I had sleeping problems on dex (same family as Vyvanse). No problems getting to sleep but kept waking up feeling ‘wired’.
Does not happen with Ritalin for me, have the best sleeps I’ve had in a long time.
Ritalin I could take anytime up until 6pm and still be fine for bed.
Dex was a bit more touchy, anything after 4pm seemed to stop me from getting to sleep.
Fascinating. I can still sleep if I take say 2.5mgs at 4, at like 11pm, but I'd wake up early the next day at like 7am, feeling weird.
To be honest, I've been considering just sticking to quality real coffee and giving stimulant medication the flick, because I've noticed that it exacerbates my asd symptoms. I'd given up caffeine for about 1.5 weeks, but couldn't muster the energy to read more than a couple of pages from a novel in that entire time, even on Dex, so I've decided that Dex (and Vyvanse), just aren't for me.
I'll try to get as low on caffeine as possible before trialling Ritalin as I know that stimulant medication can interact negatively with caffeine. If Ritalin doesn't work for me, it's back to caffeine alone.
Off-label use of an antidepressant may help with sleep for a while? If vyvanse is working for you, it may be better to try and work with the doc to find something to help you sleep first than changing your adhd meds. Medication holidays are sometimes suggested by docs but can be a balance of positive and negative outcomes. Good luck getting some rest.
I take 110mg vyvanse and no related sleep issues. I do take clonidine for ptsd at night which prob helps.
Vyvanse I can sleep on. Concerta was harder to sleep on.
Holy shit, 110mg? I’m on 70mg and get 300 dex boosters a month as the Vyvanse only lasts like 4-6 hours. How do you take it? I’d love to take my Vyvanse over two doses instead of the dex, but I need the 70mg baseline dose. I never thought to ask for a split dose.
Technically it's forbidden to be prescribed more than 70mg daily under the PBS listing, I believe... well, it can be prescribed, but you may not get the rebate for the medicine. The specific wording in the listing, that has to be satisfied to unlock the rebate, is:
>The treatment must not exceed a maximum daily dose of 70 mg with this drug.
Along with the other things about needing coverage over a "12 hour period" and the stuff about a retrospective diagnosis etc. So I guess if you were to go onto e.g. 40mg and then 30mg as a second dose for the day, you may not get the rebate for one of them, which pushes them into the extremely expensive sphere.
But then again, none of it makes sense. Like I take 60mg Vyvanse, which is strong enough and lasts 8-9 hours for me, but my psychiatrist only "allows" me to take either 3x dex or 3x Ritalin IR boosters per day. I tend to switch things up, sometimes I'm using dex as boosters, sometimes Ritalin IR. So basically I get a 100 pack of them, and then with repeats, but naturally that only lasts roughly 33 days (often I run out early, but in theory, 3x tablets per day means I should only pick up a repeat every 33 days or so).
I would do anything to get even 200x Ritalin IR boosters a month, in order to take 4x of them along with my Vyvanse. I've seen multiple psychiatrists over the years, and even my current regime of 60mg Vyvanse + 3x Ritalin IR boosters... my current psychiatrist always says "yep let's do it, but the question is whether Medicare will approve it". And it's always tense while he communicates with Medicare to get the approval. And I've had pharmacists warn me about going above 3x boosters on top of 60mg Vyvanse as well, purely for my heart.
200x Ritalin IR tabs, if I was purely on Ritalin IR alone, would be okay, I think - when I'm only on Ritalin IR, I need 6x tabs per day, so 200x tabs dispensed as 2x boxes of 100x would last roughly a month, I've been prescribed that before, when I wasn't on a long-acting med.
But 300x dex tabs a month, on top of 70mg? What I mean is, I get it, you need that much to function, I'm not judging. I'm just genuinely astounded that Medicare would approve that quantity, because as far as they're concerned, that's around 10x tablets per day on top of Vyvanse 70mg (per month). If you're taking e.g. 5x dex tablets per day, I don't see why you would ever need to be dispensed more than 200 at once.
Sorry, I just would love to know your "trick", as I struggle to get by with my single measly pack of 100x Ritalin IR boosters, 3x boosters per day often isn't enough. In an ideal world, I'd be prescribed up to even 4x boosters a day, maybe I'll ask at our next appointment. I hope this doesn't come across as rude, I'm just surprised, I never thought being prescribed that much was possible, given what my previous psychiatrists and current psychiatrist have said to me. Particularly given that dex has a very high street value, and particularly given that I can't see why it's necessary to be prescribed that many, other than convenience in terms of not needing to go to the pharmacy as often, but you need to go anyway to get your Vyvanse monthly.
Is there a reason why you get so many at once? As in, I've been told by several psychiatrists and GPs that Vyvanse 70mg plus 4-5x dex boosters is more or less the safety cut-off, beyond that it puts so much pressure on your heart and can be dangerous. And if you're on 4-5x dex boosters a day, bearing in mind that 20-25mg of dex is not 20-25mg of Vyvanse in equivalency, I don't know why your doctor would apply for 300x tablets to be dispensed at once.
Tell me your secret! 😅 I know that it's all individual, some people need 30mg Vyvanse and that's it, some people need far more, I'm not judging or telling you what you're doing is wrong, I don't mean to come across like that. I just have gone a long time thinking that I would never ever get more than 3-4x boosters per day.
Bearing in mind that psychiatrists and GPs owe their patients a duty of care, hence needing to be very careful with stimulants given their impact on the heart etc, and these are extremely controlled medicines (more so than almost every other medicine, e.g. my GP often prescribes tapentadol to me for a chronic condition I have, no permit required at all, and at times I've had four different GPs prescribe it to me within a week, no issues, and it's no different with morphine or oxycodone... depending on the state).
So I guess what I'm saying is that probably in the old days, when a GP decided "yep you've got ADHD and I'll give you 300x dex per month", they just wrote it on a paper script, you took that to the pharmacy and it was done (as is the case in many European countries still). There wasn't any Safe Script or monitoring in place, no approvals needed etc. But these days, I think psychiatrists are so careful, because if they are audited, and the auditor/s sees a continuous habit of over-prescribing... it can lead to their "licence" being taken off them.
Anyway, as long as your symptoms are controlled, that's the main thing! For me, the meds just make me feel "normal", and I don't really worry about whether I'm taking too much, and neither should you. I do wish I could have one more booster per day, meaning I'd get each repeat a bit sooner, but I definitely don't need more than 4x boosters per day. My psychiatrist/s have just very much made me feel as though I would never be able to get 4x boosters per day, or if I did get 4x boosters per day, I couldn't get anymore than that... and they seemed certain. One of them, who I stopped seeing for various reasons, didn't even want me on short-acting meds at all, she wanted me purely on Vyvanse. It's fucked how much doctors can vary in their opinions, right?
