Insomnia AFTER Adderall

[BrentW]

Hi everyone! I found this site a couple of years ago and have been reading the discussion boards off and on ever since. All of your advice has helped me to finally quit taking Adderall after almost 5 years. I added Wellbutrin 300 mg and did a relatively quick taper from around 30-40 mg per day in about three weeks. Today is my third day completely Adderall-free! I feel much better than I thought I would. I am not experiencing the excessive sleep, profound fatigue, insatiable appetite, and depression of my cold-turkey attempts. In fact, the most distressing symptom is insomnia. I am tired in the mornings, but I get a burst of energy around 9 or 10 PM every night. My theory is that the Adderall helped me sleep because I would crash in the evenings. I've started taking 50 mg of Benadryl an hour before bed. This helps, but it exacerbates the morning fatigue. I'm exercising, eating right, and using good sleep hygiene. Not sure what else to do. Has anyone else experienced this? 

[michaelking500]

Congratulations by the way.  I've been off adderall for 15 days with a similar story as you. And I did have insomnia (although not too bad) for a handful of nights.  I just got so tired by the fourth night or so that my body crashed and I've become normalized.  One key thing I did was set a time to put the phone down and stop reading.  So my sleep hygiene was also part of the problem.

 

You have introduced another drug into the mix though.  Now you are taking Wellbutrin.  That drug can cause insomnia as I'm sure you know.  Benadryl will work well for about 3-4 nights and then it loses its efficacy.  So you may want to use it as needed rather than every night.  

 

I was a pharma rep for years and sold in the sleep market.  I don't know your situation, but some people take anti anxiety and anti depression meds because they think they need them for depression.  But there is another way to deal with depression which you cannot fully address while taking meds.  Meds are a trap.  You get off one thing and get on another many times.  I'm not trying to be insensitive to what you may be dealing with.  You are dealing with dropping adderall like a champ.  I know many people that thought they needed Wellbutrin and did not.  Same thing with Zoloft, prozac and lexapro.  My wife was on lexapro for awhile and I even encouraged her to stay on it. That was totally not something she needed to be on.  Same with another friend of mine.  Wellbutrin is a trap too.

[Greg]

Hi everyone! I found this site a couple of years ago and have been reading the discussion boards off and on ever since. All of your advice has helped me to finally quit taking Adderall after almost 5 years. I added Wellbutrin 300 mg and did a relatively quick taper from around 30-40 mg per day in about three weeks. Today is my third day completely Adderall-free! I feel much better than I thought I would. I am not experiencing the excessive sleep, profound fatigue, insatiable appetite, and depression of my cold-turkey attempts. In fact, the most distressing symptom is insomnia. I am tired in the mornings, but I get a burst of energy around 9 or 10 PM every night. My theory is that the Adderall helped me sleep because I would crash in the evenings. I've started taking 50 mg of Benadryl an hour before bed. This helps, but it exacerbates the morning fatigue. I'm exercising, eating right, and using good sleep hygiene. Not sure what else to do. Has anyone else experienced this?

Definitely the typical symptoms of adderall withdrawal are fatigue and exhaustion. I definitely agree that the insomnia part is probably coming from Wellbutrin..congratulations on quitting!

[ashley6]

BrentW,

Congratulations on your quit and welcome! 300 mgs to start off on on Wellbutrin is a relatively high starting dose. I've been on it for maybe a year at most, and I take 150mgs. Anyway, I'm assuming since you take 300mgs, you take a one dose in the morning and one later in the day? That definitely could be causing some insomnia (especially if you're taking a dose mid-day); however there are so many different ways people's body's react to quitting speed. If the insomnia continues, I'd ask your doctor about the Wellbutrin. Anyway, keep posting here....glad you found us for your quit!

[chris28]

Abusing adderall for ten years and then quitting absolutely screwed up my circadian rhythm. For the past few years I have really struggled with it. For a few years, I could not fall asleep before 7am and would sleep until 4-5pm. After a lot of digging around, I came across info about delayed sleep phase disorder. This is what I think I'm dealing with, although it could easily be misdiagnosed as insomnia.

After reading about blue light affecting the body clock, the only light I subject myself to after 7pm is yellow cfl's. Yellow and red lights block the blue spectrum. Between that, keeping the iphone out of my face, and really trying to work on my sleep habits, I'm now (recently) able to fall asleep by 2am. What sucks is that my body still wants 9-10 hours of sleep. Waking at 10-11am is better than 5pm though.

I'm really hoping with light therapy, binaural beats, or something, I can push back my body clock to falling asleep at 12pm. This has really screwed up the past few years of my life. I still have more research to do, but I'm convinced it's drug-induced DSPD. Since this is drug-induced and not something I've always had, I'm praying this isn't chronic. It's gone from 7am to 2am, so hopefully within a few months I can be back to normal. I don't know.

[hyper_critical]

Let's be careful with the casual pharmacology on here.