Increasing Vyvanse dose

So I am on Vyvanse for binge eating disorder to see if it helps. So I was on 30mg for a month. There was a slight increase in anxiety that could also be put down to other things. Now on 50mg of Vyvanse and my tics/spasms that I had before taking the Vyvanse seem to be getting worse. My level of irritability has increased and I yelled at my family at Christmas. I went somewhere boxing day I was ready to leave as soon as I got there. My anxiety level is up more than normal.

My question is for those who have been on Vyvanse before...... does your body adjust to the med and settle back down after taking it for a while?
At some point my pdoc will want to increase it to 70mg per day as that is the recommended effective dose for bed. Did you find that your body got used to it at some point?

hi. amphetamines are...tricksy. people can adjust to them. sometimes...and im not saying this to scare you, it just..it is what it is, basically...sometimes, some people are prone to amphetamine psychosis, agitation, anxiety, crashes into depression, mood instability, etc.

it was once thought that psychosis from legally prescribed stimulants was rare...but it seems that its actually surprisingly common.

sorry about this. does it help lift your mood, at all? the tics...are they low level TD or pre-existing? i had ocd-related stuff that got better on amphetamines...and then when the doctor raised the dose, the ocd (complete with tics) got worse, and stayed that way for the duration of treatment. :-(

i dont have a solid answer, obviously. sedatives were once popular with amphetamines for this very reason. back then, it was barbiturates, now and then Equanil, sometimes low dose sedating antipsychotics. these days, I think low(er) potency benzodiazepines are sometimes used for the same purpose. personally...i found librium helped amphetamine stuff more than klonopin...but that's not the best long term solution, and it can make mood instability and amphetamine psychosis worse, not better, over the long haul.

just please be cautious. :-)

Thank you so much for replying still_crazy. I am also taking 100mg of Seroquel at night. 1mg of Klonolpin at night and .5 of Klonolpin in the morning. The other morning my heart was beating so fast I took another .5 of klonolpin. I have just taken my morning dose and my heart is very jumpy. Has, my mood improved? Not especially. Anxiety is pretty constant.


My tics were pre-existing, for years and when I get anxious they to get worse. Maybe it's the festive season that has increased their frequency but a visit to the dentist when I just went on Vyvanse made me very shaky and then at night the spasms were horrid so I needed to double the amount of Klonolpin. I don't want to blame the vyvanse for tics but I do remain open minded.


I did not know that psychosis was part of the deal for some. I have never had a psychotic episode. Wonder what that would look like? Hope I never find out. I do have episodes of dissociation at times. That can be scary (for me and others) and out of control.
My next apt with my p'doc is not until the 16th of Jan. Might ask him about this. I really appreciate your input still_crazy. Thankyou.

hi. amphetamine psychosis is different from Schizophrenia, -but- there are cases of people prescribed stimulants (ritalin and the various diet pills included) going on to develop chronic psychosis...so, basically, drug-induced Schizophrenia is possible, in some cases.

for a while there, in the US there was concern about cardio-toxicity, because some youngsters treated for add/adhd died. in the medical literature, there are reports of "cardiac events" with legal, prescription-level use and also there seems to be long term toxicity in -some- people. and yet...

stimulant prescribing is apparently up all over the world, and in the US its gone up, up, and away, and now...ritalin is less popular, and the various amphetamines dominate the Rx market.

i wish i could provide some good news, lol. oh wait...overall, low to moderate doses of prescription stimulants -are- surprisingly safe. its far easier to drop a prescription amphetamine than to drop a benzodiazepine or even many pain killers. but...

if its not working well with you right now, id personally ask about something else. do they still have diet pills where you live? the old ones are frowned upon here in the US, but they're still produced and prescribed, mostly (it seems...) by family doctors and the weight loss specialists. some of those...tenuate, phendimetrazine, maybe even phentermine..seem (to me, a non-expert) like they might help without being as harsh as amphetamine.

ritalin is popular in some places, but i dont think its used in eating disorders or for weight loss. i could be wrong. more of an add/adhd and/or depression thing, here anyway.

and...the other amphetamines...various forms of dexedrine, adderall. here in the us, methamphetamine (Desoxyn) is still produced and prescribed now and then, but I think its the least popular amphetamine option (I could be wrong).

sorry about all this. please do talk to your doctor and also...not to question your shrink, but ive sometimes found running things past a caring family doctor really helps, too.

I hate stimulants, I won't take them under any circumstances. Only thing I will touch any more is coffee.

oh, and...with amphetamine psychosis, you're looking for paranoia, agitation, voices, sometimes awkward, odd movements...it can be rough. semi-locally, a methamphetamine dependent young woman gouged her own eyes out because of voices she heard while on the street meth. :-( sad times.

its more common with high doses, street drug abuse, etc., -but- it can and does happen with low to moderate, standard dose treatment by prescription. happens with ritalin, too, so its not -just- the amphetamines.

the scary thing is that it can creep up on people...so, it might be 2 years into treatment and the person starts having psych issues. and yet...

stimulants can be effective and safe(ish) for a lot of people. if you're anxious, prone to agitation, moody by nature...i would -personally- avoid, or at least try alternatives 1st.

to be fair, psych drugs -in general- can make things worse...sometimes a lot worse. antidepressants and anti-seizure drugs can cause suicidality, psychosis, etc. so...its not just the uppers.

hope this helps.