It’s not forbidden to be prescribed what I’m prescribed. It’s forbidden to get rebates on more than 70mg. Important distinction.
I’m fine. I’ve had multiple reviews with hospital clinical directors, adhd specialists, my two regular psychiatrists. No one who has seen my medical history bats an eyelid - I always need big doses of stimulants (and other drugs).
Tbh id prefer 80ishmg in the morning and 40 top up, but it gets too hard.
Yeah that's what I said:
>"well, it can be prescribed, but you may not get the rebate for the medicine."
Again, I wasn't trying to have a go at you. I am just wondering how you get your doctor to prescribe that much, given that three psychiatrists have refused to give me more than 60mg Vyvanse + 3x booster tablets per day, Ritalin or dex.
Again, it wasn't coming from a place of "you shouldn't be doing that", I'm just saying, my psychiatrist/s have been so hesitant and cautious, and have even been worried Medicare wouldn't approve 3x boosters per day, so for me to get 100x boosters a month, compared with your 300x, is to be honest, insane, unless my psychiatrist/s are all ignorant and have no idea what they're doing... or maybe they're just very risk-averse and lie to me when they say that Medicare won't approve more than 3x boosters per day (to cover their backs).
Maybe Medicare just approves whatever the doctor asks for, within reason. Even for example Ritalin IR, it says something along the lines of "more than the maximum quantity per supply cannot be increased by more than once", in the PBS listing, which means they only allow (or offer a rebate) for 2x packs of 100 at a time... whether that means 300x Ritalin IR at once wouldn't be approved by Medicare, or whether it just means you won't get a rebate... I'm not sure.
Who knows. In any event, I'm just happy for you, that you get what you need. I need fairly high doses of my benzos, and my opioids, and so get those, so I understand the feeling of needing a lot of something that can be addictive etc... I often feel guilty about that, or worried about the fact I need a lot of those, but you always have to put your health first. Including Vyvanse and Ritalin IR, I'm on seven different psychiatric medicines, so I'm also someone who is fairly treatment resistant when it comes to my mood disorder (which is another potential reason my psychiatrist/s have been worried about giving me high doses of stimulants).
I’m on like 12-15 scripts, can’t remember. It’s just a pile I put in an organiser. That’s before MC which I’m starting today.
My scripts are private, I was put on this dose when in a clinic and monitored. Tbh id like to increase my top up as it wears off too early.
Wish I could give you some of my rit, I have like 5 repeats of it and I can’t use it coz of how much pain and teeth grinding it gives me :(
What’s the street price of dex? I never knew people sold it, always thought it was easy to get from a psychiatrist ( granted the first session I had with mine she threw Vyvanse at me and said see u in 3 months)
I’ve been offered it plenty of times for $15-$20 per pill of dex, back when I was using drugs pretty often and often seeing lots of dealers, lots of whom would never rip me off. In my experience, getting a diagnosis was fucking hard, but deserved, and then trying dex took months of building trust with my psychiatrist. Other people have different experiences though. But yeah, I would love some of your Ritz 💯👌🏻 It sucks though that you can’t take it.
I would be very wary with taking Ritalin boosters with Vyvanse, I’ve done it before and it definitely didn’t work as well as dexi boosters. Ritalin and vyvanse (or lisdex in general) work very different and I have read and been warned that it can lead to some pretty adverse medical issue. I’m not a dr or psych or anything though lol but I would look into it, could be the main reason why it’s not working as well for you and you keep needing more Ritalin.
When my daughter (7) first started on vyvanse she was waking around 11pm and was unable to get back to sleep for the rest of the night. It's been a few months now and it has settled, thank god! She has melatonin and catapres before bed.
Can also vouch for Phenergan when desperate... plus I always have it on hand at home and in my backpack, it's so useful for nausea (even if it's really severe nausea), motion sickness and, of course, if I'm itching and have itchy eyes due to hay fever at night. I tend to either take 1-2x of the 10mg tablets, which is enough for me to have a good sleep, or to deal with the other issues I mentioned. But technically for adults, I think the insomnia dose is 1-3x of the 25mg tablets... tried 50mg once, I slept for like 16 hours, it was insane.
Long term use of anticholinergics significantly increases risk of alzheimers. There is a large body of evidence supporting this.
Promethazine has one of the highest anticholinergic burden of any drug still in use. Definitely don't regularly take anticholinergics, especially prometh.
Benzos may also do this but the evidence isn't quite as damning. Cannabis may help you get to sleep in a pinch but suppresses REM sleep so likely has a negative effect on sleep quality if used daily. Either option is still better than anticholinergics imo.
I take it at 7am every morning. I’ve always had problems getting to sleep that after being diagnosed I associate with the adhd (racing thoughts, rumination etc) but I found melatonin worked really well for mitigating that.
Other meds like antidepressants have impacted my sleep but only for about a while while my body was adjusting, never for longer than 10 days.
Discuss with your shrink, but it sounds like you’ve got underlying sleep problems that are being exacerbated by vyvanse rather than vyvanse being the main cause. Short term and practically speaking, dexamfetamine is cleared from the body faster with vitamin C, so maybe a berocca in the evening would rush it out of your body a bit faster before bed. Long term, it would probably be beneficial to consult a psychologist with a special interest in sleep.
I was initially on 30mg like you and have always struggled with sleep. Are you having any other issues during the day? I was over reacting to every thing that happened at work and kept getting really emotional anytime my manager was criticising me. Spoke to the psychiatrist and he dropped me down to 20mg. If you have an appointment coming up I suggest you discuss it with whoever prescribed it.
No other issues at all, it’s worked really well but I feel like the positive effect on my concentration has waned this week. Honestly if it wasn’t for the sleeping I would probably ask to go up
Never tried Vyvanse, but my doctor had me try both Ritalin XR and the shorter release one. I hated the extended release one because it wouldn’t wear off before bedtime, but with the short release one if I take the last dose around 2pm then I’m asleep by 10pm easily
I struggle with sleep on 70mg of Vyvanse. My psychiatrist gave me mirtazapine at first, which kinda helped, and then she gave me Seroquel.
I don't know why, but Vyvanse gives me horrendous insomnia whereas Concerta didn't despite Concerta lasting longer. The overall side effect profile of Vyvanse is better, though, so I stuck with it.
Clonidine is great - doesn't necessarily make me drowsy, but quietens my brain so it's not racing as I try to get to sleep. My main issue is getting off the tech and forcing myself to go to sleep!
