Ritalin, Adderall, Strattera, Concerta, Metadate, Dexedrine, Focalin, Cylert, Attenade. All are stimulants used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD). They are also all drugs that have been tried or used by 15-30% of college students to get ahead academically.
Now a new warning about these drugs comes from Health Canada: All of these stimulant drugs can cause psychotic reactions. A psychotic reaction is characterized by one or more of the following:
- Hallucinations
- Paranoia
- Delusions
- Disordered Thought
In March 2006 in the U.S., the FDA learned that as many as 6% of children may develop a psychotic reaction to these drugs- including cases of “hallucinations, both visual and tactile, involving insects, snakes, worms”. There was even a case of a 6 year old boy who started licking the table one day after his treatment started.
Health Canada is therefore mandating that the labels for all the above drugs be changed by December.
Tags: Adderall, Attenade, Concerta, Cylert, delusions, Dexedrine, Focalin, hallucinations, Health-Canada, Metadate, paranoia, psychotic-reactions, Ritalin, Strattera
I got to 2 trains and thought it was hard!
First of all, Strattera is NOT a stimulant. And lots of people DO need certain medication to help with ADD or ADHD.
Hi Melissa, thanks for stopping by to comment. I agree with you, there really are lots of people who benefit greatly from these medications.
Strattera’s mechansim of action is to increase norepinephrine in the brain. Norepinephrine is a catecholoamine, a stimulatory neurotransmitter. Wikipedia has a nice overview. Thanks