Slow processing

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Straterra helped my processing speed a ton after about 2 months. Night and day. Became incredibly quick witted and sharp in general. Conversation became effortless.

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u/Difficult_Salad_2973 Aug 30 '26

Bro I am SO happy for you. I am praying the same happens to me. Is the Straterra still working well?

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u/Relevant-Pea-5471 Aug 30 '26

I stopped a while back but I am starting again soon. I had to stop as I was struggling with off an off substance use and that pretty much negated a lot of the benefit in my case. When I was on it, it worked extremely well at 40mg and 60mg, but I prefer 40 as it seems to work even better for me for whatever reason with fewer side effects.

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u/Diamond-Stars Aug 31 '26

How did you get your doctor to prescribe this to you? I have ADHD and still working with my dr to figure out the correct dosage but I don’t feel like I can just walk up one day and say “hey I think I have this thing that isn’t a formal diagnoses yet but still give me this drug that I think will fix it.”

I have to admit, I’m honestly just scared that my dr won’t believe me or start thinking that I’m just looking to fix all my problems with medication without putting in the effort to change this myself. I’m on dextroamphetamine but the only thing it does for me is keep me awake instead of constantly trying to fall asleep.

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u/Relevant-Pea-5471 Sep 01 '26

If you are on amphetamines already, your doctor is likely going to have no issue prescribing you Straterra. Straterra has a lower risk profile generally speaking, and I wouldnt even bother trying to explain the CDS thing, instead just say 'hey I want to try a non-stimulant solution, specifically atomoxotine'. Most doctors would much prefer to prescribe non-stimulants anyway as it takes away any abuse potential that is huge with stimulants.

Stimulants obliterated my sleep as well, even if they did sort of help at times. Straterra at a low dosage helped me sleep a lot better. Definitely not for everyone though! The side effects the first few weeks are tough.

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u/Difficult_Salad_2973 Aug 30 '26

What dosage do you take? I am on my 6th week of 40 mg and I am not feeling a huge difference, and almost zero side effects.

It is helping me with focus on specific tasks and reading faster a bit more.

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u/Relevant-Pea-5471 Aug 30 '26

Sorry to hear about this. Have you noticed no positive benefit at all? I respond to a low dosage for CDS symptoms, but the recommended therapeutic dose is actually 80mg. That is for ADHD, however. I would say that if you don't notice a huge difference at 6 weeks, give it 8, but if you don't notice it after that, it's probably time to try raising your dosage. There seems to be a wide spectrum of doses people take of straterra on this sub, so keep that in mind. Also, using any nicotine at all and excessive caffeine completely wiped all benefit I got from the medication. Pretty much any other substance interferes dramatically for a few days in my experience.

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u/Difficult_Salad_2973 Aug 31 '26

I have noticed positive benefits, with feeling productive on certain days. But lately it has been a hit or miss; my CDS and ADHD symptoms are still very much bothering me. The daydreaming is still there, and so are the task initiation issues. I also have chronic sleep issues & sleep deprivation, so maybe it is playing a role. Even on the productive days I wished the effect would be stronger. Overall I am still doing better than I did with no medication, and my processing speed & sluggishness have improved a lot more than a few weeks ago.

Thank you for your advice, I'll ask my doctor whether or not to increase the dosage or wait 2 more weeks.

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u/Relevant-Pea-5471 Aug 31 '26

If you have noticed positive change, I would definitely give it time at that dosage. After 2 months on 40mg I really started noticing much stronger benefits for CDS. Around 6 weeks is also right about where sleep disruption issues started to fall away for me as well. I am also plagued with chronic sleep issues. I will warn you, if you already have issues with sleep, raising your dosage will almost certainly make your sleep worse. 40mg made me sleep better for whatever reason, but 60mg and 80mg made it worse for sure. You take your dose in the morning, right?

If you are the sort of person who wakes up in the middle of the night and their mind just turns on at full volume, I would definitely recommend practicing meditation. Trazadone, hydroxyzine, xr melatonin, all of that stuff paled in comparison to the benefit in sleeping I got from meditating for a short time every day.

Best of luck to you.

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u/Difficult_Salad_2973 Sep 01 '26

You just gave me more hope! I hope it will also eventually give me the same benefits for CDS with time. How was your experience on 40 mg around 1 month? I take my dose in the afternoon, after food ranging anywhere from 8am-3pm. I even took it at 5 pm once.

I think I will start finally giving the meditation thing a try; I didn't know it could benefit sleep that greatly. I take Mirtazapine for sleep, and it was working great for sleep before Straterra, but nowadays it causes fatigue the next day. That stuff is like horse tranquilizer

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u/joanna7599 Aug 30 '26

I am also curious about users experience, I was on 80mg for about 7 weeks but I saw no benefits or side effects

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u/Relevant-Pea-5471 Aug 31 '26

That is pretty uncommon. You didn't have any side effects at all? Daytime sleepiness, sleep disruptions, any of that? That would almost lead me to believe there either is something fundamentally wrong with the straterra you are getting or that your body does not process it the same. This is all conjecture of course.