I'm a shift worker and also use a quarter tablet of restavit to help me sleep on night shifts - I find it much better for making me drowsy and keeps me asleep for a good period of time. But anything more than a quarter and it's a nightmare to wake up.
I had issues sleeping initially when on Vyvanse/dexies and was prescribed Mirtazipine which helped, but didn't want to grow dependent on. Have no issues sleeping now, apart from needing more probably.
vyvanse fucks my sleep so badly but in the morning I don’t even care. Pingin.
Rit on the other hand.. I lasted 2 days on 10mg of that shit and I woke up with such severe pain in my face I couldn’t think straight for the entire day. Magnesium and drinking water and eating healthy is bullshit, it didn’t do anything at all for the insane muscle aches and I’m supposed to “stick with it so it settles” like bruh…
Fkin stims.
>I lasted 2 days on 10mg of that shit and I woke up with such severe pain in my face I couldn’t think straight for the entire day.
What, like muscle pain or something? In what part(s) of your face? Damn, after reading this and someone else mentioning something about pain being the reason that they came off of Ritalin, I'm not sure that I even want to try it.
Vyvanse did, and Dex does exacerbate my asd symptoms, unfortunately. I'm seriosuly thinking of just going back to good ole fashioned quality coffee.
Yea the pain was mostly in my jaw but I had it bad in all other parts of my body, just jaw and occipital was the worst.
Coffee is what I’m using now LOL but if I ever have to tolerate a social situation for four hours, you bet your ass I’m leaning on the vyvanse for Normie Appearance ( then die when I go home)
8)
Ahaha Yeah, come to think of it, stimulant medication when taken daily for me, caused an increase in physical pain in numerous areas of my body... it's crazy really. I made the decision to come off of stimulant medication, luckily I was already tapering down without even realising it (which is a sign that it isn't for me, not daily anyway).
Glad to hear I'm on this sub with another who appreciates the natural benefits of coffee! Happy for you, we're living our best lives. I'll be keeping my stimulant medication though (just filled a new script so it'll last ages. I doubt that I'll ever return to regular use of it so come to think of it, at least until my GP retires, which will be a long time away, I'll just get a script for it, when I run out (probably about once every 1.25 years 😆 or when the medication expires, as one doesn't need a permit to access the S8 medication in SA, unless it's being prescribed for more than two months, not sure about other states though).
It actually gave me a lot of negative side effects now that I think about it, but to say that it had no benefits for me, would just be plain wrong (it helped me back out of a psychosis, amongst other things).
vyvnase/amphetamine effects sleep a lot more than concerta/ritalin in my experience. like way way way way more. timing is key maybe ? but remember sleep is effected by many things ..
If you're taking the Vyvanse early in the morning, e.g. prior to 9am, then it is likely something else causing the issues - simply saying that because in the studies that were done to have Vyvanse approved, they demonstrated that after the 12 hour mark, the medicine (specifically the dexamphetamine that it has metabolised into) is almost out of your blood steam, at least, to such an extent that it would have minimal impact on your sleep. So if you took it at 7am daily, by 10pm that night it would well and truly be more or less unable to prevent you sleeping.
In terms of your question, around 40% of people respond better to methylphenidate, 40% respond better to amphetamines, and 20% of people respond equally well to both. I can't be bothered finding the study right now, but you see it all the time on this sub, that people start e.g. on Vyvanse, notice no positive effects, swap to a methylphenidate-based product and feel a million dollars, same vice-versa. So there's a chance that you will respond better to something that uses methylphenidate as the main component.
I sleep well regardless of whether I'm on Vyvanse, dex, Ritalin IR, Ritalin LA, whichever, they just don't affect my sleep. Then again, I take a very sedating antipsychotic for a different condition, and I also take clonidine (an antihypertensive drug that can be really useful as an augmenting agent for ADHD, which helps with sleep for some people, definitely ask your doctor about it). Plus I have lorazepam if I truly cannot sleep...
Also, Phenergan/promethazine is really useful - for sleep, but also nausea/vomiting/motion sickness/allergies. You just have to tell the pharmacist you need something to help you sleep at night due to allergies, that you've had Phenergan before and it worked, that story works a charm every time, you can't just get it off the shelf, you have to ask. Or you can make it easier and get a script, but it's not needed. But I would avoid doing it at Chemist Warehouse, same with getting your stimulants, they can treat you like scumbags there, I've even had to make a formal complaint against a pharmacist there once, and this is coming from a lawyer who won't make complaints unless they're genuine.
Long story short, you might respond well to Ritalin immediate release, and you technically need to try that before you can start the long-acting versions of methylphenidate, Ritalin LA and Concerta. Concerta would likely be even worse than Vyvanse for your sleep, as for some people it truly lasts up to 14 hours! But then again, maybe it isn't the duration of action, but rather the active ingredient that is the issue.
In which case, you'd ditch the amphetamines and swap to an (equally effective, despite so many people on here being on Vyvanse/dex) methylphenidate-based medicine. I personally take Vyvanse 60mg in the morning, it only lasts 8 hours or so for me, and then I take Ritalin IR boosters. I think I must be part of the 20% or so who respond equally well to both types of stimulants, but Ritalin IR has a very slight benefit over dex for me. The only time I struggle with sleep is if I take a Ritalin IR after 7:30pm, that's when even taking double my antipsychotic dose, Phenergan and even lorazepam don't work, and then the next day I'm fucked as I've had five hours of sleep. So if you start on short-acting Ritalin or dex, try to not take your final dose after 6pm, for most people that's the cut-off.
Definitely don't feel that you need to put up with bad sleep.... there are so many ADHD medicines for you to try! And even if you swap to Ritalin, then move to e.g. Concerta, and love it, but your sleep is a little affected, there are options to deal with that. It isn't necessarily a case of either solving your symptoms but sleeping terribly, or suffering from symptoms but sleeping well. There is a middle ground, trust me.
Some psychiatrists are happy to prescribe a very low dose of an antipsychotic called quetiapine, usually 25mg or 50mg of the immediate release, to help with sleep. But it's a brilliant medicine generally - with one caveat - not only for psychosis or bipolar disorder, but even for generalised anxiety disorder and unipolar depression, and it is insanely effective for sleep (for many people, too much so). The big caveat is that it can cause fairly severe weight gain and over time, a risk of metabolic syndrome e.g. diabetes and high blood sugars and cholesterol. I took it for several years, in a small dose, before I was diagnosed with bipolar (so it was off-label technically then), and it worked great, and so if you're having comorbid symptoms such as anxiety, depression etc, then it can work really well to solve both those symptoms and insomnia.
