Adderall: College Students' Best Friend-- Or Worst Enemy??

I read your post on taking Adderall with no diagnosis of ADHD with interest as I have been taking Adderall for approximately 28 years and I also have not been diagnosed with ADHD.I was however diagnosed with Idiopathic Hypersomnia and Adderall is the drug of choice for treatment. Because I was unable to stay awake for any length of time (after sleeping all night within 20 minutes of waking I was falling asleep again) I really had no choice if I wanted to function. I felt like I had lead instead of blood in my veins. I was so tired It was difficult to talk. Driving became too dangerous. If I sat down I fell asleep. Since I had two children ages three and ten I had to be alert for them. Even if I took a nap in the afternoons I was asleep by 8:00pTm whether or not I wanted to be or not. I didn't have the option of taking another dose to get thru the evening because according to doctors and my sleep study, even sleeping 10 or 12 hours (sometimes up to 16) I was getting half the REM sleep I needed. Therefore no matter how much I slept I was sleep deprived. Adderall changed my life! At least while it was working. Basically it was just overriding my sleep deprivation and I was "Running on Empty.

My Experience taking Adderall for all these years is; I'm convinced if you don't have ADD, Adderall gives it to you. My short term memory is basically nonexistent although some days are better than others. I have such difficulty holding on to thoughts I'm often unable to explain what I'm trying to say. (this post took a lot of time and retyping). I have long term memory problems as well though not as bad. I lose words, sentences, thoughts, ideas but I'm full of frustration. So those of you who can function without Adderall although not as well might want to reconsider taking a "mind altering" drug you don't need. I had no choice because I could not stay awake for over 20-30 minutes without requiring a 3-4 hour nap. I mm ay as well have been dead no more than I was able to function. Yes I'm still taking it. Yes I still struggle to stay awake...sometimes even after taking my dose.
If I had it to do over I would take it again so I could have a life. But you who take it for improved performance... YOU ARE BEING STUPID. There are long time effects from taking it.

I am in a sleep study program at Emory University (look up "Emory University Sleeping Beauty" for more an this disorder) hoping they will find out what causes my problem, but until then I don't have a any other option. YOU DO!

Please let me correct you since you seem to be under the impression something I said was incorrect however you have failed to provide any evidence to support your claims. I however in every single one of my posts have provided detailed technical information that is easily verifiable, and provided citation to my claims. Any person's response lacking these qualities should be taken as false. No exceptions.

"it contains variations of both dextroamphedamine & methamphedamine, neither one shown very safe in clinical tests for addiction, altered perception affecting decision-making & inciting various bodily maladys like coronary, nervous system and respiratory problems."

It's funny that you say a good place to start is wikipedia, and then you go on to demonstrate you have not read the wikipedia page. Adderall contains absolutely 0 methamphetamine. It is comprised of a 3:1 dextroamphetamine & levoamphetamine salt mixture. You can verify this on drugs.com which allows you to look up all the information on any prescription drug. Dextro & levo amphetamine are entantiomers of the same molecule - meaning the mirror image. Dextroamphetamine 3-4x more potent than levoamphetamine because it binds more readily to the TAAR1 binding site(1)(2).

" it contains variations of both dextroamphedamine & methamphedamine, neither one shown very safe in clinical tests for addiction, altered perception affecting decision-making & inciting various bodily maladys like coronary, nervous system and respiratory problems."

Ignoring that you spelled amphetamine wrong in both instances, and that adderall contains NO methamphetamine as the wikipedia page you encourage people to read states.. Adderall has been shown to be very safe clinically - please provide citation to this assertion. If you go to the citation (3) at the bottom you will find a publication stating that the short term health effects are clinically insignificant. If you go to citation (4) at the bottom you will find a publication stating that the short term and long term cardiovascular effects on children are clinically insignificant. You will also find no studies on the wikipedia page you encouraged people to read saying that long term health effects are a concern. Or any study to support any of the claims that you have made.

"It's affects a person's sense of awareness, similar to methamphedamine (speed) in that the subject feels 'on top of the world', 'no problem too big to handle', 'i'm very focused and alert, amazing', and the such all the way to 'wow, I've drank more beer than i ever have at one time in my life and I still feel great. I think I'll have another!'. The problem here is that doctors have become complacent about prescribing Adderall because it's an easy way to mitigate depression, ADHD, sometimes sexual issues, obesity among others."

