Hi Elaine,
Maybe you remember me from WV traveling to Cleveland Clinic in 2003. I founf you on about.com site...well Friday my grandson had the scopes for stomach and bowels they thought Crohn's but not so, I am wondering if this could be the adderall he is on!! So when I found your blog i was surprised no one thinks this but me!! He is now testing his thyroid, he has been on adderall for four yrs i think for adhd, but has has diahrea and sweating armpits too!!Reminds me of Hyperthyroidism> Love your site sent links to lots of relatives.


Nice talking to you Margaret
fiffor@hughes.net

I am very concerned for my mother in law. She lived with us over the past 6 months and I was able to observe her deteriorating health. She is prescribed Adderall for ADHD, but does not seem to help those symptoms at all really. She has started suffering from a myriad of other symptoms that I believe have been triggered by the drug. She is on the maximum dosage and has been for a while now. She has severe skin problems with pealing dead skin all over her body, especially the finger tips, she is losing her hair, her thyroid function is impaired. When sitting she has a bizarre impulse to pluck out hairs while in a daze, when asked by my son why she is plucking out what hair she has left she denies doing it- I think she is unaware of the behavior- or just not acknowledging it. She has other head twitches, and a bizarre tendency to hum- not a tune, just a noise. when asked about that she acts as though she is unaware of it. She has severe joint problems and inflammation that occurs around her joints for no apparent reason. She has insomnia, but will deny it when a suggested solution is to lay off of the drug since it is known to interfere with sleep. I have been researching meth abuse and ampetamine abuse and use for a while now and came across a lot of evidence that the Adderall could be triggering and/or exacerbating her symptoms, but when I approach her with it she gets extremely defensive and insists it cannot be related and that she could never get off the Adderall because life is unbearable without it. I need to reinforce the fact that she still has all of the ADHD symptoms while on the adderall- she cannot keep focus, she loses track of time to an unbelievable extreme. She cannot remember whole conversations, she has bizarre emotional outbursts, and overreacts to situations around her. There are times that she seems severely bipolar. I am concerned that the therapist that is prescribing her the Adderall is not aware of all of her symptoms or is not aware of all of the potential links in her symptoms to the drug. I don't know how to handle it at this point because she puts up the wall, and I don't know how to approach her doctor.