Starting Adderal XR, learning more about drugs

After having my psychiatrist once again go over my chart and test results showing indications of attention deficit disorder and prefrontal cortical dysfunction, he still wanted to postpone putting me on Adderal, an amphetamine stimulant indicated for ADHD. He was glad that we were finally getting some improvement in my mood stability and my anxiety symptoms, and he stresses that stimulants, like Adderal, can worsen symptoms of panic attacks, anxiety, and mood swings. I acknowledge this and explained that if the symptoms got worse, I could likely handle it long enough to know to stop the medication and give him a call. I used the line of reasoning my therapist recommended I use, basically that, why don't we just give it a try and see what happens?

I've only taken my first daily dose this morning. I had a good day, got up early to see my cousin in the hospital, was fairly attentive and engaged in my class, and was able to come home and study for a good 2 hours, and then again in the evening for another hour.

I'll have a better idea of how this medicine effects me within a few days, since it isn't supposed to require a long time to build up in the system. I see my therapist again on Friday, I'll bet he'll want to do a follow up ADD test to compare results. I forget the name of the test, but it is done by me sitting at a computer and responding to things on the screen. It could be letters flashing and I have to press a certain key when a certain letter appears, or having a shape flash on the screen and then try to duplicate it, or read a short story and then later answer questions about it, things like that. I'm making an early prediction that we'll have to increase the dosage to notice a significant positive effect.

In any case, I'm really enjoying my class, I'm developing a much deeper understanding of how drugs, especially psychotropics (both illicit and licit) work in the brain and with individual neurons and their receptors, how the drugs get metabolized in the body, how they are removed from the body, how tolerances are formed, etc.

And thank God for lower Fall temperatures! Reminds me more of home, and makes the bike ride to school that much more relaxing.