Author: Gary Jackson

Stimulants: Definition, Pharmacology, Indications, Side Effects, and Treatment Strategies SpringerLink

If you take them for ADHD, you’ll get slow and steady doses, just like your brain would create them naturally. That helps boost your energy, helps you pay better attention, and keeps you alert. Risk of tolerance and dependence will vary for the type of stimulant taken.

Prescription stimulants work by enhancing the effects of dopamine and norepinephrine. While this helps improve alertness and energy, it can also lead to increased blood pressure, elevated heart rate, and fast breathing patterns. Prescription stimulants are a group of psychoactive drugs that affect the central nervous system and the autonomic nervous system.

However, stimulants also have potential risks and side effects, such as addiction, tolerance, withdrawal, psychosis, anxiety, insomnia, cardiovascular problems, and neurotoxicity. The misuse and abuse of stimulants can lead to serious health and social consequences, such as overdose, dependence, crime, and violence. Therefore, the use of stimulants is regulated by laws and policies in most countries, and requires medical supervision and prescription in some cases. Certain effects can also be experienced if prescription stimulants are not taken as prescribed. In addition to a risk of overdose, prescription stimulant misuse can lead to paranoia, psychosis, anger, or problems with the heart, nerves, or stomach—potentially leading to a heart attack or seizure.

Still higher doses or chronic use can cause agitation, tremor, confusion, and, in the most serious cases, a state resembling paranoid schizophrenia. Moreover, letdown effects of deep depression and physical exhaustion may occur after only a single dose of moderate strength wears off. With repeated use, tolerance develops, so that a user needs to take larger doses, but the accompanying dependence is not strong enough to be termed a physical addiction. Amphetamines are widely abused, in some cases by workers or students seeking enhanced physical energy and mental acuity to fulfill demanding tasks. This neuropsychopharmacotherapy chapter on stimulants covers the definition, classification, and list of products. It discusses the pharmacology and pharmacokinetics of the main stimulant classes and formulations, including methylphenidate, amphetamine, and modafinil.

Modafinil

Each of these stimulants has unique properties and mechanisms of action. But they also share many commonalities, one of which is that all of them can be highly addictive, causing negative effects on health and wellness. These drugs also affect neurotransmitters, but they don’t increase dopamine levels. In general, it takes longer to see results from these drugs than from stimulants. For someone with ADHD, these medications boost the levels of certain brain chemicals, like dopamine and norepinephrine.

Recreational use and issues of abuse

  1. In chemical terms, it is an alkaloid with a phenethylamine skeleton found in various plants in the genus Ephedra (family Ephedraceae).
  2. Among them are phenmetrazine (Preludin) and methylphenidate (Ritalin).
  3. CNS stimulants have many unpleasant side effects and deaths have resulted from their misuse.
  4. If you experience severe negative effects due to prescription stimulant misuse, such as heart attack or seizure, seek immediate medical attention.
  5. This neuropsychopharmacotherapy chapter on stimulants covers the definition, classification, and list of products.

FDA has developed resources on purchasing prescription medications online through BeSafeRx to help ensure access to medications from a safe source. Additionally, FDA is proactively working to address controlled substances illegally sold online. To reduce the risks presented by excess prescription medication, FDA has developed resources on safe drug disposal. Short-term effects include nausea, increased blood pressure, tremors, and irregular heartbeat. Long-term effects depend on how the cocaine is ingested and range from nosebleeds when it is snorted to hepatitis C and collapsed veins if it is injected.

Nicotine

Methylphenidate is a stimulant drug that is often used in the treatment of ADHD and narcolepsy and occasionally to treat obesity in combination with diet restraints and exercise. Its effects at therapeutic doses include increased focus, increased alertness, decreased appetite, decreased need for sleep and decreased impulsivity. Methylphenidate is not usually used recreationally, but when it is used, its effects are very similar to those of amphetamines. Stimulants work by affecting the levels of certain neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, histamine and acetylcholine, in the synapses between neurons. Stimulants sometimes also work by binding to the receptors for neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters regulate various functions, such as arousal, attention, the reward system, learning, memory, and emotion.

Theophylline is used in the treatment of severe asthma because of its capacity for relaxing the bronchioles in the lungs. Methylphenidate acts as a norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor (NDRI), by blocking the norepinephrine transporter (NET) and the dopamine transporter (DAT). Stopping nicotine use can lead to withdrawal, and withdrawal symptoms can hit quickly—within two to three hours from the last use. Symptoms of nicotine withdrawal include irritability, anxiety, depression, headaches, trouble sleeping, and gastrointestinal issues. Guanfacine is normally prescribed for high blood pressure in adults. This drug is available as a generic, but only the time-release version and its generics are approved for use in children with ADHD.

Effects

Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud initially advocated for its use but withdrew his endorsement of the drug after realizing that it wasn’t harmless and had negative side effects. Clonidine ER (Kapvay) is used to reduce hyperactivity, impulsiveness, and distractibility in people with ADHD. Methylphenidate works by blocking the reuptake of norepinephrine and dopamine in your brain.

Commonly used stimulants

Misuse of CNS stimulants can cause severe paranoia and psychosis, severe depression and suicidal thoughts. It can lead to a break down in relationships and affect a person’s ability to keep a job. Drug seeking behavior can take over a person’s life to the extent that their nutrition suffers.

Conditions

By increasing their availability, stimulants can produce a range of effects, from mild stimulation to euphoria, depending on the specific drug, dose, route of administration, and individual factors. The negative effects of caffeine can be especially problematic for certain individuals. This includes children, teens, and young adults; pregnant and lactating women; and people with underlying heart conditions or mental health issues. However, consuming too much of this stimulant can cause increased feelings of anxiety, dizziness, fast heart rate, and insomnia.