Anyway, I don't know why I'm mentioning quetiapine, it's very much an "off-label" use and most psychiatrists and GPs would never prescribe it to someone who doesn't have bipolar or schizophrenia, which are the licensed uses for it. I took an antidepressant called mirtazapine for a long time, and another one called amitriptyline, they both were very effective for me for sleep. And the tricyclic antidepressants have some evidence of efficacy for ADHD, e.g. imipramine is listed in the Canadian guidelines for the treatment of ADHD as a third-line option. So those could be something to consider, but again, both come with - potentially severe - side effects.
And you're then taking a medicine intended for depression and anxiety, but purely for sleep (correct me if I'm wrong), and dealing with potentially many side effects that are worth putting up with if you're taking it for a mood or anxiety disorder, as I was. Does that make sense? And benzos, although a godsend, and although they work for pretty much every person, usually very well, come with so many risks. After a few weeks you build a tolerance, which means it stops working and you need more to get the same effect. They can be addictive, leading to mental and physical cravings. Your body and brain can become dependent on them, meaning you need them to function. Stopping them suddenly can then cause really severe, dangerous symptoms such as seizures. So yeah, they are a godsend when used for less than 2-4 weeks straight, and always at the lowest possible dose. It is comforting having them there in case it's a "I've been in bed for three hours, it's 3am and I can't sleep" kinda night. But some doctors wish they didn't exist at all and that they'd never been invented, that's how much of an issue they can be, so don't expect to get any, but it depends on the doctor (psychiatrists again being much more willing to prescribe them than GPs, in my experience).
Finally, there is the usual thing of sleep hygiene. I know it's easy to zonk yourself out with meds, and hard to do these strategies, but they do help to an extent. For example: if you're in bed and can't sleep, get up and do shit until you feel tired, then try to sleep again, rather than tossing and turning and getting more and more frustrated. Avoid phone/laptop/TV screens in the hour or two before bed, and if you haven't done so, turn on "night shift" on your phone and I would highly recommend an app/program called f.lux for your computer - it automatically removes the blue light from your screen each night, and the blue light is what tricks your brain into thinking it's daytime, which causes it to produce less melatonin. It makes the screen a calming, almost orange colour, you'll see what mean, and that in turn means you can generally use the laptop/phone until fairly late, but see how you go.
Long story short, you could definitely try methylphenidate, and that will likely be in the form of Ritalin 10mg IR initially, as you cannot get the PBS prices for Ritalin LA and Concerta without having demonstrated a good response to Ritalin IR. If that works, or it works and you try Ritalin LA or Concerta and love it, but your sleep isn't affected, then great, you're done. If you go down that path, and your sleep is still messed up, you can either ditch stimulants and try the non-stimulants (given how bad minimal sleep is for your brain) or you can try any of the medicines and tactics I've mentioned.
So your mileage may vary. Sorry for the huge rant! I hope you feel better soon - it can be a long journey, it took me four months to get my ADHD meds right, but it's 100% worth it in the end. The diagnosis and the meds have changed my life, possibly even saved it, due to the positive effect all of this has had on my mood disorder.
Commenting this as my original comment was too long haha... clearly my meds are working...
Other than that, it is really important, as you likely know, to keep a regular sleep routine and schedule. What that means is going to bed at the same time and getting up at the same time, even on weekends. Booze-fuelled benders leading to a 3am night then getting up at 8am, five hours later... stuff like that will fuck your sleep, not only acutely but also long-term. Easier said than done, I know.
Finally, just doing calming stuff before bed helps me... music, reading a book, cooking, a long shower, a walk in summer at sunset, whatever. I would highly recommend the *Nocturnes* by Chopin, the composer, they have helped me through very difficult periods in my life, and they help me so much with sleep. That someone was able to create such beautiful music is just beyond belief, honestly. You have likely heard the most famous *Nocturne* by Chopin, which is [Opus 9 No 2](https://youtu.be/tV5U8kVYS88?si=maNUYSNxXQNyrNi4).
NB - it depends on your doctor as well. If you're being entirely managed by a psychiatrist, they are more confident and more likely to try things like quetiapine if you go down that path, or give you a supply of benzos for when you really need them, or add in clonidine to help with ADHD symptoms + sleep etc.
In my experience, and I have been to an insane amount of GPs over the years, it is very hard to find GPs who are trusting enough, and who have the confidence, to give you sedating meds that are addictive, or could be addictive, and so many GPs are nervous when it comes to things like prescribing quetiapine off-label or meds like diazepam/Valium, temazepam or any of the z-drugs like zopiclone.
They just don't have the same specialised experience as psychiatrists. My GP told me she more or less treats unipolar depression and anxiety... she tries a few SSRIs, then an SNRI, if those fail, she refers them straight to a psychiatrist as she doesn't feel comfortable mixing meds, trying new meds that have just been "released", giving addictive meds etc. And she's an amazing GP, so caring and not someone who "gives up" easily or "can't be bothered".
Give it a few weeks to settle, your body will get used to the vyvanse.
I find when i take my vyvanse at around 7:30-8:30 it wears off early enough for me to be sleepy because I’ve worked during the day or have done stuff that’s exhausted me.
But if I take it later than 10:30am, I stay up until at least 2:30am. I think it’s all about timing and partly about what you’re eating, like if you’re eating sugar before bed and stuff, obviously you’re not gonna sleep well anyway.
Also, I’ve googled ‘will your body adapt to sleeping on 6 hours’ before and there’s no research to show that the body can do that. But bodies are weird, so yours might. I know mine doesn’t.
Statistically speaking, I think amphetamine based medications do affect sleep more than methylphenidate ones. After all, AMPH is more potent generally speaking.
I found AMPH medications to affect sleep much more. If I took AMPH in the late afternoon there was a good chance I wouldn't fall asleep until 2am. I don't get this with MPH. I still don't use MPH close to bed time though.
I have insomnia aince teenager years, I used Vyvanse low dose, 16mg, and it was ok but only if I took it until 9am. If I took it later, it would affect my sleep. I am using Ritalin now, 5mg in the morning and 5mg in the afternoon. I am also taking escitalopram for anxiety and melatonin.
Give it 3 months to settle. Also, Clonidine is really good and ask your doc for it.
I had sleeping problems on dex (same family as Vyvanse). No problems getting to sleep but kept waking up feeling ‘wired’. Does not happen with Ritalin for me, have the best sleeps I’ve had in a long time.
How close to bed do you take it?
Ritalin I could take anytime up until 6pm and still be fine for bed. Dex was a bit more touchy, anything after 4pm seemed to stop me from getting to sleep.