Please learn how to spell amphetamine if you want people to take you seriously. Please provide citation that adderall is similar to methamphetamine in physiological effect. I take adderall and assure you none of what you have described in how adderall feels. Adderall is not used to treat depression, and it is not used for sexual issues. Please provide citation for these claims. Adderall would be counter-productive in males for sexual dysfunction. Adderall is not FDA approved for treatment of sexual disorders or for depression - this is easily verified. In fact that wikipedia page you again said was a good place to start tells you the only things it's approved for. While I don't doubt there might be some MD using it for these off-label reasons that again does nothing for the conversation. It has not been approved for such use nor is there any data on either side to indicate it's effectiveness for such use. Just so people know a doctor is legally allowed to prescribe most medications for off-label uses at their discretion - however it is not a prevalent thing in this instance.

"The problem arises in the MD and parents do not effectively monitor the patient for adverse signs and it is easy to increase the dosage when say, a college student, says 'i'm not using it much but everyone else is so to keep up I really need a little more boost from it. I see this happening in 2 young adults in my neighborhood."

You have provided conjecture that is not relevant to the progression of the conversation. The conversation moves forward with facts not conjecture. The effectiveness of the drug does not scale proportionately with the dose of the drug. There is no reason to take more to get 'a little more of a boost', once you get into recreational doses of adderall it is not nearly as helpful for ADHD. The fact that you know 2 young adults doing that in your neighborhood only tells people about the quality of people in your neighborhood - it does not tell you anything about the drug. I knew a kid that huffed dust-off in high school - that doesn't say anything about dust-off... That says that kid was a fool.

" I have seen a string going through this discussion saying that the US military gives Adderall to pilots which is not true. The author of that post then goes on to describe what pilots get is 'dextroamphedamine' and not the more potent, addictive, and harmful half of the drug. This person claims to be a 'biochemist' which is great but there is a big difference what a lab geek says about his chemistry knowledge and what happens in real life."

You know you're now the 3rd person to tell me the US military does not give dextroamphetamine to pilots. This means that NOT A SINGLE ONE of you tried to verify this information. If you go to one of these citations you will find multiple sources PROVING the U.S military gives it's pilots dextroamphetamine.(5)(6)(7) You can also find thousands of other sources verifying this is correct - EVEN on the wikipedia page you said to check! Also it clarifies that they only give them dextroamphetamine and NO levoamphetamine meaning that is MORE potent than adderall for the reasons I described above when distinguishing between the two. You're also right about there being a difference between the chemistry of a drug and the in vivo physiological effects. However I am a biochemist - my whole job is to determine the in vivo effects of drugs.

"he has called home to have his mom set up a MD appointment to renew his prescription (what kid, a freshman at college, makes sure to call his mom to remind her that he'll be home around thanksgiving and needs an appointment to get more adderall?)."

A responsible one? It is not good to take any drug on a daily basis and then abruptly stop taking it. You said he was a bright stand up kid. Again though you're forming opinions on matters that you have limited information on, and limited understanding of. This is a demonstration of conformation bias.

"Nobody is paying any attention to these two kids and they are pretty much self-prescribing their adderall dosage and the MD and parents don't care."

Are you really so diluted to think that parents and doctors don't care about the people they're attending to? That YOU'RE somehow the knight in shining armor out to save all of these helpless children and adults (college student). I am a factual person so I will admit that there are parents and doctors that are crappy, but to assert that the majority (which would have to be the case) don't care is out right offensive to the doctors who have spent their entire lives dedicated to helping others, and to the parents that are just doing everything they can to give the best to their child.

Why don't you go get a PhD in medicine or a PhD in pharmacology, or a PhD in biochemistry so then your opinion would matter. Because right now you have formed all of these opinions (albeit probably with the best of intentions) that are flat out incorrect. Never the less if you run around perpetuating this false understanding of biochemistry, and biology you will undoubtedly sway someone's opinion and you could be the reason someone gets hurt. If you want to help people in this field get educated in it. This is not something that you can contribute to without a detailed understanding of the processes in play.

I will gladly listen to anything you have to say in response, but please note that any claims you make that lack citation will be flat out ignored. I would expect the same from anyone else when reading something such as this. I implore you to not spread your opinion around without going to school first.

(1)Westfall DP, Westfall TC (2010). "Miscellaneous Sympathomimetic Agonists". In Brunton LL, Chabner BA, Knollmann BC. Goodman & Gilman's Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics (12th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 9780071624428.

(2)Lewin AH, Miller GM, Gilmour B (December 2011). "Trace amine-associated receptor 1 is a stereoselective binding site for compounds in the amphetamine class". Bioorg. Med. Chem. 19 (23): 7044–7048. doi:10.1016/j.bmc.2011.10.007. PMC 3236098. PMID 22037049.