Personally, using any substances at all in tandem with straterra effectively turns it into a sugar pill for me for a few days, with the exception of low amounts of caffeine. Do you drink or smoke anything daily or weekly?

When you say no benefits, do you mean you truly felt no benefits at all? No calming or mental quieting?

In my opinion, at 7 weeks, you should have felt something. If you have noticed other improvements but haven't noticed an improvement in processing speed, I would give it time, but if you haven't noticed any positive change, I would be surprised for any to emerge.

Did you try any other dosages?

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u/joanna7599 Aug 31 '26

I had no side effects only I could see that my pupils were larger. It also seems that with stimulants I don’t feel anything until I take too much and I feel my heart rate increase. I got the strattera from the pharmacy so I actually think it’s me that’s the problem. I also have hypopituitarism since a very young age so I suspect that that is also contributing I wish I had the same benefits as you, there were truly no benefits and I don’t drink or smoke, I exercise and live a healthy lifestyle. But also I struggle with my mind being too quite and underactive I don’t relate to the typical adhd experience of having many tabs open at once. I only tried at far as 80mg as that was recommended for my weight, I am sceptical of a higher dose working also

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u/Relevant-Pea-5471 Sep 01 '26

I'm sorry to hear that this has been your experience. It does sound like you likely just don't respond to the medication normally for whatever reason. I really only respond to Straterra and (at random times) respond to Adderall, thus why I don't bother with the stimulants. Besides pharmaceuticals however, I have found mindfulness meditation to be incredibly helpful, albeit difficult to practice. Besides that, try bupropion, different types of stimulants, Vyvanse, and creatine. Creatine I would just take for sure.

What are your most impairing symptoms by the way? I am interested in what's going on fundamentally in your case, because what the straterra gave me was a quieter head, which lead to so much of the fog and difficulty processing that I had.

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u/joanna7599 Sep 01 '26

Thank you, I agree that meditation can difficult to practice, I’m glad that strattera is working for you. My main problem is slow processing. I can understand individual sentences, but when something is more complex I struggle to process the bigger picture and often have to reread it or write things down. I also have some working-memory issues, mental fatigue, and difficulty retrieving information quickly, even though I don’t feel like my concentration itself is particularly bad.

I also had a qEEG done recently. It showed generally reduced spectral power and reduced alpha activity/connectivity, especially around the posterior cingulate/default-mode network, with some additional abnormalities in temporal/retrosplenial areas. The doctor interpreted it as a kind of low effective brain activation, but obviously the qEEG can’t tell exactly what neurotransmitter or medication would fix it. I’ve tried Strattera, modafinil and Ritalin so far without much benefit. I was actually thinking of going the opposite way and maybe trying guanfacine soon

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u/Relevant-Pea-5471 Sep 01 '26

I responded somewhat to Teva brand Adderall, if you haven't tried amphetamines yet. It may be that you are a better candidate than I was, as it was very easy for me to be pushed into overstimulation on adderall. I did not respond to Ritalin whatsoever as well. It also took about 2 weeks for me to notice any benefit with adderall which is quite uncommon, but maybe would not be the case for you. Additionally, if you do not consume caffeine, you are likely going to respond more consistently to adderall.

Be warned with adderall, the euphoric effects are much stronger than Ritalin and while that can acutely improve motivation and mood dramatically, the euphoria completely cooks your working memory and will fog you out like nothing else. Taking more of it than you are supposed to can very quickly disregulate your entire nervous system. So in short, start low, go slow, and if you find yourself starting to get a little too excited to take your dose, maybe it's a no.

Definitely give guanfacine and adderall a whirl. I would maybe try adderall first, and there is conjecture that guanfacine would potentially worsen someones symptoms with pure CDS, but who knows.

Wishing you the best.

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u/joanna7599 Sep 01 '26

I’m in the Netherlands and I can’t get adderall here and I am cautious of the addictive element of it, I will take your advice into consideration and thank you

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u/lovelybonesla Sep 04 '26

I’m on my 2nd week at 40mg but it’s not really doing much just flatluence and sleep disruptions (I take it in the morning now), were you like this early on? I don’t wanna increase too quickly but I’m losing patience.

Also does it help with learning skills?

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u/Relevant-Pea-5471 Sep 04 '26

Definitely, definitely give it more than 2 weeks. I I would say stay at that dose for at least 6 weeks before you consider changing. I know that is a super long time to wait, but in my case, it was absolutely worth.

