words, not theirs). In that post, I shared my many frustrations with acquiring ADHD meds. Here is that post:

Before I ever took stimulants for my ADHD, I tried everything. Creatine. Mushroom supplements (no, not what you’re thinking — just boring Lion’s Mane, Turkey Tail, etc.). Saffron. Green tea (it makes my heart race). Magnesiun threonate. All of these are rumored to help you focus and give you energy, but I’ll be honest. They didn’t do shit for me. ADHDers who aren’t into dopamine-producing addictions work our collective asses off to feel normal and have energy. Some swear by cold plunges, but I have hypothyroidism, and if I did that, I’d be cold for the rest of the day. And I hate being cold. (Which is why I’m dying for a pool heater. I want to swim in bath water. Anything below 95 degrees is too cold for me.)

The one supplement that did hold promise for me was STASIS. (I’m not an affiliate marketer, don’t worry.) They had a morning pill and a nighttime pill. I could never remember to take the nighttime pill, and eventually I stopped taking it altogether because I freaked myself out that I was taking it incorrectly. If there was a supplement system for ADHD that I would try again, it would be that one.

The first time I took Adderall, I didn’t like the feeling at all. My chest felt tight and heavy. It was too much of an energy burst at one time, like a car with a super-fast accelerator and all at once, someone has their pedal to the metal. One of my friends nibbles on her Adderall tablets a little at a time, but they taste awful and I prefer a more precise dosage.

Eventually, I got a psychiatrist who charged me $250 for a literal 10-minute visit every 3 months. I had to drive 20 minutes over to his office in a super-creepy 1970s office building, and then I would sit there and ask him questions about various studies I’d read and the new things I’d learned from Dr. Russell Barkley on YouTube about ADHD. My shrink literally was taking notes on everything I told him because he said he wanted to research it as well. This kind of pissed me off because I felt I shouldn’t have to train my psychiatrist on ADHD. Wasn’t it his job to be interested enough in this topic to stay abreast of the latest research? (Or perhaps those notes were him building his case to have me committed . . . I never actually saw what he was writing down . . . )

Anyhow, that psychiatrist prescribed Vyvanse for me, which was a time-released stimulant. At the time, Vyvanse was still on patent, so I was paying $580/month out of pocket. I could have driven a really nice leased car for that amount, now that I think of it. A sexy car would have given me a short-term dopamine boost. I’ve literally flown to Spain round trip for less money.

Despite what many people think, it’s not addictive. At least, I don’t believe it is for those of us who legitimately have ADHD. I would get off of it on the weekends — with no side effects — because I felt like I needed a vacation from being so damned productive! I also am not a fan of taking medication of any kind, so I felt like it was better for my body to take a break. (Disclaimer Note: I’m NOT a doctor; what worked for me may not work for those of you reading this who have ADHD.)

I don’t recall my dosage, but it was the next dosage up from the starter dosage. My doctor bumped it up for the third time to the next higher dosage from that, and that dosage was way too much for me. I was not sleeping. (Conversation side bar: I differ from many ADHDers who struggle with insomnia because most of the time, my brain is so exhausted, I’m asleep within five minutes of climbing into bed. I only struggle with insomnia when I nap, because my naps turn into Rip van Winkle sleep-a-thons.)

The next time I saw my regular Nurse Practitioner, I complained to her that I had to pay $1,000 a year to get my Vyvanse prescriptions, in addition to the $580 I paid per month for the drugs. She was mortified and said these magic words: “I can just prescribe those for you. You don’t have to see a psychiatrist to get Vyvanse.” This was one of the greatest money-saving hacks of my ADHD life (at the time). Initially, she was hand-writing three months’ worth of prescriptions at a time for me, which was great. She was 40 minutes away from my house, so that saved me the extra driving.

And then Illinois changed the law again. She could no longer hand-write me three months of prescriptions, only one. But then I think the law changed again, and she was allowed to call them in to the pharmacy for three months’ worth at a time. And that’s when the snafu I mentioned in the above Quora post ensued. (I must not be alone in this frustration, since 30k+ people read my comment.)

If you legitimately have ADHD, I don’t understand why you cannot have an evergreen prescription that gets renewed with your annual physical. Why does it need to be renewed every three months if nothing changes with the ADHD patient’s health?

After a while, I felt like I was losing sleep on the Vyvanse, even at the middle dose. I was getting six hours of sleep and my norm is seven to eight hours.

When we moved to Florida last March, I fully ran out of my prescription. Since I’m self-employed, getting health insurance and a new doctor was a next-level nightmare that I won’t go into. It wasn’t until this past fall that I got a “health practitioner,” (an unnecessary five syllables vs. 2 syllables in “doctor”). It took me until 2025 to convince her I needed my ADHD drugs. I’d been raw-dogging it for months and it was rough. There were Saturdays when I was sleeping the entire night, up at 6 a.m. for 4 hours, back to sleep by 10 a.m., asleep straight through until 6 p.m. Then I’d eat dinner, watch TV, and be back in bed by 10 p.m. and sleep through until the next morning. Rinse, repeat. I wasn’t living. I was existing. I’ve never been so exhausted. I had no idea what was wrong with me. I didn’t like this “new normal.”

My doctor (I’ll call her that to be a rebel-without-a-pause) didn’t want to prescribe stimulants for me because of my age (61 next week), so she told me this: “My first line of defense with my ADHD patients is always Wellbutrin, (a.k.a. “buproprion") because it gives you the focus and energy without the stimulant effect.” I was willing to try anything, so I reluctantly agreed to take it. Within two days, I was no longer napping. I had focus. I was alert. I had energy!

I had some rough headaches in the beginning, but I read online that they go away after a while. They did. But then, the next symptom kicked in: the pounding, racing heart. When I went to bed at night, I’d lay there with my heart pounding so hard, I couldn’t sleep. Not every night, just some nights.

I returned to the doctor. She took me off of the “extended release” Wellbutrin and put me on the regular Wellbutrin. I haven’t told her yet, but I’m still having the same issue with the new drug.

What alternative does this leave me with?

I’ve been reading a lot about METHYLENE BLUE, which was a fabric dye that some adventurous person (probably the same hold-my-beer guy who thought licking toads was a good idea) decided to ingest and discovered these magical side effects, like renewed energy and mitochondrial improvements. There’s a viral video of RFK Jr. putting Blue Methylene drops in a cup on an airplane and drinking it, but I cannot be sure anything is real in this era of A.I.

One of my friends who has severe long Covid has been taking Methylene Blue and warned me that it turns your mouth blue, so if you’re going somewhere, you have to factor in the extra time for somehow un-dyeing your mouth. I’m unsure how that works, to be honest. Would you rinse your mouth out with diluted hydrogen peroxide? I have no idea. Also, because we ADHDers have no sense of time, we’d never remember to give ourselves enough lead time to un-dye our blue mouths.

One person mentioned they had to get a black toilet, because it turns your white toilet blue. (I’d just attribute it to toilet bowl cleaner or something.) My friend said she hasn’t experienced that side effect.

This morning I watched a video about this tech billionaire guy who the Kardashians interviewed. He’s dedicated his life to reversing the aging process. He looks amazing, and one of the supplements he takes is NAD. I’m not sure if it gives you energy, so I have to read up on it, but. . . take a guess what just got added to my Amazon cart.

If any of you reading this have had a good experience with a med or a supplement to help your ADHD, I’d love to hear from you (as would the people in the UK who seem to be experiencing a shortage of ADHD meds).

I’m running out of options . . .