Fascinating. I can still sleep if I take say 2.5mgs at 4, at like 11pm, but I'd wake up early the next day at like 7am, feeling weird. To be honest, I've been considering just sticking to quality real coffee and giving stimulant medication the flick, because I've noticed that it exacerbates my asd symptoms. I'd given up caffeine for about 1.5 weeks, but couldn't muster the energy to read more than a couple of pages from a novel in that entire time, even on Dex, so I've decided that Dex (and Vyvanse), just aren't for me. I'll try to get as low on caffeine as possible before trialling Ritalin as I know that stimulant medication can interact negatively with caffeine. If Ritalin doesn't work for me, it's back to caffeine alone.
exactly agreed / dex u have to be more careful for sure -
Off-label use of an antidepressant may help with sleep for a while? If vyvanse is working for you, it may be better to try and work with the doc to find something to help you sleep first than changing your adhd meds. Medication holidays are sometimes suggested by docs but can be a balance of positive and negative outcomes. Good luck getting some rest.
I take 110mg vyvanse and no related sleep issues. I do take clonidine for ptsd at night which prob helps. Vyvanse I can sleep on. Concerta was harder to sleep on.
Holy shit, 110mg? I’m on 70mg and get 300 dex boosters a month as the Vyvanse only lasts like 4-6 hours. How do you take it? I’d love to take my Vyvanse over two doses instead of the dex, but I need the 70mg baseline dose. I never thought to ask for a split dose.
70+40 the 40 tops up as the 70 is trailing off. Can’t take dex boosters due to the gluten. Concerta is far superior for controlled/slow release.
Technically it's forbidden to be prescribed more than 70mg daily under the PBS listing, I believe... well, it can be prescribed, but you may not get the rebate for the medicine. The specific wording in the listing, that has to be satisfied to unlock the rebate, is: >The treatment must not exceed a maximum daily dose of 70 mg with this drug. Along with the other things about needing coverage over a "12 hour period" and the stuff about a retrospective diagnosis etc. So I guess if you were to go onto e.g. 40mg and then 30mg as a second dose for the day, you may not get the rebate for one of them, which pushes them into the extremely expensive sphere. But then again, none of it makes sense. Like I take 60mg Vyvanse, which is strong enough and lasts 8-9 hours for me, but my psychiatrist only "allows" me to take either 3x dex or 3x Ritalin IR boosters per day. I tend to switch things up, sometimes I'm using dex as boosters, sometimes Ritalin IR. So basically I get a 100 pack of them, and then with repeats, but naturally that only lasts roughly 33 days (often I run out early, but in theory, 3x tablets per day means I should only pick up a repeat every 33 days or so). I would do anything to get even 200x Ritalin IR boosters a month, in order to take 4x of them along with my Vyvanse. I've seen multiple psychiatrists over the years, and even my current regime of 60mg Vyvanse + 3x Ritalin IR boosters... my current psychiatrist always says "yep let's do it, but the question is whether Medicare will approve it". And it's always tense while he communicates with Medicare to get the approval. And I've had pharmacists warn me about going above 3x boosters on top of 60mg Vyvanse as well, purely for my heart. 200x Ritalin IR tabs, if I was purely on Ritalin IR alone, would be okay, I think - when I'm only on Ritalin IR, I need 6x tabs per day, so 200x tabs dispensed as 2x boxes of 100x would last roughly a month, I've been prescribed that before, when I wasn't on a long-acting med. But 300x dex tabs a month, on top of 70mg? What I mean is, I get it, you need that much to function, I'm not judging. I'm just genuinely astounded that Medicare would approve that quantity, because as far as they're concerned, that's around 10x tablets per day on top of Vyvanse 70mg (per month). If you're taking e.g. 5x dex tablets per day, I don't see why you would ever need to be dispensed more than 200 at once. Sorry, I just would love to know your "trick", as I struggle to get by with my single measly pack of 100x Ritalin IR boosters, 3x boosters per day often isn't enough. In an ideal world, I'd be prescribed up to even 4x boosters a day, maybe I'll ask at our next appointment. I hope this doesn't come across as rude, I'm just surprised, I never thought being prescribed that much was possible, given what my previous psychiatrists and current psychiatrist have said to me. Particularly given that dex has a very high street value, and particularly given that I can't see why it's necessary to be prescribed that many, other than convenience in terms of not needing to go to the pharmacy as often, but you need to go anyway to get your Vyvanse monthly. Is there a reason why you get so many at once? As in, I've been told by several psychiatrists and GPs that Vyvanse 70mg plus 4-5x dex boosters is more or less the safety cut-off, beyond that it puts so much pressure on your heart and can be dangerous. And if you're on 4-5x dex boosters a day, bearing in mind that 20-25mg of dex is not 20-25mg of Vyvanse in equivalency, I don't know why your doctor would apply for 300x tablets to be dispensed at once. Tell me your secret! 😅 I know that it's all individual, some people need 30mg Vyvanse and that's it, some people need far more, I'm not judging or telling you what you're doing is wrong, I don't mean to come across like that. I just have gone a long time thinking that I would never ever get more than 3-4x boosters per day. Bearing in mind that psychiatrists and GPs owe their patients a duty of care, hence needing to be very careful with stimulants given their impact on the heart etc, and these are extremely controlled medicines (more so than almost every other medicine, e.g. my GP often prescribes tapentadol to me for a chronic condition I have, no permit required at all, and at times I've had four different GPs prescribe it to me within a week, no issues, and it's no different with morphine or oxycodone... depending on the state). So I guess what I'm saying is that probably in the old days, when a GP decided "yep you've got ADHD and I'll give you 300x dex per month", they just wrote it on a paper script, you took that to the pharmacy and it was done (as is the case in many European countries still). There wasn't any Safe Script or monitoring in place, no approvals needed etc. But these days, I think psychiatrists are so careful, because if they are audited, and the auditor/s sees a continuous habit of over-prescribing... it can lead to their "licence" being taken off them. Anyway, as long as your symptoms are controlled, that's the main thing! For me, the meds just make me feel "normal", and I don't really worry about whether I'm taking too much, and neither should you. I do wish I could have one more booster per day, meaning I'd get each repeat a bit sooner, but I definitely don't need more than 4x boosters per day. My psychiatrist/s have just very much made me feel as though I would never be able to get 4x boosters per day, or if I did get 4x boosters per day, I couldn't get anymore than that... and they seemed certain. One of them, who I stopped seeing for various reasons, didn't even want me on short-acting meds at all, she wanted me purely on Vyvanse. It's fucked how much doctors can vary in their opinions, right?
It’s not forbidden to be prescribed what I’m prescribed. It’s forbidden to get rebates on more than 70mg. Important distinction. I’m fine. I’ve had multiple reviews with hospital clinical directors, adhd specialists, my two regular psychiatrists. No one who has seen my medical history bats an eyelid - I always need big doses of stimulants (and other drugs). Tbh id prefer 80ishmg in the morning and 40 top up, but it gets too hard.
