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as soon as you can, look into what your state offers for low cost or subsidized health insurance. Often you can get onto a basic health ppo/hmo plan for very little money a month. if you need the medicine - you need it. not taking it isnt a good idea...talk to your dr about if a lower cost generic stimulant may work for you. I take strattera 100mg also. i dont take it on the weekends to prolong the rx. because it needs to build up in your system...if you are off it for even a short period of time - the fog of add will quickly come back and if you resume taking it again at a later point - youll lave to restart taking small doses -building it back up into your system before you go back to the 100mg dose. by sunday afternoon i usually feel like a space cadet again until i take it again monday morning for my work week.

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I have never had a client show any more than slight improvement on this medication. It essentially is an antidepressant and therefore does not work as effectively as the stimulants or ADD-care. When you stop any antidepressant without gradually reducing dosage it is possible to have symptoms such as being tired, confused, irritable, spacey, and I have had clients say that they felt electrical charges go off in their heads. It isn't very dangerous, but it makes sense to taper the dosage before quitting altogether.

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I'm a physician and specialize in the treatment of ADD/ADHD in children and adults. I have taken Strattera since 2004 and find it life-changing. I took Concerta for several years and also tried Adderall before Strattera came out. They were amazing, too, but don't work "around the clock", so I still prefer Strattera for myself.

I want to address some things that Jef Gazley said that are not correct. Strattera is not an anti-depressant in any way. I have my patients do comparative trials of several medications, and many of them find it more effective than the stimulants. I don't have a "favorite medicine", and there is not a single medicine that a majority of my patients take. But, Strattera has worked well for hundreds of my patients, and they have had the chance to compare its effectiveness personally to the stimulants. I am not sure why Mr. Gazley has not seen success with it.

Second, there is precious little research that compares medication effectiveness, but in the few trials done comparing Strattera vs. stimulants, there is no basis to say that either is better.

Third, there are over 500 published, peer-reviewed studies to help us understand Strattera. I couldn't find any for ADD-Care. There is no basis to say whether it works as well as Strattera, but there certainly is a strong, scientific basis to say that Strattera works quite well over time in many patients.

Finally, discontinuation studies have been done on Strattera, and the side effects reported were not the same as Mr. Gazley reported for anti-depressant discontinuation. I doubt that there is any harm in gradually reducing the dosage as he suggested, but it is not necessary either.

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I just started taking Adderall XR last weekend, and I think I will have to switch to a non-stimulant. I haven't been back to the doctor yet, but can definitely tell it's raising my blood pressure. Feel tingly and slight chest pressure. Probably not good for an overweight 52 year old. This is my first medication try for ADHD, was diagnosed last spring. (Self-diagnosed long before that, after my daughter was diagnosed and I put the pieces of the puzzle together.) My biggest concern is that she is on Strattera too, and while it's better than nothing, it still doesn't work as good as the stimulants did. We had to take her off those, she developed a strong eye tic. Runs in the family on her dad's side, not mine. Wish there were more alternatives for non-stimulants, especially for us folks with blood pressure concerns. I don't want something that puts me to sleep, either, tired enough as it is! ( I WAS kind of looking forward to the appetite suppresant side, but not worth a trip to the ER with a heart attack!)

Any suggestions?

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This was the first medication i have used. I find it very helpful. I finally feel like i am in control. I do not feel anxious or fidgety anymore. It took a little why getting used to. It does give me very bad dry mouth. At first it made me sleep to much during the day. So i stopped taking it first thing in the morning and now i take it around dinner time. Now I am able to sleep at an appropriate time. Before I started taking it I had really bad insomnia. When I don't take it I can definitely feel the difference.

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This was the first medication i have used. I find it very helpful. I finally feel like i am in control. I do not feel anxious or fidgety anymore. It took a little why getting used to. It does give me very bad dry mouth. At first it made me sleep to much during the day. So i stopped taking it first thing in the morning and now i take it around dinner time. Now I am able to sleep at an appropriate time. Before I started taking it I had really bad insomnia. When I don't take it I can definitely feel the difference.

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My son took Straterra for about 8 weeks. I had to take him off it. It was horrible for him. Poor kidwas jumping out of his skin on it. I felt so guilty and bad for him. Once I took him off of Straterra he was much better. Tenex seems to work for him. He has ADHD/LD.

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I started my son on Straterra in August. It was the worse thing I could have done. The night of Day 2 of taking the medication, my son had seizure-type activity at bedtime. He was rolling around on the bed making yelling noises. He was in a trance-like state and was not aware when I entered the room. I had trouble getting him calmed down. These episodes began happening each night after that. They even started happening earlier in the evening, at which time he would walk through the house in a trance-like state, walking into walls, around tables. He even tried to walk down the stairs in our home and I had to stop him so that he didn't injure himself. I called his doctor on Day 3 of taking the medication and he told me to stop the Straterra, which I did. The other thing that happened immediately is that he started complaining of being sad and he didn't know why. I told the doctor about it. He referred us to a psychiatrist for further treatment. The episodes have continued since even though we stopped the Straterra after the 3rd dose. The trance-like episodes started happening in the morning, and very recently after talking to his teacher, we think that he goes into a trance-like state periodically at school. When he is in the trance-like state the morning or during the day, he babbles or talks like a baby; he can hear you and follow instructions, but can be defiant. When he comes out of the trance-like state, he doesn't remember anything during that time. We're still trying to resolve/reverse this problem but have not been successful yet. Has anyone seen or experienced anything like this with Straterra before.

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I am a 54 year old male who has been on Straterra. It has been life changing for me. The daily anxiety I had about EVERYTHING is gone. My ADD symptoms have diminished significantly. I tried Vyvanse and did not do well. While taking Straterra I get dry mouth, lower urinary tract symptoms, ejaculation dysfunction and diminished libido. Any suggestions for managing these SE? Thank you

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