In the past, I was prescibed Ritalin to take in the morning for depression. It's a stimulant like Adderall. I've seen posts by others here who take stimulants as part of the regimen to manage their depression. Regardless of what it was supposed to treat, I think the bottom line is: Does it improve the quality of your life? You say it does, so I would go with that.

There really aren't other drugs that do what stimulants do. By all means tell your doctor about this. Most likely, your doctor will be fine with continuing it.

After decades of being prescribed all kinds of psychotropic drugs, I've concluded that the process doctors use to select psych drugs for any given patient is, basically, "throw stuff up against the wall and see what sticks." Yeah, they can give you an organized sounding rationale for what they choose. But it's so, so not like choosing an antibiotic for a specific infection.

My opinion is based not only on what I've gone through, but also on what I've seen working as a nurse.

Now, in my case, I have found that Vicodin (hydrocodone with Tylenol) occasionally gives me a very helpful lift in mood when I'm having a depressed episode. I absolutely will not go reporting that to any doctor, for fear I might lose my prescription for Vicodin, which I need for neck and back pain due to disk deterioration. Even, if the doctor, himself, didn't mind me using the Vicodin for depression, the federal government isn't too cool with that.

Meanwhile, I recently doubled the dose of amitriptyline (antidepressant) that I take, which my doctor allows. It hasn't much helped my depression, but it's done wonders for my back pain. (amitriptyline is known to have pain relieving properties.) That I would be willing to tell my doctor because using that drug to treat pain is a fairly common practice and not frowned upon by the federal DEA.

So there you go. I say, "Don't argue with success."