About Dr. Renee Expertise I can answer questions about: The physical/ biochemical changes of brain due to narcotic addiction; What's Subutex/Suboxone treatment,is it for me & can it help?; Drug testing & how sensitive it is etc; Medico-legal issues & what will happen if you are caught vs asking for help etc.
Experience I am a physician with 2 years of treating narcotic addiction with buprenorphine,10 yrs. of experience in drug testing and have 20yrs of experience in both AA and NA as a recovering addict/alcoholic.
Education/Credentials Medical School'93; Naval Medical Corps '90-'03; NAMI (Naval Aerospace Medical Institute)grad; 4 yrs residency '97-'01;
~30hrs CME Addiction Medicine '04-'06 Buprenorphine waiver '04
Expert: Dr. Renee Date: 10/22/2006 Subject: ADD and ephedrine
Question Hello
I am in my 20's and have recently been diagnosed with adult ADD. Throughout school I self-medicated, WITHOOUT knowing it, with diet products and gym supplements that had ephedrine in it. I have asthma and ephedrine is the only thing that keeps on from dying on the treadmill. I am not a gym-junkie...just someone who likes to stay healthy, I am also very concerned about taking any sort of medication to the point where I would rather walk around with a headache than take an OTC-pain-killer, I dont even like drinking coffee because of the caffeine in it.
However, I am at varsity and cannot keep my concentration in order to study no matter how hard I try! If I think back to school, I always excelled academically when I was taking some form of ephedrine/stimulant.
The psychiatrist said that she'll put me on Ritalin but I am hesitant because of all the bad-media it's received. So my question is: Would ephedrine be better than Ritalin to help me with my ADD? Please keep in mind that I tend to gain weight if I dont stick to a strict diet and exercise program, I have asthma, I read somewhere that ephedrine will cause less depression from long-term use than Ritalin, and I dont want to use drugs for the rest of my life as a solution to my disorder.
If you provide me with another solution to my problem that I have not encountered I will take it into great consideration and research it.
One more thing...while reading some of the posts I understood that ephedrine and Cystal Meth are somewhat related. How closely is the relation between Crystal Meth, ephedrine, and Ritalin; and what are the lond-term effects of each?
Thank you for your time.
Answer Hi! Boy, those are a lot of good questions!
I'd like to answer each, but due to time constraints, I'm going to cut to the chase and try and get to the heart of what you are worried about.
You feel you likely improve in performance with stimulants, but you have heard bad things about Ritalin AND Ephedra too. What is better? Is that sort of the gist here?
Here is a factoid I always liked:
Of all the medications that will end with you dead in an emergency room, prescription diet medications, aren't in the top 200 (Ritalin isn't in the top 100)....
But over the counter medications (including Ephedra) are in the TOP 10!! I've watched young people (18-22 in all cases with no heart probs etc) die of each of the stimulants in those mail order and over the counter drugs right in front of us while we tried to figure out what they took.
Yes, Meth and ephedra are related. I'm not a chemist, but it takes ephedra to make meth. That's why you can't buy too much Sudafed etc from drugstores anymore. Some states, ephedras illegal.
You are 40x safer going to a physician who gives you an RX, checks your blood pressure, looks into the back of your eyes, etc, than self medicating. Don't do it, don't take this on yourself. You could really screw yourself up my friend. Your psychiatrist studied 8 years to help you with this. She will take better care of you long term than you possibly can, I promise.
