My Adderall? Shortage Solution

First, before I share anything else. What I am describing here is not medical advice. I am only describing what has worked for my youngest son, who is 12, and has fairly severe ADHD, in which without his meds during the current Adderall? shortage, is "spinning" all the time. So, I'm sharing about the non-prescription meds we are using now, that has fixed the problem. Also, I haven't done extensive experimentation with these, only tried different things until it worked, so some of what we are doing might not be necessary, or maybe different dosages would work a lot better. But, I don't want to mess with my kid's meds more than I have to, so once we found something that basically works, we have stuck to it.

To attempt to do what the Adderall? was basically doing, we are using 3 meds that each have stimulant or stimulant-like qualities, but that do not require a prescription, and have been tested overall for safety. Although, I cannot stress enough that you should talk with your doctor, to make sure there are not likely going to be problems with doing this for someone with ADHD.

Phenylephrine (Sudafed PE?) or Pseudoephedrine (Sudafed?)

The various Sudafeds? are primarily used to be a decongestant, but they also have stimulant qualities. Especially the original Sudafed? (Pseudoephedrine), but you have to jump through some extra hoops for Pseudoephedrine. From the evidence I have seen from respected sources, it is worthwhile to jump through those hoops. Also, one advantage of either Phenylephrine or Pseudoephedrine is that they are fast acting, and have a relatively short half-life (usually under 4 hours for either of them, but Phenylephrine can be as low as 2 hours). So each morning my son takes one of these, and if we need more help in the afternoon, we can do another one.

Caffeine

Caffeine has been called the "poor person's Adderall". It has a longer half-life than the Phenylephrine or Pseudoephedrine of four to six hours, so the theory is that this will last later into the day than the Phenylephrine or Pseudoephedrine. We are currently doing 200mg from a generic stay awake pill, in the morning, which is equal to approximately two 8-ounce cups of brewed coffee. I have not yet told my son that the yellow pill he is taking is caffeine as I didn't want some type of nocebo effect to happen where he thinks that caffeine is not a med, and it doesn't have the effect... Although, he will probably read this article, and I am always hesitant to be not be completely honest with my kids...

Adrafinil or Modafinil (Provigil?)

Adrafinil is commonly used as a nootropic, and in the U.S. is an unregulated supplement and can be purchased without the need for a prescription. It basically gets turned into Modafinil in the liver. So it is probably not as good for your liver as Modafinil, but Modafinil requires a prescription, and ADHD would be an "off label" prescription, since it is commonly prescribed for narcolepsy or shift work sleep disorder. But, Adrafinil/Modafinil may have less addictive qualities than Adderall?, while having some similar effects as Adderall?.

Although Adrafinil is completely legal, the feds have considered this a bit of a loophole, and they have apparently stopped it being imported from China and other countries, so it isn't as readily available as it once was. I have been using Absolute Focus from Bright Brain. (Please note, I do earn reward points if you click on this link, but I'm not posting about this to earn points, but because it has helped my son)

Absolute Focus has some other ingredients beyond just the Adrafinil, so I'm not sure if these are also helping or not, but I know this has been really important to the mix of meds, because with only the first two that I mentioned, he wasn't able to focus for the full day.

Also, the adrafinil in the Absolute Focus doesn't kick in immediately, because it has to be processed by the liver first, so it takes about 45 minutes to start, but it has a long half life of 11 to 14 hours. The other components of Absolute Focus probably makes up for this, as well as the first two meds I give my son.

Summary

The information I've shared is only one data point. But, I know how it feels to be desperate to have my son be able to function normally again, so I wanted to share this information.

Honestly, until I was able to come up with this group of meds, he was not doing well, and from his craziness it was driving our family crazy. Seriously, it was not good for any of our mental health.

I'm also not sure if he is as good now as he was on the Aderall?, but I know he is a LOT better than when he didn't have any med to help with his ADHD.