Does Strattera cause mood swings?

Strattera and Mood Swings Strattera does cause mood swings. I am 28 yrs old and been on Strattera for 2 weeks. I've noticed that my behavior has been totally inappropriate in the last two weeks that I've been taking Strattera.

I am much more sensitive to emotions such as anger, irritability, and have negative thoughts as I analyze everything. As I'm currently planning a wedding in a few months my stress level would be generally higher; the Strattera in my system is just messing with my emotions even higher. The benefits of the drug are not even close to the negatives it causes.

I have many side effects and lets not forget the sexual ones. Guys, I can honestly say..pay attention to the way this stuff effects your body. I have never had any side effects from medications but Strattera.

I just don't feel the same sexually since I started taking Strattera and as I have read this forum I'm not the only one Here's more: I am an adult, age 44, and was diagnosed a few months ago with ADD. The first medication I tried was a low dose of XR Adderall. It raised my blood pressure and within a month I quit taking it.

Then I began taking Strattera, 40 mg. And since I usually like to go very slowly before increasing to the recommended dose by my doctor, (he wanted me to do 40 mg, for two weeks, then 60 mg for two weeks and possibly 80 mg after that). I have been on the 40 mg for a month and I was about to move onto the 60 mg But, here's what has happened: I had the usual side effects, slightly upset stomach, dry mouth, insomnia ... these were mild, but noticeable, and they did go away very slowly.

I was just about done feeling the side effects at the one month mark but I have noticed a BIG difference in my IRRITABILITY levels. It took me a while to finally figure out that it was the Strattera, and not just me, or PMS or the moon or whatever. I would have something occur that would make me feel irritable, and my normal response is to let it pass naturally and it does.

Very quickly However, on the Strattera, I have been feeling irritable almost DAILY and it DOES NOT PASS quickly! In fact just the past three days, whenever I have come across these irritable feelings they hang on for a LONG time and actually tend to become almost RAGEFUL in strength, which is NOT me except for years ago when I was first diagnosed with depression and had never been on any meds. The rage feeling is so overwhelming that soon my eyes tear up and want to cry.It took me about 4 of these daily events before I realized that it was the Strattera!

I am not willing to see if this goes away; it is too disruptive and I have a fairly stressful life at this time, which does NOT need any extra factors. I also have two young boys and I don't like to be irritable with them any more than we are used to! HA!

I think that ANY med needs to be given a good month to adjust to -- the worst side effects are generally in the beginning two weeks and gradually decrease over time. I think that my particular metabolism is a bit slower than most and it takes me a month to get the full effect of any side effects that I might have. That has been the case with the Strattera as well.

As for any BENEFITS with the drug in my experience, I would say that I didn't notice any but then I was on the lower of the doses my doctor recommended. I won't know if it would have addressed the ADD. I won't wait through the irritability to see!

My 14 year old son was switched slowly from Ritalin to Strattera, and then slowly increased the dose. As the dose increased so did the amount of his anger.So we just increased the medication more until he was on the maximum medication, which is when he blew up at school and got suspended. I still hadn't figured it out, and he had gotten so angry that he had to go to bed with a horrible headache and his face turned beet red several times.

Then he told me he hated his life and wanted to kill himself, when 10 minutes before we were all smiling and happy. That is when I took him off everything. We have been watching his diet, and he is doing okay.

Still having problems forgetting things, but the mood swings were a much bigger problem I have been on Strattera now for about 6 months. I am currently taking 80 mg...was on Adderall XR before but was switched due to increased heart rate. While I have seen benefits relating to increased organization and productivity (almost to a compulsive nature) the irritability is horrible.

At first I thought maybe it was hormonal or something, but I am certain now that it is related to the meds. I find myself having ZERO patience. I am frazzled by the smallest of things and feel the anger rise to a point where it feels like the blood is rushing through all extremities.

I am rude to those I work with and have put my boyfriend through the ringer. I find I have this pessimistic outlook on things that I previously never had. In addition to the extreme moodiness, I also am sleeping very lightly and wake up throughout the night.

Hopes this helps...I actually have a call into my doctor to what we can do. For me, the cons of Strattera far outweigh the benefits I take 40mg of strattera and 10mg of Lexapro. My moods became stable with lexapro, and the strattera is making me crazy.

I am very hard to be around because I am easily irritated.My girlfriend has noticed a big change since I started strattera. I am more focused with work, but I am hurting inside. I am 20 years old, male, 200 pounds.

I was fine for maybe the first month, but I seem to be getting a lot worse. Things that are usually nothing to me drive me crazy. I fight a lot more with my girlfriend because I am so all over the place with my moods.

I am going to stop the strattera and stay with the Lexapro. I am happy to see I am not the only one. I would appreciate any other suggestions My son is 8 years old.

