Comment by axlprose | Hacker News Reader

Comment by axlprose | Hacker News Reader

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as someone who's prescribed amphetamine (i.e. adderall) for [inattentive] ADHD, and have also tried meth-amphetamine, I just want to point out that those are two very different drugs as far as effects and potency go.

Methamphetamine is so strong, I honestly couldn't even tolerate small amounts of the stuff. The few times I've tried it just resulted in dehydration, headaches, and muscle aches, easily outweighing any cognitive effects it had (which weren't even really more noticeable than regular amphetamine's effects for me). Cocaine isn't as bad, but still a bit too much for me as well.

Regular amphetamine on the other hand, the compound this article is about, has given me quite a noticeable improvement in my quality of life. Results do vary even among us adhd people, but for me, I've never experienced anything worse than staying up a bit later than I would like from taking it. Otherwise it just feels like drinking a really strong cup of tea for me, cause even coffee makes me more jittery. So the research in this article doesn't surprise me too much, but it's always nice to have some extra reassurance against all the anti-adhd-medication propaganda that originally made me paranoid about even trying it back when I was first diagnosed.

> I just want to point out that those are two very different drugs as far as effects and potency go.

Eh, you were probably experiencing the effects of improper dosing (as well as - I'm assuming - different means of ingestion).

Methamphetamine is just amphetamine with an additional methyl group, which makes it cross the blood-brain barrier more easily, and means that a lower dosage by weight is necessary for the same outcome.

Methamphetamine is metabolized almost identically to amphetamine, which means that the pharmacokinetic impact is the same.

The main difference is that methamphetamine is generally smoked (or occasionally snorted and injected), whereas amphetamine is prescribed orally. Also, unless you were prescribed Desoxyn, there's the other question of how pure and reliable the methamphetamine is, and what other compounds were present.

Thank for clearing up such a common misconception. The misinformation flying around about drugs and drug use these days is disheartening.

> you were probably experiencing the effects of improper dosing (as well as - I'm assuming - different means of ingestion)

For the dosing, you're probably right, since I didn't have a milligram scale at the time, but I tried to eyeball a portion similar to half of an adderall tablet, since the entire reason I tried it in the first place was to make that comparison.

As for the ingestion method, I tried to keep it the same as I would take any other medication and quickly washed it down with water, however it being a powder makes it harder to guarantee none of it was absorbed sublingually, though I've also tried adderall that way, and the effects were still not that intense.

Anyways, I am aware how similar the two compounds, I just tried to highlight the effect differences, since that's usually what gets people up in arms about drugs.

An Adderall tablet is mostly binders. The actual amount of it that is amphetamine is nowhere near the size that you see.

Low recreational doses of dextroamphetamine also give me dehydration, headaches, and muscle aches if I'm not properly hydrated or haven't eaten in a while. So that might've played a role.

Methamphetamine is proven to be more neurotoxic than amphetamine even when accounting for its extra potency, though, so it should ideally only be taken infrequently, in very low doses, or not at all. There are some neuroprotective substances you can take beforehand to mitigate the damage, but it's probably not worth it.

As a general rule in pharmacology: putting a methyl- group on any molecule increases its ability to cross the blood-brain-barrier and have increased psychoactivity (and neurotoxicity):

METH-amphetmaine

N-METHyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)

di-METHYL-tryptamine (DMT)

etc

Same case here. Back this assessment 100%.

I was prescribed desoxyn once back in the 90s -- it is methamphetamine, and my body could not handle it.

The Adderall IR tablets however (30mg bid) - i have no problem with tolerating - and would venture to say that my functional life would be difficult without it - I certainly could not be a software engineer and probably would have never even finished my degree.

Why were you prescribed Desoxyn if you're able to function with 30mg of Adderall? That's not at all an unreasonably high dose. Desoxyn is usually only prescribed when the dosage by weight of Adderall would be too high.

I said my dose was 30mg bid - twice per day.

The other part of it was the physician was quite literally, old - and I questioned his ability to practice medicine at that point -- the same guy prescribed methadone to a friend of mine for migraines.

I've never heard of anyone else being prescribed Desoxyn.

That's a high dose, but not unusually or dangerously high (depending on what condition was being treated, since you didn't specify).

I'm surprised that you were able to obtain Desoxyn given that - it's usually tried as a 'last resort' medication, partially because doctors are hesitant to prescribe something that's under even more scrutiny than other Schedule II drugs.

30mg instant release is a pretty high dose of Adderall as opposed to 30mg extended release.

I can't think of a single upside of IR over XR unless you use it recreationally and want that steep curve.

I can think of several:

* The XR release mechanism is unreliable - I've gotten lack of therapeutic effect, and "prescribed overdoses" from the 30mg ER.

* Proton pump inhibitors interfere with the XRs more than the IR.

* I can take a half dose if I don't want to be medicated all day.

* I can split and tune my dose around any other medications / activities i have going on (sports, cardio etc).

In my experience, IR builds tolerance way too fast.

I agree that it would be nice to have IR for those times you want shorter bursts. But I ran into its shortcomings too quickly as a daily burner, not so different than trying to therapeutically bump cocaine.

There's also dirt cheap generic IR but there wasn't generic XR back then (still?).

I've been prescribed/taking 30mg IR for about a decade now. I don't feel anything after taking it, beyond causally noticing that I'm not causing the problems I do when unmedicated. My doc asked years back if I was interested in taking a 1/day rather than 3/day, but the thought of a single XR dose always seemed like a clock counting down... which doesn't usually jive with my personality type at all. I like the control over the timing; plus, it also enables skipping dose to let my mind go on walks.

Exactly! The last thing I need is more pressure to get my stuff done inside of a (medication) time-window -- the ADD brain does not work that way.

Yeah. That's how I feel now that I take XR. I know exactly when I'll become non-functional. Knowing that the clock will hit 0 is distracting and frustrating.

I've tried to get IR, but I think my doctors have assumed I'm just drug-seeking. I'm young and I've only been prescribed for ~1 year.

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