(3)Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Volume 40, Issue 5 , Pages 525-529, May 2001

(4)The Journal of Pediatrics
Volume 147, Issue 3, September 2005, Pages 348–354

(5)Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, Volume 75, Number 4, April 2004 , pp. 370-371(2)

(6) "Go-Pills: A war on drugs; airforce use of amphetamines raises questions" NBCnews, Jan 9th 2003, Article by Jon Bonne

(7) "This is Your Military on Drugs
In today's armed forces, performance-enhancing drugs are as common (and legal) as combat boots" New Republic, February 5th 2013, Article by Katie Drummond

"Why, since our discussion has taken a number of posts, have you hidden your credits?"

I'm not sure what you're referring to. Every post I have made has had "student biochemist" in it.

"Before going further I have found that your entire recent posts have strayed away from ADDERALL completely. You are exclusively talking about dextroamphedamine and permutations that you have decided, in your head alone, are the same as Adderall....which they are not."

I'm getting rather frustrated having to explain what an enantiomer is as your lack of understanding it is a huge part of your argument. Adderall is a 3:1 dextro/levo amphetamine salt mixture. It is the same exact molecule except for it's biologically activity. They are enantiomers which literally means mirror image. An example would be write out some words and read them, then read them out of a mirror. They are the same exact words, same order, same everything except mirrored. In amphetamine the NH2 group facing downwards (called an amine group) does not literally point downwards - it is 3 dimensional. It will either be coming out of the page towards you (dextro) or away from the page (levo). If you synthesize amphetamine no matter how you synthesize it you will end up with a 50:50 mixture of dextro/levo ampehtamine. This is called a racemic mixture, and it is essentially unavoidable. They are the same drug the only in vivo difference is the potency due to how it binds with the receptor. Kind of like having a key to a hole that you have to jiggle to open vs a key that opens the door very easily. The first one fits just fine (levo), but it isn't as ideal as the key that fits perfect (dextro). There is also dextro/levo methamphetamine but the distinction is not made as frequently for whatever reason. Methamphetamine will ALWAYS be dextro or levo. Amphetamine will always be dextro or levo. They are exactly the same molecule, but the potency differs due to site binding.

So when I focus of dextroamphetamine it makes no difference. Adderall is 3/4ths dextroamphetamine, and 1/4th levoamphetamine. They both have the EXACT same effects with the levo enantiomer being 3-4x less biologically active. The distinction is irrelevant because if I took more levoamphetamine it would be exactly the same as dextroamphetamine, and vice versa.

"Even so, and I'll give you credit for being able to navigate a search engine to find stuff, Wiki references Dextroamphetamine which is not Adderall at all. If it were it would be much easier and clearer to just call it Adderall."

Did you bother Googling it? You're right wikipedia is not credible but if wikipedia claims something then it warrants further investigation. You're right though they give the pilots an optically pure form of adderall. Because adderall contains 1/4th levoamphetamine it is not optically pure and is less potent. The distinction is still irrelevant as I indicated above.

"And, as stated in my last post, dextroamphetamine, in two separate combinations, makes up only 50% of Adderall. AMPHETAMINE combinations make up the other 50%. Mr Biochemist.....am I wrong here?"

Yes you are quite wrong.

"A side point, they do not mention ADDERALL or Dextroamphedamine - which are the cornerstones of your argument"

Your fundamental lack of understanding of this entire topic makes being right impossible. I am wasting my time having to explain things that any person competent in the matter would know. You're right they give the pilots Dexadrin which is pure dextroamphetamine rather than the less potent form adderall with contains 1/4th of the amphetamine enantiomer levoamphetamine. You are getting hung up on the pharmaceutical drug name rather than focusing on the active ingredients. If you get generic adderall it's not called adderall but it still contains a 3:1 mixture of dextro/levo amphetamine. No academic paper will refer to adderall or dexadrine - they will refer to the active ingredients.

"Adderall is not Addictive" and in another "Adderall is mildly Addictive"

You're right - I will clarify. The amphetamine enantiomers taken at prescribed doses does not lead to physical dependence. This means if you stop taking it you will not get sick, have hot flashes or go through any of the other withdrawals that say a heroin addict would. Physical dependence of amphetamine at prescribed doses is the only relevant matter.

"Wrong on the point that Desbutol is, in fact, at least 2 drugs..."

You spelled Desbutol differently this time than last time and I was unable to look it up with the incorrect spelling. Either way it is irrelevant because it was discontinued. nebutyl does not turn anything up on google.

" BUT, THEN YOU GO ON TO SAY IT IS EASY TO CHANGE A MOLECULE AND ESSENTIALLY HAVE THE SAME CHEMICAL???? You use sodium and potassium for that argument....both are essentially salt. So mr science, which is it?"

