Depression as a side effect of Dexedrine?

[Arash816]

Forgive me if it seems odd that I'd be asking about a problem from my childhood when I'm in my 30's now, but it's something that's been haunting me for a long time. I was diagnosed with ADD (back when it was called hyperactivity disorder) at the age of 6 1/2 and put on dexadrine. Very strange things started to happen. My preformance in school did improve, but I started having bouts of serious depression. I became suicidal at times. In the mornings after taking the dex I would feel nervous, though alert, but rarely if ever "High." By afternoon I would start feeling overwhelmingly sad, often without any cause. In many cases I had suicidal thoughts. When I was 9 the dose was upped, and the side effects became stranger. I started feeling like I was being watched all the time, and often checked closets and doors to make sure no one was there. Now, I know that monsters under the bed is a frequent problem with 6 year olds, but it kept going with me until I stopped taking the dex. Fears of monsters gave way to non-stop, nighttime fears of serial killers entering the house, or perhaps rabid dogs or deranged murderers. This would keep me up until I fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning from sheer exhaustion. I recognized the irrationality of these thoughts, but they were inescapable. When I stopped taking the dex at age 15 it all ended, suddenly. The nighttime fears ended and I no longer felt that I was being watched. None of the symptoms have returned, except the depression for a short period when I was 22 and tried ritilan for ADD. The first day I had a episode of depression, and quit taking it. The ADD remains a problem, but none of the other symptoms. This evening I was scouring the internet for information on dexadrine, but I found very little mention of depression as a side effect, let alone the other problems. Are depression and the other strange effects a known side effect? Is it possible something else was going on? I know it is a bit late now as it ended over 20 years ago, but I still often wonder what happened to me in those confusing, hellish years.

[gracelyn]

I'm currently taking ritalin for my depression and can't think straigt, I never got depression from the drug, when it wears off i get the foggy head and get irritable which is why i take klonopin to take the edge off of the ritalin. It could be when the ritalin wears off you get the sad, anxiety, and feel like screaming. I could not take the XR it did not last 8 hrs, so ihave to take 3-4 regular ritalin a day with about 3 klonopins like the ritalin when i get up, then 2-3 hr later the klonpin and the ritalin, then the ritalin, then 2-3 later the ritalin and klonpin., if i don't take the klonpin, i feel like i am going mad. thats the downside of ritalin, the irritablity when it wears off.

My friend is allergic to sulfa drugs, she had to go to ER she was having hallucinations from the sinus drug she was given, she is what we would call a normal person ( no happy drugs) anyway the hallucinations lasted for about 1 1/2 days and she had to stay in the hospital, so she cannot take any sulfa drugs because bad stuff will happen.

it could be that drug is having the opposite effect on you which happens with alot of drugs, i could not take adderall xr it made my head funny but the regular did not. Myabe you should be taking Klonopin with it like i do.

I think when you were little that drug made you nervous and scared and you should not have been on it. I mean being a child and getting depressed is alot to handle, alot can go thru a childs mind from a drug, where an adult knows its the drug.

do you stilll have add? what about that strattera? that did not work for me, sometimes i think  i always had undiagnoised add the underactive kind that usually women get,, all i can figure is for over 20 yrs i drank alot of coffee i now think it helped with add i did not know i had, or even to this day do i have it.

[vapors]

Dear Arash:

Two issues:

1. Regarding your question, I have had refractory (drug-resistant) depression for about 13 years.  Currently, one of the medications which I takes is Adderall which is the mixture of three different amphetamine salts.  I take 10 mg when I wake up and another 10 mg around noon.  I have been on it for about 4 months and have experienced no worsening of my depression.  The benefits are debatable.

2. Regarding your case history, PLEASE read a book by edited by Dr. S.N. Ghaemi called Bipolar Depression.  Dr. Ghaemi is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard University and is a brilliant researcher into mood disorders.  The book is written for other psychiatrists but is fully accessible to general audience and it is pretty brief.  He, along with Dr. F. Goodwin, expose the data of how over 50% of the patients suffering with bipolar depression are misdiagnosed as unipolar depression and that in case of children this is even higher, with ADHD being one of the misdiagnoses.  The point I am making is that hopefully this book gives you another perspective into your childhood disorder, which may have indeed been a misdiagnosed mood disorder, and that the same mood disorder is rearing its head up again.

Best of luck to you Arash jan.