A couple of years ago an Adder colleague expressed concern about my taking Adderal XR. She had read/heard that it was coming to be considered unsafe. Though I never "liked" the med, I tucked this advice aside & kept taking it, preferring to rely on the expertise of my psychiatrist because surely she was on top of things. I wish now that I'd refused it. I have just had a harrowing episode of cardiovascular ill health. Over a period of a couple of weeks I had three episodes of increasingly severe chest pain with shortness of breath. I was referred for a stress test (treadmill), which I flunked big time. My failure was not as I imagined. I didn't gradually run out of breath; it hit all at once. I collapsed. My heart rhythm was dangerously abnormal. After 11 days as an in-patient undergoing this & that procedure, this & that diagnostic test, this & that treatment--including an arterial stent for only one artery that wasn't really clogged that much--30-50%, otherwise too insignificant for stenting--was taken for a special heart catheterization during which doctors expected to find culprit arrhythmia abnormalities & ablate or cauterize their pathways. Turns out too there were too many for the procedure to make sense & I woke up with an implanted defibrillator. So why attribute to Adderall? Though I'm 59 y/o I had until around the time I began the med been a fairly dedicated aerobic dancer who thought nothing of hauling school stuff up & down stairs & racing down halls to make it to class in time. On Adderall my heart did its share of pounding & racing, a side effect I had thought, something I'd just have to get used to. My cholesterol was deemed negative for heart disease, my diet pretty healthy & I had few risk factors. Now I'm home, I have stamina & energy that I'd come to believe was gone for good. A funny thing: NOT taking the Adderall has made my mind, clearer & more peaceful, thus easier to manage. (my dx = AD/HD-I.) I struggled with the decision to write this because if I'd been on the receiving end of this post a couple of years ago I would have first written it off one way or another, and second, felt irritated at the writer for trying to dash my hope of badly needed executive function help that the meds appeared to promise. Maybe there's no connection. You decide. But after what I've been through--along with the prospect of sudden death had I not had medical intervention--I thought you should know.

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