Was using adderall to plow though some reading material and suddenly felt the right side of my face tingle and go numb, I then looked in the mirror and my face had slightly drooped. Immediately went to the hospital and it turns out I had a TIA whats basically a transitory stroke, im now on high blood pressure and high cholesterol medications and im not even overweight, I'm also only 31 with the possibility of a full on stroke always on the horizon.
If you have a history of heart issues, just leave stimulants of any form alone tbh, im even wary of coffee at this point.
I'm overweight and have been taking Adderall for almost 30 years.
No stroke or heart attack yet.
Don't take Adderall recreationally, but continue to take it if you have ADHD and it is the only thing keeping you from walking off a tall building.
Are you hypertensive though? that's kind of the caveat with me.
Yes, been on Inderal long acting - blood pressure med - since the early 00's.
I only take 30-40 mg of Adderall per day. Never recreationally.
Also if ur not prescribed (even if you are) use carefully. I was diagnosed add and Adderall was the first time I felt OK with myself. Fast forward 2 years and I lost 50 lbs and had to go to rehab, was snorting and popping crazy amounts each day. Now I'm California sober 😎
It's important to balance out any stimulant use with an equal or greater amount of depressants, for health
Heart disease will pretty much kill everyone that lives over 65. Quite a few viruses prior to covid were known to cause cardiomyopathy (weakness / deconditioning of the heart).
If you're really worried about it, start daily walks and slowly ramp up your distance until you can do small intermittent jogs or biking. Aspirin (if you're under 50) and I recommend statins to all my patients now that newer studies are showing high dose statins are being shown to be superior to coronary bypass surgery. I thought they were a conspiracy but after 20 years I'm finally convinced. Walmart has simvastatin on the four dollar list, I wouldn't be surprised if free clinics near you do telehealth.
Sorry, I got distracted and wandered off, I apologize. Nothing wrong with a baby aspirin, but there's no plausible mechanism I can think of that would allow for fish oil supplements to improve chest pain, especially cardiac. The risk of diabetes is controversial, as is the muscle cramping and rhabdo; typically people who are put on statins just had a heart attack and look like John Candy in a Bears SNL sketch.
I'm just saying if you're really concerned about heart disease killing you, statins would absolutely prevent that 100%.
I've seen someone who didn't have a diagnosis of diabetes have diabetic gastroparesis, so it can happen; but it almost always severe diabetic neuropathy like that requires 10+ years of completely uncontrolled diabetes; we're talking your glucose has never been below 250 since Obama got elected. Feeling dizzy and nauseous unless you eat isn't a symptom of diabetes, but it generally means your body (in this case your liver) is struggling to convert fat to sugar, which is generally a sign you're on your way to a pre-diabetes, at least. I think they call it metabolic syndrome now.
Sorry, I deal with rural blue collar populations mostly and now I just realized I'm not sure what the appropriate level to discuss medical issues with people is. Hope that helps. GL
I feel this on a deep level. I know that when I go, it will probably stem from some heart related issue (stroke or heart attack), both sides of family have shit heart genetics.
That sounds terrifying. I hope you never have to go through that again.
Had a friend have a cocaine induced heart attack (when he thought it was MD no less) in his 20s. Be careful out there.
OP you ok? Prognosis ok?
Im fine, just have to be extra careful. And realize im hypertensive instead of thinking im invincible. Thank you though.
Adderall is no joke, it’s really important to have its use supervised by a doctor. Literally just amphetamines.
Idk if you have a prescription but taking it recreationally/from a connect is hard because there are so many doses out there and I’m assuming what’s available skews on the high side per pill. A lot of people will get the focus effects with pretty low doses (10-15mg) while I see a lot of people post online about taking 40-60mg just like that.
If you feel like it is important to help you read, you should consider getting evaluated. There’s also non-stimulant medication for adhd.
Don't get me wrong, I agree completely. There are many side effects. However, half of the country was on amphetamines for like a 40 year span of time that is generally considered to be the peak of our civilization. Dexedrine was given out like candy, if you ignore the post civil war widow opioid crisis, amphetamines were America's first drug problem - before quaaludes / barbituates, before benzos, before synthetic opiates. Serious, irreversible health risks from stimulants don't really occur until you're taking recreational doses, way beyond any realistic prescribing amount.
What were your blood pressure numbers and how many milligrams did you take?
As a (shitty) doctor I don't mean to be that guy but I can't help it - unless they saw an aneurysmal venous formation or a blockage on an MRA, I really doubt you had a stroke.
It's much more likely you had vasospasm (essentially a severe migraine, which is probably itself a mild form of epilepsy). Most Americans over 30 probably qualify for BP meds and statins given our lifestyle but if they actually thought you had a stroke they would have evaluated you for being on blood thinners; the stroke guidelines would mandate having put you on a daily aspirin. It would also automatically mean they investigate you for having irregular heartbeats that would increase your chances of having a stroke, such as atrial fibrillation, which causes clots to form in the heart.
Edit: how much adderall are we talking here?
Any input is appreciated. This is a more welcome thought than me actually having a Mini stroke. It was really only just the left side of my face going numb and my face dropping slightly but noticeably. Either way it was scary enough i'm going to start trying to treat my body better in the future.
it was about 100mgs of adderall, I was using it recreationally and for focus. I have adhd legitimately, im just not prescribed meds at the moment.
Always good to listen to your body informing you that you have now reached a hard limit, I guess. Yeah anything past 60mg would definitely raise a lot of eyebrows, that's well past anything remotely approximating evidence based treatment.
Also just FYI I know people use mini-strokes and TIA interchangeably, but the T in TIA means transient, it's not actually a stroke unless there's persistent dead tissue and/or neurological symptoms. Glad you're ok.
Absolutely man, thanks for your opinion. Always cool to have a legitimate DR comment on anything related to medicine. Thanks for the information on terminology, yeah the laymen on the internet tend to conflate mini strokes and TIA, I think at the worst, I probably had a TIA. More than likely it was the Vascospasm you described since i'm really not noticing any long term consequences at all from what I experienced and the symptoms match up.
This forum is full of some smart ass people.
I had a friend who was basically a vyvanse guinnea pig from a young age. A few years ago he had a chest MRI and the doctor was like "did you know you had a heart attack?"
To be fair he was taking doses around 120-160 mg of vyvanse and doing crazy shit and now has an amazing job where he's basically a jack of all trades and doesn't touch the stuff anymore.
No moral to the story here. Choose your path western man.
how much exercise do you get in an average day? do you walk a few miles at least?