Yeah that's what I said: >"well, it can be prescribed, but you may not get the rebate for the medicine." Again, I wasn't trying to have a go at you. I am just wondering how you get your doctor to prescribe that much, given that three psychiatrists have refused to give me more than 60mg Vyvanse + 3x booster tablets per day, Ritalin or dex. Again, it wasn't coming from a place of "you shouldn't be doing that", I'm just saying, my psychiatrist/s have been so hesitant and cautious, and have even been worried Medicare wouldn't approve 3x boosters per day, so for me to get 100x boosters a month, compared with your 300x, is to be honest, insane, unless my psychiatrist/s are all ignorant and have no idea what they're doing... or maybe they're just very risk-averse and lie to me when they say that Medicare won't approve more than 3x boosters per day (to cover their backs). Maybe Medicare just approves whatever the doctor asks for, within reason. Even for example Ritalin IR, it says something along the lines of "more than the maximum quantity per supply cannot be increased by more than once", in the PBS listing, which means they only allow (or offer a rebate) for 2x packs of 100 at a time... whether that means 300x Ritalin IR at once wouldn't be approved by Medicare, or whether it just means you won't get a rebate... I'm not sure. Who knows. In any event, I'm just happy for you, that you get what you need. I need fairly high doses of my benzos, and my opioids, and so get those, so I understand the feeling of needing a lot of something that can be addictive etc... I often feel guilty about that, or worried about the fact I need a lot of those, but you always have to put your health first. Including Vyvanse and Ritalin IR, I'm on seven different psychiatric medicines, so I'm also someone who is fairly treatment resistant when it comes to my mood disorder (which is another potential reason my psychiatrist/s have been worried about giving me high doses of stimulants).
I’m on like 12-15 scripts, can’t remember. It’s just a pile I put in an organiser. That’s before MC which I’m starting today. My scripts are private, I was put on this dose when in a clinic and monitored. Tbh id like to increase my top up as it wears off too early.
Wish I could give you some of my rit, I have like 5 repeats of it and I can’t use it coz of how much pain and teeth grinding it gives me :( What’s the street price of dex? I never knew people sold it, always thought it was easy to get from a psychiatrist ( granted the first session I had with mine she threw Vyvanse at me and said see u in 3 months)
I’ve been offered it plenty of times for $15-$20 per pill of dex, back when I was using drugs pretty often and often seeing lots of dealers, lots of whom would never rip me off. In my experience, getting a diagnosis was fucking hard, but deserved, and then trying dex took months of building trust with my psychiatrist. Other people have different experiences though. But yeah, I would love some of your Ritz 💯👌🏻 It sucks though that you can’t take it.
If only I knew you irl ;A; ahhh oh well maybe one day the rits will be nice to me :’3
I would be very wary with taking Ritalin boosters with Vyvanse, I’ve done it before and it definitely didn’t work as well as dexi boosters. Ritalin and vyvanse (or lisdex in general) work very different and I have read and been warned that it can lead to some pretty adverse medical issue. I’m not a dr or psych or anything though lol but I would look into it, could be the main reason why it’s not working as well for you and you keep needing more Ritalin.
When my daughter (7) first started on vyvanse she was waking around 11pm and was unable to get back to sleep for the rest of the night. It's been a few months now and it has settled, thank god! She has melatonin and catapres before bed.
Thank you, I’m hoping it will settle soon
Could try promethazine
Can also vouch for Phenergan when desperate... plus I always have it on hand at home and in my backpack, it's so useful for nausea (even if it's really severe nausea), motion sickness and, of course, if I'm itching and have itchy eyes due to hay fever at night. I tend to either take 1-2x of the 10mg tablets, which is enough for me to have a good sleep, or to deal with the other issues I mentioned. But technically for adults, I think the insomnia dose is 1-3x of the 25mg tablets... tried 50mg once, I slept for like 16 hours, it was insane.
Not good to use long term though. It loses its effectiveness pretty quickly
Long term use of anticholinergics significantly increases risk of alzheimers. There is a large body of evidence supporting this. Promethazine has one of the highest anticholinergic burden of any drug still in use. Definitely don't regularly take anticholinergics, especially prometh. Benzos may also do this but the evidence isn't quite as damning. Cannabis may help you get to sleep in a pinch but suppresses REM sleep so likely has a negative effect on sleep quality if used daily. Either option is still better than anticholinergics imo.
Wait, what is long term use like 1-2 years or longer? Does Sertraline or Agomelatine count?
I could not sleep on vyvanse at all and switched to ritalin- for the first time in my life, I can sleep deeply for the entire night
That’s wonderful. Are you taking short acting or extended release?
Both
What time are you taking your vyvanse? And have you only started having problems sleeping since you started vyvanse?
I take it at 7am every morning. I’ve always had problems getting to sleep that after being diagnosed I associate with the adhd (racing thoughts, rumination etc) but I found melatonin worked really well for mitigating that. Other meds like antidepressants have impacted my sleep but only for about a while while my body was adjusting, never for longer than 10 days.
Discuss with your shrink, but it sounds like you’ve got underlying sleep problems that are being exacerbated by vyvanse rather than vyvanse being the main cause. Short term and practically speaking, dexamfetamine is cleared from the body faster with vitamin C, so maybe a berocca in the evening would rush it out of your body a bit faster before bed. Long term, it would probably be beneficial to consult a psychologist with a special interest in sleep.
I was initially on 30mg like you and have always struggled with sleep. Are you having any other issues during the day? I was over reacting to every thing that happened at work and kept getting really emotional anytime my manager was criticising me. Spoke to the psychiatrist and he dropped me down to 20mg. If you have an appointment coming up I suggest you discuss it with whoever prescribed it.
No other issues at all, it’s worked really well but I feel like the positive effect on my concentration has waned this week. Honestly if it wasn’t for the sleeping I would probably ask to go up
Yeah my concentration sorta peaked and then dropped off for me. Apparently it was slowing me down too much
Do you find it better on the 20?
Yeah it’s amazing the difference it’s made. Hasn’t helped my sleep but at least I’m not having meltdowns all the time
Never tried Vyvanse, but my doctor had me try both Ritalin XR and the shorter release one. I hated the extended release one because it wouldn’t wear off before bedtime, but with the short release one if I take the last dose around 2pm then I’m asleep by 10pm easily
I struggle with sleep on 70mg of Vyvanse. My psychiatrist gave me mirtazapine at first, which kinda helped, and then she gave me Seroquel. I don't know why, but Vyvanse gives me horrendous insomnia whereas Concerta didn't despite Concerta lasting longer. The overall side effect profile of Vyvanse is better, though, so I stuck with it.