Again this entire paragraph would not have been written if you had a working understanding of chemistry. I'm not really sure what the caps part is referring to specifically but I will guess you are talking about dextro vs levo? They are enantiomers of the same molecule. The sodium and potassium thing has to do with context definition of a word. The person that my comment was responding to used the ionic bonding between to atoms (potassium & sodium with chloride) as an analogy for how the amphetamine molecule (not just two elements), and the methamphetamine molecule are the same thing just like potassium chloride and sodium chloride are salt. This is similar to me using the words rock (hard mineral deposit), and rock (music genre) interchangeably. Both are NOT essentially salt - they are both SALTS which is a chemistry term Sodium bromide is a salt, potassium iodide is a salt. They are not all TABLE SALT which is exclusively sodium chloride. Though you can buy the table salt substitute KCl if you want - it doesn't really taste like NaCl though. Either way the whole point was the analogy the person used was garbage and should not be taken seriously.

" Change a Meth molecule and you have Estacy.....totally different? Change a Sodium molecule and you have Potassium? "

Yes if you change the molecules (meth meaning methyl group which is an entire molecules comprised of 1 carbon atom and 3 hydrogen atoms.) around on a compound you get vastly different effects. This is to demonstrate that the amphetamine molecule lacking in a methyl group is quite different than one with it. Sodium and Potassium are ELEMENTS of the same type - they are both alkaline metals and they react similarly. Elements in the same column act similarly. You can not use how two elements interact to make any relevant assumption about how an entire molecule consisting of MANY elements acts. Even further table salt or any of the salts I listed are NOT biologically active. Just because a fruit flavored candy tastes like a real fruit does not mean it is made of the same stuff. Food is not biologically active - meaning it doesn't bind with receptors in your brain causing changes in your physiology. Again demonstrating that the analogy of salts and drugs is a stupid one. Aside from that a salt is composed of two ionic compounds bonding versus two covalent bonding atoms. The difference is similar to using magnets to hold something together vs welding two things together.

"Quite the same..... shoddy argumentation i think...too much science and not enough english, debate and logic classes in you illustrious academic career......"

Look in a polite way I am essentially arguing about physics with a child. There is no way to articulate complex information that you learn over the course of years to someone with no prior knowledge of the subject. You're nit picking and tearing apart things that you think are me lying or distorting truth but it is you not knowing what I'm talking about. I really don't mean that it a rude way even though I am fed up with this conversation. I haven't made a single change to my argument in this post - I have just written an essay explaining how everything I have said actually ties together. Something I would not have had to explain if you were knowledgeable in the subject.

I will continue the conversation with you but you need to refute my points with citations to scientific publications. Please stop trying to find 'disconnects' in my argument because you're wasting my time and your time. An example being that you thought there was significance in the difference between dextro & levo amphetamine or the patented pharmaceutical names.

The formatting and grammar of this paragraph is atrocious. No one can read this. How can you possibly thing posting something with absoultely NO periods will be taken seriously?

Yeah, Britney Spears topped that. She went 4 days without sleep and ended up being hospitalized and put in a conservatorship which is still in effect today.

If you took a high school chemistry class you'd know everything you said is flat out wrong. Methamphetamine is speed - adderall's main ingredient is dextroamphetamine. While they both fall under the umbrella of an amphetamine they are as similar as a panda bear, and a red panda. Molecules have incredibly different functions with very little variation. The addition of a methyl group to a molecule (i.e 'meth' in methamphetamine) can be the difference between a drug that wouldn't harm a mouse, and a drug that could put down a horse.

Dextroamphetamine (Adderall) is the enantiomer of the amphetamine molecule - it is one of the two stereoisomers. It is not methamphetamine plain and simple. They don't even go through the same metabolic processes.

However you can get methamphetamine prescribed to you. It has been approved by the FDA to treat ADD, but it is only marketed under one trade name Desoxyn. It is not well known, not prescribed often, and does not have any real advantage over any other ADD medication. It's potential for abuse also makes it an uncommon prescription.

It's fine that you're ignorant to this - I pay money to know about it. I am completely ignorant to the mathematics behind the Alcubierre drive that could facilitate faster than light travel. But I don't run around to physics forums pretending I know what I'm talking about.

I take adderall often - it is my favorite drug. It's about as addictive as pop is to fat people, and with 20mg of it I can read the most dense scientific literature with such enthusiasm.With how stupid, and lazy 90% of the country is they should all be taking it - maybe then they'd pick up a book, and stop watching Jersey shore or Fox News.