Diagnosed with ADD and dyslexia. I know I sound like a mom in denial here, but I promis Austin has NEVER been a discipline problem. He has NEVER had his folder signed at school.

Doctor put him on Adderol and we had really bad side effects. Austin, who is usually very likable and outgoing, turned inward and became very quiet and unsocial. Again, not a behavioral problem, but just completely anti-social.

We tried Staterra in December. Started with the trial pack and then went to 40 mg. We have given it a try, but gosh, he has become so unfocused and hyper and back talking at school.

He become a behavioral problem at school. S friends even started backing away. This is VERY unlike him and the teacher and his tutor both, asked that I reevaluate my decision to put him on Strattera.In fact his teacher said he is like a time bomb waiting to go off.

I have heard wonderful stories about Strattera, I desperately wanted it to work. I liked the idea that it wasn't a stimulant, but he has just become so obnoxious and out of control we are going to stop taking the Strattera My 16 year old daughter has been on strattera for 3 weeks. She has slowly increased her dose as prescribed.

Her moods are now almost unbearable. If she isn't crying, she is yelling and being very rude. This behavior is not normal for her.

She is the most caring and compassionate person I know. She came to me today and asked if she could quit taking the meds. She is afraid of her behavior.

I will not give her any more doses My 8 year old son was started on Strattera 25 for 4 days and then increased to 40mg daily. After about 4 weeks both my husband and I noticed a sharp increase in our son's irritability and also a great increase in oppositional behavior. We saw the physician that prescribed the Strattera and he increased my son's Wellbutrin but didn't stop or change the strattera dose.

The other night my son had a rage like episode over a trivial issue and proceeded to hit himself in the head and tried to bang his head against the wall. He verbalized the desire to not keep living although it was not suicidal idealization. I decided to stop the strattera and notified the physician.

Several days later my son is much calmer and not exhibiting the untoward behavior any longer. In addition, his appetite has improved greatly.So it appears to me that physicians need to be really aware that these behaviors can come from this drug and if the side effects out weigh the benefits why give it to your child? Has anyone else noticed these side effects with their children on Strattera?

My 16 year old has had increasing rage related mood swings since being on Strattera. We have not seen the benefit of her being able to focus in school as we had with stimulants, but having been on a high dose, she would be somewhat moody coming down from the stimulants. She was on 80 mgs in the am and slept all the time.

We switched to 40 in am and 40 at pm. There was no progress in focusing in school. We cut her back to 40 in the am and her moods became increasingly worse.

After missing one dose, then skipping the next day (to start taking meds in evening), rage got the best of her and she resulted in needing Psyche assistance. The withdrawal from Strattera was even worse than the mood swings while she was on it. She has now been 4 days Strattera free and is happy, her mood is stable, she is laughing, enjoying herself, pleasant, polite, but yet still show some hyperactivity.

I can handle the hyperactivity and will get her involved in lots of physical activities to get rid of some of her energy. Never again would I allow my daughter to be put on Strattera. As far as the stimulants, they are great in small doses.

For her, her metabolism was so fast that she needed larger amounts to be effective in focusing her in school, thus the irritability when coming off stimulants in the evening.My thoughts, YES, STRATTERA DOES CAUSE HORRIBLE MOOD SWINGS The mood swings, irritability, rage, rudeness, anger, tiredness, and other negative behaviors displayed by my daughter are related to her use of Strattera. Lilly is making a fortune on this medication but, while it notes mood swings and irritability, the extent of these side effects are not listed by Lilly's information packaging and many physicians and psychiatrists are unaware of the extreme nature of the negative effects of Stratters. I intend to have my daughter's psychiatrist and neurologist both send informational side-effect forms to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration).

While these forms are extensive and a hassle to the physicians, this information needs to get to those who prescribe and to those who will use this drug. The information posted on this board needs to get to the FDA and to Lilly so others will be properly informed of the horrible mood effects that Strattera can cause. I would beg each of you to request your prescribing doctor to contact the FDA with your comments about Strattera.

There is enough anger in this world and we don't need a drug that is being give widely to children and adults alike to add to it. Best of luck to all of you I will be starting strattera after I finish getting off another medication, they don't mix, that's why the doctor said. I always ask about side effects, and I always research the medication as much as possible.

I appreciate if someone or all of you here e-mail me and let me know what your side effects are/were. Thank you I've been on it a month and haven't had any mood swings as far as I can recall. I do have some severe bouts of lethargy, which are depressing because I have no energy during them, but no other mood side effects as yet I've been on Strattera for a month.At first I started with 40 mg for a week and my blood pressure shot up to 150/90 and my pulse was 106 (usually in the 60's).

Got off for a week. Started again at 20 mg and very slowly built up to 40 then 50 Long story short .. . I'm very moody, depressed, irritable.