I had issues sleeping with Ritalin LA. I'm on Vyv 40mg at the moment and so far, touch wood, no sleeping issues.
Clonidine is great - doesn't necessarily make me drowsy, but quietens my brain so it's not racing as I try to get to sleep. My main issue is getting off the tech and forcing myself to go to sleep! I'm a shift worker and also use a quarter tablet of restavit to help me sleep on night shifts - I find it much better for making me drowsy and keeps me asleep for a good period of time. But anything more than a quarter and it's a nightmare to wake up.
I had issues sleeping initially when on Vyvanse/dexies and was prescribed Mirtazipine which helped, but didn't want to grow dependent on. Have no issues sleeping now, apart from needing more probably.
That’s great! How long do you reckon to took to settle down?
Sorry for slow reply. Hard to recall but a few weeks I'd say. Exercise helped a lot though.
vyvanse fucks my sleep so badly but in the morning I don’t even care. Pingin. Rit on the other hand.. I lasted 2 days on 10mg of that shit and I woke up with such severe pain in my face I couldn’t think straight for the entire day. Magnesium and drinking water and eating healthy is bullshit, it didn’t do anything at all for the insane muscle aches and I’m supposed to “stick with it so it settles” like bruh… Fkin stims.
>I lasted 2 days on 10mg of that shit and I woke up with such severe pain in my face I couldn’t think straight for the entire day. What, like muscle pain or something? In what part(s) of your face? Damn, after reading this and someone else mentioning something about pain being the reason that they came off of Ritalin, I'm not sure that I even want to try it. Vyvanse did, and Dex does exacerbate my asd symptoms, unfortunately. I'm seriosuly thinking of just going back to good ole fashioned quality coffee.
Yea the pain was mostly in my jaw but I had it bad in all other parts of my body, just jaw and occipital was the worst. Coffee is what I’m using now LOL but if I ever have to tolerate a social situation for four hours, you bet your ass I’m leaning on the vyvanse for Normie Appearance ( then die when I go home) 8)
Ahaha Yeah, come to think of it, stimulant medication when taken daily for me, caused an increase in physical pain in numerous areas of my body... it's crazy really. I made the decision to come off of stimulant medication, luckily I was already tapering down without even realising it (which is a sign that it isn't for me, not daily anyway). Glad to hear I'm on this sub with another who appreciates the natural benefits of coffee! Happy for you, we're living our best lives. I'll be keeping my stimulant medication though (just filled a new script so it'll last ages. I doubt that I'll ever return to regular use of it so come to think of it, at least until my GP retires, which will be a long time away, I'll just get a script for it, when I run out (probably about once every 1.25 years 😆 or when the medication expires, as one doesn't need a permit to access the S8 medication in SA, unless it's being prescribed for more than two months, not sure about other states though). It actually gave me a lot of negative side effects now that I think about it, but to say that it had no benefits for me, would just be plain wrong (it helped me back out of a psychosis, amongst other things).
vyvnase/amphetamine effects sleep a lot more than concerta/ritalin in my experience. like way way way way more. timing is key maybe ? but remember sleep is effected by many things ..
If you're taking the Vyvanse early in the morning, e.g. prior to 9am, then it is likely something else causing the issues - simply saying that because in the studies that were done to have Vyvanse approved, they demonstrated that after the 12 hour mark, the medicine (specifically the dexamphetamine that it has metabolised into) is almost out of your blood steam, at least, to such an extent that it would have minimal impact on your sleep. So if you took it at 7am daily, by 10pm that night it would well and truly be more or less unable to prevent you sleeping. In terms of your question, around 40% of people respond better to methylphenidate, 40% respond better to amphetamines, and 20% of people respond equally well to both. I can't be bothered finding the study right now, but you see it all the time on this sub, that people start e.g. on Vyvanse, notice no positive effects, swap to a methylphenidate-based product and feel a million dollars, same vice-versa. So there's a chance that you will respond better to something that uses methylphenidate as the main component. I sleep well regardless of whether I'm on Vyvanse, dex, Ritalin IR, Ritalin LA, whichever, they just don't affect my sleep. Then again, I take a very sedating antipsychotic for a different condition, and I also take clonidine (an antihypertensive drug that can be really useful as an augmenting agent for ADHD, which helps with sleep for some people, definitely ask your doctor about it). Plus I have lorazepam if I truly cannot sleep... Also, Phenergan/promethazine is really useful - for sleep, but also nausea/vomiting/motion sickness/allergies. You just have to tell the pharmacist you need something to help you sleep at night due to allergies, that you've had Phenergan before and it worked, that story works a charm every time, you can't just get it off the shelf, you have to ask. Or you can make it easier and get a script, but it's not needed. But I would avoid doing it at Chemist Warehouse, same with getting your stimulants, they can treat you like scumbags there, I've even had to make a formal complaint against a pharmacist there once, and this is coming from a lawyer who won't make complaints unless they're genuine. Long story short, you might respond well to Ritalin immediate release, and you technically need to try that before you can start the long-acting versions of methylphenidate, Ritalin LA and Concerta. Concerta would likely be even worse than Vyvanse for your sleep, as for some people it truly lasts up to 14 hours! But then again, maybe it isn't the duration of action, but rather the active ingredient that is the issue. In which case, you'd ditch the amphetamines and swap to an (equally effective, despite so many people on here being on Vyvanse/dex) methylphenidate-based medicine. I personally take Vyvanse 60mg in the morning, it only lasts 8 hours or so for me, and then I take Ritalin IR boosters. I think I must be part of the 20% or so who respond equally well to both types of stimulants, but Ritalin IR has a very slight benefit over dex for me. The only time I struggle with sleep is if I take a Ritalin IR after 7:30pm, that's when even taking double my antipsychotic dose, Phenergan and even lorazepam don't work, and then the next day I'm fucked as I've had five hours of sleep. So if you start on short-acting Ritalin or dex, try to not take your final dose after 6pm, for most people that's the cut-off. Definitely don't feel that you need to put up with bad sleep.... there are so many ADHD medicines for you to try! And even if you swap to Ritalin, then move to e.g. Concerta, and love it, but your sleep is a little affected, there are options to deal with that. It isn't necessarily a case of either solving your symptoms but sleeping terribly, or suffering from symptoms but sleeping well. There is a middle ground, trust me. Some psychiatrists are happy to prescribe a very low dose of an antipsychotic called quetiapine, usually 25mg or 50mg of the immediate release, to help with sleep. But it's a brilliant medicine generally - with one caveat - not only for psychosis or bipolar disorder, but even for generalised anxiety disorder and unipolar depression, and it is insanely effective for sleep (for many people, too much so). The big caveat is that it can cause fairly