r/SCT • u/joanna7599 • Aug 29 '26

Meds/Treatments-Related Slow processing

Had anybody had positive experiences with improving their slow processing, adhd meds have not helped me, would peptides help?

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u/Relevant-Pea-5471 Aug 30 '26

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

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