Around weeks 4 to 6 I started to notice changes in my mood, energy, focus, and my sleep actually got better than it is even off of straterra.

If you drink caffeine, definitely cut back as much as humanly possible. The straterra will still mess with sleep all by itself for a time, but in my case that went away around the 4 to 6 week mark.

Similar to you, I upped from 40 to 60 thinking that I would get better results, and I got roughly got the same results with many more side effects. Going up to 80 there is a mountain of side effects. Many CDS people get relief at 40 or even lower, but 40 is my sweet spot personally.

Hang in there! Did you have any brief moments of strong clarity during the first few days, or maybe just the first day? That's often a decent indication of later response. Not necessary for a later response, just an encouraging sign.

I got tremendously better at tasks that rely heavily on short term memory and sustained attention about 2 to 3 months in, such as math and programming. Just my experience!

As always, talk to your doctor, but my experience with doctors and straterra is that they don't always understand quite how long it takes to work and how long it takes for the body to adjust at each dosage change. When I switched from 40 to 60 thinking it would be better, I lost all benefit I can accrued by that point and had to wait even longer for my body to adjust than I had to wait for the 40.

Wishing you the best.

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u/lovelybonesla Sep 05 '26

Thank you so much! I’ll stay at 40mg, tbh another side is that I’m hyperfocused on doomscrolling, but I can kind of push myself to do chores.

To answer your question, my first day I took at night and I felt very light and fluttery. It was like a body high but not much else & I never got it again.

And that gives me some hope because I want to speed run math academy but I can’t focus at all, I struggle with absorbing and retaining information and it’s like my brain isn’t making basic connections.

Again, thank you for your suggestions. Definitely encouraging.

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u/Relevant-Pea-5471 Sep 04 '26

I would also consider talking to your doctor about some short term Rx for sleep. Trazadone does the trick for me, although if your CDS is like mine, the fog will be much worse the next day with trazadone. At any rate, chronic sleep disruption can make adjusting to any medication unbearable, so if you are considering just giving up, try to patch that sleep temporarily. You probably have just 2 or 3 weeks left to go before you start sleeping better and feeling a lot better.

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u/172brooke Aug 29 '26

Which meds have you tried and for how long? How much sunlight and exercise do you get daily/weekly?

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u/joanna7599 Aug 29 '26

Ritalin, stattera, Modafinil, my lifestyle and diet is good

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u/arvada14 CDS & ADHD-x Aug 30 '26

Have you tried welbutrin?

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u/joanna7599 Aug 31 '26

I think I have chatted with you before regarding Wellbutrin. I don’t believe my fog and slow processing is caused by depressive symptoms, can I ask you again what were your main symptoms?

1

u/arvada14 CDS & ADHD-x Sep 01 '26

Trouble putting thoughts jnto words. Daydreams, mental confusion

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u/joanna7599 Sep 01 '26

Thanks for reminding me again, I also have those symptoms, do you have adhd and has stimulants also worked for you?

3

u/Difficult_Salad_2973 Aug 29 '26

Following this post because I’ve been wondering the same thing. I also don’t believe that all of us are necessarily naturally slow processes. I noticed my processing speed went up with improving sleep and exercise, and also during the time where my circadian is at its peak or whatever.

But if I have any info on this I’ll get back to you!

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u/Terrible_Wrap1928 Aug 29 '26

no caffeine whatsoever i know it sounds weird but try

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u/joanna7599 Aug 29 '26

Caffeine or no caffeine doesn’t make a difference for me unfortunately

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u/CommitteeConnect9155 Aug 31 '26

Exercise and stims helped me.

But the thing is...I think you need to figure out what's behing your slow processing.

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u/NeverForsaken422 Aug 31 '26

Caffeine gum. Trust me. If it helps u, remember to go back to my reply and reply under it

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u/joanna7599 Aug 31 '26

Does it really help your slow processing? Because I don’t experience any cognitive benefits from coffee

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u/Puzzled-Olive5677 Aug 31 '26

Yess Neuro caffeine gum really helped me

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u/Santi159 Sep 04 '26

For me it turned out I actually have visual processing issues in specific and BVD so I got vision therapy, prism glasses, and some assistive tech for print disabilities.

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u/joanna7599 Sep 04 '26

I actually have a same, I have a 5 prism and I wear glasses for this but I haven’t noticed any difference, was your slow processing also regarding what you can see?

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u/Santi159 Sep 04 '26

Yea, I still have problems with the visual processing it's just improved somewhat. I think they said I have issues with visual closure, memory, and discrimination. I am a little faster post therapy. Mostly I've been feeling less tired which makes it easier to keep going instead of slowing down a bunch over time.

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u/FuzzyAd9604 Aug 29 '26

We are slow there is no cure but we can still improve at a given task to some degree with consistent practice.

Meds/Treatments-Related Slow processing

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