ritalen

[Morphyous]

I heard on the radio today that some students have been taking ritalen because apparently it helps them to study and aids their memory. A neuro- scientist working in the field of brain injury said thats its been proved to help people get better exam results. I personally think its a dodgy area to get in to but I wonder how much of this is going on.

[orbsycli]

it's a phase.
i'm in high school and it's on and off between different groups of people.
that stuff really REALLY gets you focusing, it's pretty amazing. although, if you take too much, you will be fascinated, on your knees, screaming at the top of your lungs at dirt, because dirt is amazing.

[nossy482]

I have yet to have that strong a reaction. I am a 33 year-old male who was finally diagnosed as ADD w/Hyperactivity last year. I was on the verge of losing my job because I was forgetting important details in my daily routine and my wife wanted to strangle me due to childish behavior and a constant desire to talk, usually about whatever passed through my head at the instant, and often a repeat from hours/days/weeks ago.

On Ritalin (and finally Concerta, a 12-hour extended release version of Ritalin), I am quieter, more productive at work, and less likely to leave the keys in the door when I come home at night.

My chief complaints about the medicine are two:
1) I hate that I only function well as a responsible adult when I am drugged with Ritalin. I resent that it has such an effect on my life; that without it I would be stuck in a series of nowhere jobs and my (second) wife would probably have left or arranged for a nasty... accident... shall we say. I thought my first wife was an unmerciful nagging hag who was never satisfied with my help around the house. Now I suspect I was a LOT less effective in my chores and she was at her wits end by the time we split.
2) I feel less creative and intuitive than I used to feel before the medicine. When I am unmedicated my mind runs on 3 or more semi-separate channels at once. Even though none of these "channels" come in perfectly clear on my mental TV, I feel the extra "bandwidth" contributes to brainstorming and mental leaps when I write or do advanced math. If my wife hadn't specifically forbidden it I would probably work my day job on Concerta from Monday-Friday and write while unmedicated on the weekends. While on the medicine I am able to polish up and refine a lot of the ideas developed over the past few years but not a lot of new material is floating in, and the drive to write itself is far less urgent (hypergraphia was a strong component of my ADHD).

Has anyone else felt either of these symptoms personally, or is there published material about these issues in the journals?

[orbsycli]

it does the compete opposite to people who need it and people who dont.
in a nutshell, the people who need it become quiet, the people who dont, can ramble for hours.

[Morphyous]

I think there is a big distinction between Nossy who suffers with hyperactivity and so needs ritalin to function normally, he or she needs this medication.
It is a very dangerous trend, if it is a trend, for students to take brain performance enhancing drugs, to achieve better exam results. It will lead them to think that they dont have to work too hard and be able to do some drug induced cramming before the exam. The next step will be, how many drugs and for how long and before they know it they will be addicted or worse cause themselves some long term damage.

[Buffy]

Ritalin is the new steroids for the brain. While unbridled drug taking has always been seen as a great crime of the "liberals," here in California, we've got all these ball players who've made millions *only* because they've taken steroids and rich team owners (including our illustrious tokin' and snortin' prez) who have looked the other way for years as long as it fills stadium seats, and we can't even get our conservative Republican Governator to come out clearly against them (he said just yesterday that he did *not* "regret" having taken them). Looks like "Just Say Maybe" is the new Republican party line....

Take a moment for Hunter Thompson, drug taker extrodinare and defender of the Second Amendment...

"Let's get.....small!"
Buffy

[orbsycli]

I wonder what the long term affects are from ritalin...i'm sure the FDA has no idea, we'll have to wait and see.

[Fishteacher73]

A friend of mine has a brother that was put on Ritalin at aprox. age 5. He was on the drug for almost 20 years. Perhaps it helped him, but it seems to have crippled his social skills and his ability to really function well today (He has been off of the drug for the past few years). He has a tendency to just stare blankly a lot of the time.

[zadojla]

Originally Posted by Morphyous

It is a very dangerous trend, if it is a trend, for students to take brain performance enhancing drugs, to achieve better exam results.

One of the interesting aspects of this discussion is the idea that using Ritalin to enhance academic performance is relatively recent. It is not. Using it for this purpose was known when I was in college, and I graduated in 1971. The assumption at the time was that it increased your ability to concentrate, and therefore study more effectively, and also improved memory. It was understood to be temporary, and that you'd likely forget what you had crammed. Never did it, but considering how successful I've been since, perhaps I should have.

[Fishteacher73]

One just needs to remember the addage, "Test how you study."