rheanna

Shilly,

Your post brought two things to mind.

First, your psych may not have a great deal of experience working with ADD issues. I may be wrong, of course (I frequently am!) but his approach to drugs and his use of the term placebo effect raises questions in my mind.

Second, if you are trying drugs for only a week and then switching to something else, you may be doing yourself a disservice by staying with this doctor. Some people are very sensitive to stimulants (as janewhite1 has reported about herself) and some people need higher dosages. My guess is that you need a higher dosage of meds for them to work with your metabolism.

It is common to try out a med at a low dosage, and then every few days or every week increase the dosage a little bit, until one finds a dosage that works, or until one finds that the side effects are not acceptable, or one finds that even with a high dosage the med just isn't going to work.

You may be one of those people who needs a higher than "normal" dosage in order for the beneficial effects to work. You won't find this out in only one week of trial. The reason it may have worked in the first week and then stopped working is that in the beginning your body and brain are getting used to it -- it's new and your body has to adjust to it. After your body adjusts, then the med isn't at a level that works for your brain. It would be appropriate to try a higher dose for a week or two. Then, if you find that this dose also seems to quit working, you would try another increase.

This is just my opinion, but I would look for another doctor who understands this. The placebo effect was wonderfully explained by jane . It has nothing to do with why your meds stopped working.

It appears that stimulants work for you, at least in the beginning. This is an indication to me that it's worth going back and trying one or more of them again, but this time allowing time to find out an appropriate dosage.

--Rheanna