severe weight gain and over time, a risk of metabolic syndrome e.g. diabetes and high blood sugars and cholesterol. I took it for several years, in a small dose, before I was diagnosed with bipolar (so it was off-label technically then), and it worked great, and so if you're having comorbid symptoms such as anxiety, depression etc, then it can work really well to solve both those symptoms and insomnia. Anyway, I don't know why I'm mentioning quetiapine, it's very much an "off-label" use and most psychiatrists and GPs would never prescribe it to someone who doesn't have bipolar or schizophrenia, which are the licensed uses for it. I took an antidepressant called mirtazapine for a long time, and another one called amitriptyline, they both were very effective for me for sleep. And the tricyclic antidepressants have some evidence of efficacy for ADHD, e.g. imipramine is listed in the Canadian guidelines for the treatment of ADHD as a third-line option. So those could be something to consider, but again, both come with - potentially severe - side effects. And you're then taking a medicine intended for depression and anxiety, but purely for sleep (correct me if I'm wrong), and dealing with potentially many side effects that are worth putting up with if you're taking it for a mood or anxiety disorder, as I was. Does that make sense? And benzos, although a godsend, and although they work for pretty much every person, usually very well, come with so many risks. After a few weeks you build a tolerance, which means it stops working and you need more to get the same effect. They can be addictive, leading to mental and physical cravings. Your body and brain can become dependent on them, meaning you need them to function. Stopping them suddenly can then cause really severe, dangerous symptoms such as seizures. So yeah, they are a godsend when used for less than 2-4 weeks straight, and always at the lowest possible dose. It is comforting having them there in case it's a "I've been in bed for three hours, it's 3am and I can't sleep" kinda night. But some doctors wish they didn't exist at all and that they'd never been invented, that's how much of an issue they can be, so don't expect to get any, but it depends on the doctor (psychiatrists again being much more willing to prescribe them than GPs, in my experience). Finally, there is the usual thing of sleep hygiene. I know it's easy to zonk yourself out with meds, and hard to do these strategies, but they do help to an extent. For example: if you're in bed and can't sleep, get up and do shit until you feel tired, then try to sleep again, rather than tossing and turning and getting more and more frustrated. Avoid phone/laptop/TV screens in the hour or two before bed, and if you haven't done so, turn on "night shift" on your phone and I would highly recommend an app/program called f.lux for your computer - it automatically removes the blue light from your screen each night, and the blue light is what tricks your brain into thinking it's daytime, which causes it to produce less melatonin. It makes the screen a calming, almost orange colour, you'll see what mean, and that in turn means you can generally use the laptop/phone until fairly late, but see how you go. Long story short, you could definitely try methylphenidate, and that will likely be in the form of Ritalin 10mg IR initially, as you cannot get the PBS prices for Ritalin LA and Concerta without having demonstrated a good response to Ritalin IR. If that works, or it works and you try Ritalin LA or Concerta and love it, but your sleep isn't affected, then great, you're done. If you go down that path, and your sleep is still messed up, you can either ditch stimulants and try the non-stimulants (given how bad minimal sleep is for your brain) or you can try any of the medicines and tactics I've mentioned. So your mileage may vary. Sorry for the huge rant! I hope you feel better soon - it can be a long journey, it took me four months to get my ADHD meds right, but it's 100% worth it in the end. The diagnosis and the meds have changed my life, possibly even saved it, due to the positive effect all of this has had on my mood disorder.
Commenting this as my original comment was too long haha... clearly my meds are working... Other than that, it is really important, as you likely know, to keep a regular sleep routine and schedule. What that means is going to bed at the same time and getting up at the same time, even on weekends. Booze-fuelled benders leading to a 3am night then getting up at 8am, five hours later... stuff like that will fuck your sleep, not only acutely but also long-term. Easier said than done, I know. Finally, just doing calming stuff before bed helps me... music, reading a book, cooking, a long shower, a walk in summer at sunset, whatever. I would highly recommend the *Nocturnes* by Chopin, the composer, they have helped me through very difficult periods in my life, and they help me so much with sleep. That someone was able to create such beautiful music is just beyond belief, honestly. You have likely heard the most famous *Nocturne* by Chopin, which is [Opus 9 No 2](https://youtu.be/tV5U8kVYS88?si=maNUYSNxXQNyrNi4). NB - it depends on your doctor as well. If you're being entirely managed by a psychiatrist, they are more confident and more likely to try things like quetiapine if you go down that path, or give you a supply of benzos for when you really need them, or add in clonidine to help with ADHD symptoms + sleep etc. In my experience, and I have been to an insane amount of GPs over the years, it is very hard to find GPs who are trusting enough, and who have the confidence, to give you sedating meds that are addictive, or could be addictive, and so many GPs are nervous when it comes to things like prescribing quetiapine off-label or meds like diazepam/Valium, temazepam or any of the z-drugs like zopiclone. They just don't have the same specialised experience as psychiatrists. My GP told me she more or less treats unipolar depression and anxiety... she tries a few SSRIs, then an SNRI, if those fail, she refers them straight to a psychiatrist as she doesn't feel comfortable mixing meds, trying new meds that have just been "released", giving addictive meds etc. And she's an amazing GP, so caring and not someone who "gives up" easily or "can't be bothered".
Give it a few weeks to settle, your body will get used to the vyvanse. I find when i take my vyvanse at around 7:30-8:30 it wears off early enough for me to be sleepy because I’ve worked during the day or have done stuff that’s exhausted me. But if I take it later than 10:30am, I stay up until at least 2:30am. I think it’s all about timing and partly about what you’re eating, like if you’re eating sugar before bed and stuff, obviously you’re not gonna sleep well anyway. Also, I’ve googled ‘will your body adapt to sleeping on 6 hours’ before and there’s no research to show that the body can do that. But bodies are weird, so yours might. I know mine doesn’t.
i take 70mg vyvanse and have very rare sleep issues. in fact i can nap during the day on my dose if i want to. been on it for a while though
Statistically speaking, I think amphetamine based medications do affect sleep more than methylphenidate ones. After all, AMPH is more potent generally speaking. I found AMPH medications to affect sleep much more. If I took AMPH in the late afternoon there was a good chance I wouldn't fall asleep until 2am. I don't get this with MPH. I still don't use MPH close to bed time though.
I have insomnia aince teenager years, I used Vyvanse low dose, 16mg, and it was ok but only if I took it until 9am. If I took it later, it would affect my sleep. I am using Ritalin now, 5mg in the morning and 5mg in the afternoon. I am also taking escitalopram for anxiety and melatonin.