here is some general information on dosing stimulants for ADHD.
Avoid caffeine completely
Really important: no caffeine when taking stimulants. Not just less, but consistently: none at all.
Caffeine is an adenosine antagonist, i.e. it inhibits adenosine. And adenosine inhibits dopamine. As a result, caffeine promotes dopamine.
Caffeine and stimulants are often well tolerated on their own, but when taken together they lead to cross-effects (e.g. tremors as with a stimulant overdose and/or other serious side effects).
After the stimulant dosage, i.e. when the right medication and the right dose have been found, you can easily recognize if side effects result from the new caffeine consumption and not from the medication.
Caffeine is found in coffee, black tea, green tea, cola, energy drinks; related substances are found in dark cocoa.
Read dosage guide
Dosing of medication for ADHD
Dosing medication requires a lot of experience and patience. Slow dosing avoids side effects and helps to achieve the optimum dose.
Use the dosing aid table
Especially important for women due to the menstrual cycle.
Download here:
Document your intake, symptoms and side effects daily.
Only ever assess the average of 3 days and from the 5th day at the earliest at the same dosage level.
Please refrain from asking in the forum about the effects of medication if you have not been taking the current dose for 5 days.
Dhe doctor is the yardstick
And of course: All tips and information here in the forum and at ADxS.org must never lead to disregarding medical instructions, but only serve to improve communication with the doctor.
I just want to confirm the “no use of caffeine”.
If anyone is interested in a personal story about caffeine+low dosis of stimulants:
I began taking Medanef (methylphenidate 10 + 10 mg, fastworking) after getting my diagnosis and had awful side-effects. My doctor have only once before seen a patient with so severe side effects from the medicine, so he was shoked. We fund out that it was partly because I did not tolerate methylphenidate very well at all - but the more crazy side-effects were because I had continued my previous use of 4-5 cups of coffee/day. My doctor had not told me that the stimulants in combination with caffeine can cause your body to react strongly.
Side effects I had while the meds were working?
shaking, inside and outside
tics in my face and suddenly muscle spasms (arms and legs) - never had that before in my life.
dizzy and feeling sick, fever-like
could not concentrate or interact with other people
lost visual focus
could not concentrate on anything anybody said to me or any movements around me
felt like someone had squeezed me up inside my abdominal area
felt like my muscles wanted to tighten all the time
my legs had strong cramps
walked into things /dropped things on the kitchen floor
Side-effects after 4 hours?
extreme fatigue, so much that I could not talk
lay down to sleep, but my body would not fall asleep for 24 hours
quietly crying and crying on and off for about 12 hours
felt total hopelessness and depression (felt like it did not come from me, but that someone switched on a severe depression in my brain)
had to lock myself in a room (my husband had to take care of the kids)
next morning: no feelings, no facial expressions, difficulty talking, super irritable towards my family/aggressive almost (not my normal temperament
After 48 hours I was completely back to normal
I changed to Elvanse (no side effects, at all) - and I have stoped drinking any caffeine!
Have tried shortlasting methylphenidate since, in combi with Elvanse (way to many negative sideeffects for me)
