Posted by utopizen on November 17, 2008, at 18:36:28
In reply to Adderall is hurting my friend, posted by calamityjane on November 12, 2008, at 13:26:34
sounds like she might be more responsive to clinical information, that any advice...
might want to just mention you've read some studies about how amphetamines use to be used to treat depression in 50's and 60's, until they realized it actually agrravates even minor depression.
also, it's unrealistic to think she's going to quite entirely. i'd just focus on encouraging her to lower the dose.
honestly, frankly, she'll be unlikely to do even that. better bet is just try to encourage her to go to the gym with you, using the buddy system for moral support.
antidepressants and exercise have comparable efficacy ratings, in side-by-side studies of the two as treatments for depression. treat her depression, and she's likely to either lower the dose of her Adderall or stop it...
the reason why stimulants make depression worse has to do with the OCD hypothesis to depression.anyone who's taken abnormal psych is familiar with this it's the research that explains that women have more depression than men, because once they have depression, they worsen it by worrying about the fact they have depression. Since women have higher rates of OCD, this explains why their incidence of depression is higher.
stimulants make OCD/obsessive thoughts worse, by making the circuitry repeat worrisome thoughts more... thoughts that might otherwise be likely to be fleeting ones.
when someone is depressed, they are also just less resilient to things in general... so the same dose is likely to make her have more anxiety, insomnia, worries, weird behavior than when she's not in depression.
so my advice is, forget the adderall, and just do all the non-drug things that any friend typically does for their friend during a rough patch try to get them to go out to a club, exercise with you regularly, encourage them to eat better, hook them up with a date, talking with them about their day, etc.
All of these things distract them from worrying about taking their next dose. =)
poster:utopizen
thread:862550
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20081114/msgs/863664.html