We wrote a few days back about us starting a split dose of lisdex this Monday.

We were meant to have started the new regimen a week or 2 earlier, but administration issues with our ADHD meds provider had delayed this.

Due to the delay, we'd asked for our follow-up to be delayed. Alas, further administration issues caused that request to get lost somewhere internally, so we had a follow-up call this afternoon... 2 and a bit days into titration 😅

Anyways, we planned for the call and were ready for it. We hadn't beent expecting it to go great, due to the aforementioned issues, but the call actually went rather well 😲

During the call, we:

• didn't lose our cool over the admin issues;
• showed genuine empathy for the clinician who'd not got any of the messages through about the issue; and
• were able to ask again -- with more clarity -- about our request for prescribing guanfacine alongside the lisdex.

Due to having a little more executive function and emotional regulation today, we managed to fairly-decently communicate:

• the mental health struggles we've been having over a long while;
• the multiple different prescription antidepressants we've tried through our GP; and
• that we've been referred for further assessment through the NHS to receive any further care, which could take anywhere from months to years for us to receive any support, diagnoses, or meds.

We also managed to convey that there is evidence out there showing that a combo of guanfacine and lisdex has been shown to be helpful for certain ADHD and AuDHD folks who struggle with RSD.

Whilst the outcome isn't certain at all, we did convince the clinician enough to look into it more herself and consult with the lead clinician about our request.

We've got a further appointment scheduled with her for next Monday, where we'll hopefully find out whether they can consider prescribing guanfacine alongside the lisdex on an off-licence prescription basis.

Anyways, crossing fingers again 🥺🤞

#ADHD #AuDHD #neurodivergent #neurospicy #lisdexamfetamine #dexamfetamine #guanfacine #RSD
#neurodivergence #MentalHealth

As we're sure some of y'all know, we finally got our ADHD diagnosis earlier this year.

Since we're AuDHD, we knew that stimulant meds were less likely to work for us, but we took a shot.

For a long while now, our daily regimen was officially:

• 1 x 50 mg lisdexamfetamine - taken on waking
• 1 x 10 mg dexamfetamine - taken roughly between 15:00 to 16:00 daily

The dexamfetamine was introduced, as we were feeling a noticeable drop-off in the late afternoon. It worked somewhat and we thought it was the best we'd get.

Over time, it became clear to us that this regimen wasn't ideal, and we had additional struggles that the meds couldn't help with.

So, we did more research whenever able. Eventually, we came to 2 broad realisations:

It took us some time, but we were finally able to get an appointment to discuss our medications with.

(FYI, if you live in England, you have the Right To Choose a provider for ADHD or autism diagnoses.)

We sadly weren't able to convince the pharmacist to prescribe us guanfacine alongside lisdexamfetamine, despite plenty of evidence of it being effective, but we did somehow convince them to let us trial a split dose of lisdexamfetamine.

As of this coming Monday, we'll be trialling a new daily regimen of:

• 1 x 30 mg lisdexamfetamine - taken on waking
• 1 x 30 mg lisdexamfetamine - taken ~2 hours later

If that works, we intend to gently ask them again to review the research and evidence that guanfacine is safe to take alongside lisdexamfetamine and has been shown to be very effective in reducing RSD.

If they still say no, we'll advise them that the alternative options our GP could offer us will have far more negative interactions in an attempt to sway their opinion. However, we are sadly fairly confident that they'll stand their ground and refuse, as this is the UK after all  

Anyways, wish us luck from Monday onwards? 🥺🤞

#ADHD #AuDHD #neurodivergent #neurospicy #lisdexamfetamine #dexamfetamine #guanfacine #RSD #neurodivergence

Hey lovelies  

We started on stimulant meds earlier this year to help with some of our ADHD struggles. We're currently on:

• 1 x 50 mg lisdexamfetamine (Elvanse®) on waking
  • ~10-14 hours duration of action
• 1 x 10 mg dexamfetamine (Amfexa®) between 15:00 to 16:00 daily, as a boost
  • ~4-6 hours duration of action

We've heard of some folks taking their meds as a split dose.

