My ADHD Meds Fixed My To-Do List—But They Broke My Body
After I was diagnosed with ADHD, I got on drugs. I had never taken stimulant medication before, so I had no idea what to expect, but I was excited by the thought of my day-to-day life becoming more functional.
I was prescribed 40 mg of Vyvanse daily. It made my mouth dry out, my body sweat and my heart race—but I felt like the superhero version of myself. I was immediately able to perform mothering a toddler and freelancing through the worst of the pandemic in a much saner and more organized manner.
The exhaustion that plagued me most days, due to my chronic stress, lack of sleep and ADHD burnout was much easier to ignore. I had energy to play! And work! And make dinner!
I wasn’t the only one. The number of patients aged 22 to 44 filling Adderall prescriptions [also commonly taken for ADHD] rose by over 15 percent between 2020 and 2021. And before this pandemic surge, the number of women being prescribed stimulant medications was already massively increasing.
There’s a reason why psychostimulants are the go-to medications for ADHD. They work by stimulating the central nervous system, boosting levels of norepinephrine and dopamine in the brain. Their side effects, however, can be vast, with sleep problems, loss of appetite, mood changes and the crash when the meds wear off among them.
A 2010 paper on the effects of stimulants found that while they influence our cognition via “physiological arousal,” they do not enhance it, which sounds like they kind of wake our brains up rather than change them. Further research has reinforced the idea that stimulants don’t actually make us smarter, but instead boost our energy, mood and motivation.
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The main presentation of a person’s ADHD—be it inattentive, combined or hyperactive—is something to consider when deciding on stimulant medications, as they tend to be best suited to those who struggle with focus. “Psychostimulants are really most effective for managing attention,” says Michelle Martel, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Kentucky. “Whereas the hyperactive and impulsive [types] improve naturally over time as people get older.” In other words, busy bodies tend to settle down, but busy brains, not so much.
Even when stimulants do work, they aren’t always easy to access. Psychostimulants are classified as Schedule II controlled substances, meaning limits are set on how much is dispensed and how often. This is one reason for the long-standing Adderall shortage that has affected millions. Higher demand thanks to an increase in ADHD diagnoses, along with production and ingredient backlogs, are contributors to the shortage as well.
Vyvanse made my days much more manageable for about six hours, but its effects wore off rapidly. Every day around 3 p.m., I’d crash hard. My head would pound and spin, and I’d have to take to the couch while my toddler crawled on me and played with my face like it was made of Silly Putty.
While on Vyvanse, I frequently forgot to eat, drink water or notice I had a body at all. The lack of body awareness meant that instead of stretching or taking a break when I noticed that a shoulder cramp was spreading north to my neck and south across my midback, I ignored the pain and powered through.
Even with my phone set to remind me to eat, drink water and stretch, I failed to nourish myself enough while taking stimulants. What made it even harder to prioritize myself was that I was finally feeling like a better mom after two years of doubt. It’s much easier to get through the day on stimulants than confront a decades-old core belief that you’re a piece of shit. The fear of that was enough to keep me on them for a year.
After that, I had to take stock. My reflection was becoming increasingly concerning. In 12 months, I lost 15 pounds and my hair started thinning. I had also developed heart palpitations so strong they kept me up at night.
I also wanted to figure out how my hormones were impacting my brain. Since the majority of research on psychostimulants has been conducted on boys, we don’t know a lot about how they interact with estrogen, progesterone and the monthly cycle. We do know, anecdotally at least, that those who menstruate and take stimulants might notice they don’t work as well a week to 10 days before their period starts. This can be alarming because the medication makes us so operational and productive that when it suddenly stops working, our symptoms seem even more acute than they did before we started.
In perimenopause, fluctuating hormones can also dampen the effects of these medications. The element of hormonal Yahtzee involved makes estrogen and progesterone dip and spike in ways that aren’t always predictable or explainable through app tracking. And after menopause, meds might lose their potency thanks to lowered estrogen and dopamine. Stimulants can lose their effectiveness the longer you stay on them, meaning doses often go up, up, up and still might never quite match their initial impact. There’s also a chance they will adversely mingle with other conditions like anxiety and C-PTSD.
My doctor lowered my dose, but the whole thing freaked me out so much that I became wary of the meds. I started taking them only during the week, and then only on certain days. I barely took them at all for a year. More than reduce the side effects and muscle through life with my messy brain, I wanted to give myself the space to get to know the difference between my brain on stimulants and not, otherwise known as your baseline. I realized that the medication was allowing me to continue avoiding the one thing I desperately needed: rest.
Instead of rushing to change myself into a better, more productive me, I needed to honor who I was and what I had been through, then commit to living as healthily as possible as part of an ADHD treatment plan. Or at least sleep more.
These days, I take my meds almost never. I’ve tried a few of them now and each has had physical side effects that—at this stage in my life combined with comorbid health issues—I’m not comfortable with. I’ve been meaning to get to the doctor to discuss non-stimulant medication options, but I also need to book a Pap smear, make my daughter an optometrist appointment, find a therapist and figure out what to make for dinner tonight. My brain often gets in the way of me doing all of the above, so I’m going to consider this my to-do list and muscle through life until I can find space to figure the rest out. I’m ok with being a little messy-headed. I’m not interested in pushing myself to be extremely productive at the cost of my health, and I’m no longer being mean to myself about it.
Excerpted from Nowhere Girl Life as a Member of ADHD's Lost Generation by Carla Ciccone. Copyright © 2025 Carla Ciccone. Published by Random House Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.
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Carla Ciccone is a freelance writer who has written essays, reported features and humor pieces for Harper's Bazaar, The New Yorker, The Cut, Catapult, Bon Appétit, Romper, Chatelaine, Elle Canada, The Walrus and more. Originally from Toronto, Carla grew up near the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, and now lives in Toronto with her partner and daughter.