I need to see my general doctor soon as I need to check in about some blood tests I had done recently. He always takes my blood pressure and will pick up if my heart is not happy but maybe that's just the added anxiety. I think we still have diet pills in Oz but getting my gp to prescribe them would be impossible as he thinks they are dangerous.

My P'doc knows I have a sensitivity to most pills now so he always asks me to google them first to see what I think of them. His specialty is eating disorders and developing a good all round approach to that. I have failed in that. I did google Vyvanse but did not dig deep enough. Kind of unsure right now but stopping them puts me right back into place where I really don't want to be. I am still hoping for an improvement at 70mg but maybe this is wishful thinking.

2 years in? Cr a p. The more I googled the more I don't like. I am a moody, anxious ticking person before Vyvanse. One site said that being on this med for many months is not desirable and people should get off it as soon as they can. Feeling a bit squirrely now from the information.

Just wondering are you on any meds Still_Crazy?

Coffee gives me migraines so I prefer tea.

Have you been diagnosed with bipolar? If so, amphetamines are probably not a good idea. They can cause mania.

I'm also not sure amphetamines are a good way to deal with weight loss, but I don't know much about it.

No, dont have Bipolar. Do have DID. Vyvanse is not so much about losing weight but stopping the binging.

hi. im on abilify and neurontin. im working with the prescriber to get the abilify dose a bit lower...thankfully, going up just a bit on the neurontin while pushing down on the abilify seems to do the trick (For now).

sorry about all this. amphetamines are...well, old school. not that antidepressants are that much better, necessarily. less euphoric, definitely. better? who knows?

i dont know anything about DID or binge eating. wish I could help. I'm honestly not trying to scare you, its just...man oh man, here in the US, the uppers are being sprayed on people all over, its...well, crazy. and sometimes they help, sometimes...well, there seem (to me) to be more casualties of this sort of prescribing than the media lets on. oddly enough, ive seen (just my limited view, of course) better long term results with adults taking low doses for mood issues than with the kids and teens I knew on the stuff for add/adhd. weird, huh?

Stimulant psychosis, also known as stimulant-induced psychotic disorder, is a psychosis symptom which involves hallucinations, paranoia, and/or delusions and typically occurs following an overdose on psychostimulants; however, it has also been reported to occur in approximately 0.1% of individuals, or 1 out of every 1,000 people, within the first several weeks after starting amphetamine or methylphenidate therapy.[1][2][3]

The most common causative agents are substituted amphetamines, including substituted cathinones, as well as certain dopamine reuptake inhibitors such as cocaine or methylphenidate.
I do not know if saying stimulant psychosis is surprisingly common is accurate.

Amphetamine-induced psychosis - a separate diagnostic entity or primary psychosis triggered in the vulnerable?
This is an excellent article discussing amphetamine psychosis.

Listen I am not trying to hammer you on amphetamine psychosis or mania but I am trying to present more balanced information. Yes, bipolar patients must be closely monitored for manic episodes when first starting stimulants like amphetamines. This may mean more frequent visits but you will know pretty quickly whether or not you can tolerate them. Thats one of the great things about amphetamines for people that need them- you will know much sooner if there is a problem or if they work than something like an antidepressant. I also have found that Bipolar I patients are more prone to amphetamine side effects. This is just my own layman's experience with other people. I have bipolar II and I have been on amphetamines for going on 15 years with only 1 dose increase that followed a procedure that changed my absorption rate.
You seem to imply that getting an rx for stimulants is simple and no big deal. We are in the midst of an opiate crisis/epidemic with Meth on the rise again so maybe that is your experience but no way is amphetamine use or abuse (prescribed, not street meth) anything like the opiate epidemic. I am also an alcoholic and I nearly died. I promise you that alcohol kills more people than amphetamines. I know you are not comparing the two but my point is that some people like to point the finger at certain medications spreading misleading information or at least presenting a biased view of it in order to scare someone away from considering it or maybe its for other reasons I do not understand. I really cant figure out why its acceptable to freak out over amphetamines (not saying this is you) yet people have no issues with say tylenol. 3 days of tylenol increases your liver enzymes by like 25%. Thats an OTC pain reliever that doctors always toss at you. Have you read the side effects profile? Have you heard about the under-reported blood pressure effects between ibuprofen, aleve and tylenol? I am just saying that everything can be a risk. But not every controlled substance puts someone on the brink of mania. I just think we should be more discriminate with how we talk about medication.

Mad in America - Science, Psychiatry and Social Justice

lots of interesting information.

I tried Abilify not that long ago. It made me incontinent. So no thanks. I am glad that you have found something that is helping and that your prescriber is working with you to get the dose right for you.


It is odd how amphetamines can affect those with adhd and then act differently with those who dont. I made an appointment with my gp for this coming thursday so will see what he has to say.


Heart is jumpy now. Kind of overload with info so am going to see what happens after I am 70mg. That will push me one way or the other.

Thanks for this info sarahsweets. Been taking this med for nearly two months so I should be past the early danger period. Thanks for the link too. I will read it soon.

add guanfacine to the vyvanse, man. it reduces anxiety and some of the negative side effects of stimulants. benedryl helps at night

I will ask my pdoc about it. Thanks for the info.