In theory, we could ask our GP to prescribe our lisdex dose across 2 capsules, with an aim to taking 1 on waking and 1 at lunch, whilst skipping the dexam booster.

Any personal experiences of doing this? (Only personal testimonials please.)

Not sure if we'd need to go with the same total lisdex dose (30 mg and 20 mg capsules) or request a small dose adjustment as well in line with not taking the dexam (2 x 30 mg capsules).

Thoughts before we reach out to anyone to ask to try about this?

Bonus question:
Anyone had any luck with getting GP to prescribe something like guanfacine alongside stimulant meds to help with RSD?

#ADHD #AuDHD #RSD #lisdexamfetamine #dexamfetamine #Elvanse #Amfexa #neurospicy #neurodivergent #GenuinelyAsking #AskFedi

First prescription of ADHD meds issued by NHS GP (rather than through ADHD 360 and Chemist4U) successfully collected from our lovely local phamacy 🥰

Now if only we didn't need strong stimulants daily to function even somewhat 😅🥺😞

#ADHD #lisdexamfetamine #dexamfetamine #AuDHD #neurodivergent #neurospicy

We usually take our booster med (10 mg dexamfetamine, Amfexa brand) between 16:00 and 17:00, so that we get a boost to keep us going through the remainder of the afternoon and most of the evening.

(For further context, we usually take 50 mg lisdexamfetamine (Elvanse brand) as soon as we wake up enough in the morning. It doesn't last us through the entire day by itself, which is why we have a prescription for the dexamfetamine as a booster.)

Today, however, we were really feeling a slump even before 15:00 needed a nap, so thought we'd try taking it before the nap to see whether it helped us get less groggy when waking back up and maybe help us take less time to wake.

This was based on the same logic as people who drink a caffeinated beverage (usually tea or coffee) before taking a nap to help them mitigate any post-nap effects.

So, we took the pill at 15:30, set our alarm for 16:45 (knowing full well we'd likely snooze until 17:00), and went for a nap.

It actually worked pretty well. Better than any caffeine-led naps we've tried. Felt less groggy coming out of the nap and didn't feel like the nap was at all negatively impacted.

Whilst we did snooze the alarm, we didn't fall back to sleep. Instead we used the time to snuggle our catten Māui, who rested on the bed behind our back whilst we rested.

Definitely going to consider doing that again when it's both needed and possible to check that our findings are replicable 🥰

#ADHD #AuDHD #nap #dexamfetamine #lisdexamfetamine

Hey lovelies  

Apologies for the lack of regular posts or updates. Some negative life stuff has been happening since right around the time we started the meds, which has made it more difficult to post regularly. We'll try to give an update on that either today or sometime soon.

In terms of ADHD med titration, 50 mg lisdex works well for us, but we've been needing to supplement it with a quarter of a pill (37.5 mg) of bupropion extended release daily to raise our baseline wakefulness, as otherwise we just couldn't wake properly in the morning and were steadily crashing out by the eveniing.

The specialist monitoring and reviewing us has just prescribed dexamfetamine 10 mg to take as soon as we wake to help. We'll then take our lisdex a couple of hours later when we're more awake and our stomach has opened up enough to let us drink our protein shake.

Not sure how uncommon it is, but we've struggled to consume breakfast since at least our teen years and first adolescence. It only became worse over time. Except in very rare circumstances, we cannot typically consume solid food for the first 2-3 hours after waking.

#ADHD #AuDHD #lisdexamfetamine #dexamfetamine #titration

Does #ADHD medication help with emotional dysregulation?

Getting pretty tired of being pissed off at the tiniest things and being miserable most of the time.

#EmotionalDysregulation #methylphenidate #lisdexamfetamine #dexamfetamine #atomoxetine #guanfacine