I cried for hours last night thinking about my mom who passed away 4 years ago My husband and I rarely fight and we've gotten into 3 fights since I've been on the med I've snapped at people at work for no reason and I just feel miserable And at first I was feeling great benefits from the med, focus, concentration, motivation, etc. Now - about the only benefit I'm seeing is I'm able to pay attention to conversations and not interrupt people I see my shrink on Tuesday. I'm telling her I won't be taking this crap anymore. :) Since I am under a tremendous amount of pressure and stress, I didn't associate my irritability with Strattera until I had been on it for a couple of months.

In addition to making me very angry most of the time, it increased my sex drive to an unreasonable level, when contributed to my grouchiness.So I don't really know if it helped my ADD. I was too agitated to concentrate I have a 10 year old boy who has been on Strattera for almost a year. He hates the medicine.

He says it hurts when he takes it. He has been very angry and I have been concerned about his constant self-abuse, like hitting his head on the wall and scratching his face. I thought it was the Strattera wearing off.

I had no idea it WAS the Strattera. S moods have been all over the board. Low and bored, angry and upset, hysterical and screaming.

I feel so bad. I didn't know Oh my gosh, yes. I got this link from another website now that I've been off it for nearly a month.

I was on it for 2-3 months. It was sheer hell. I was so irritable, angry, and raging.

I, too, thought it might be hormones (I'm a 50 year old female), but the correlation with the meds finally became clear to me What gets me is that my therapist seems to think I am nuts for reacting this way. I tried to hang in there because I wanted so much to improve my focus and organization -- and I think it might have helped some -- but the price of having a Mr. Hyde personality definitely was not worth it I still can't believe the words from the posts I've read here -- they describe precisely what happened to me on Straterra. And the more I read about it and how quickly it went to market to simply provide a non-controlled substance for ADHDers, the more frightening it becomes.

If it really helps some people, fine, but how will people know about the side effects with so many medical personnel so certain of Lily's good intentions (ha! ) and so unwilling to listen to their patients who, of course, do not speak with the authority of controlled scientific studies I hate to imagine what this drug may be doing to children who must have a harder time articulating feeling "different" and not themselves -- not to mention that a drug could make them angry and mean My 9 year old son was put on Strattera for about 3 months. Not only was he incredibly irritable, he became compulsive and manic.

He also had a short episode where he became delusional. After that we took him off and it was like watching him come out of a trance. These medications are not fully tested and if they are, the bad stuff is not getting reported My twelve year old son Kevin has been on Strattera for about the past year.

He has ADHD and has been on several different ADHD medicines, but they always, even did not work or made him lose too much weight or caused mood swings. We thought that Strattera was the answer to our prayers. We could have never been more wrong.

Kevin was once a happy, loving, caring, easy going, and making pretty good grades; Now Kevin doesn't care about anything at all. He has failed the 6th grade, gotten into constant trouble at school, become rude and disrespectful. He has constant mood swings, that can cause him to cry easily or if angered, to become violent.

This has been the most horrible experience of my life, seeing my son go through all this. Our doctor didn't tell us that this so called wonder drug, would cause so much damage. I thank God that I found this web-site today, because we have felt so extremely lost, with not knowing what to do next to make this situation better.

What ever you do, don't ever put your chid or an adult on Strattera. I hope with all my heart that this helps someone, who needs answers. Good Luck to any going through this and May God be with you to help you through it Yes, Strattera causes mood swings, rashes and other side effects.My son acquired a rash throughout school and had mood swings of crying a lot and angry.

Upset stomach too on only 25 mg. When school let out I took him off and within a week his attitude changed, he doesn't cry like he used to and not as angry either. He is 12 yrs.

Old Most definitely. My 10-year-old son told me that he feels like he's going to explode and hurt someone which is so far out of character for him, that I discontinued Strattera the next day. This conversation occurred minutes after we were laughing and having a good time.

It really scared me to hear him talk this way. Je also became a bit compulsive - feeling the need to be clean. He also became uninterested or "lazy" acting and it was summer with a pool in the backyard!

Too many negatives to continue with the med I have been on straterra for 7 months now after 3 months I saw a significant drop in all the major side effects (i.e. Appetite loss, sleepiness, dizziness....)I am 29 years old. This is the first med I have ever tried for my adhd.

I love the way it makes me feel and behave except when I have my period. I can say the other 3 weeks of my life are of better quality but I have to do damage control from the one that I pms cry. It0 children see mom lose it and my poor husband is usually the one whom I have such an issue with.

These rages last anywhere from an hour to days but I feel like I want to divorce him and leave my life behind due to anger and a few hours later (after I call or e-mail him a horrible tirade at his office) I realize that it is stupid, and I feel totally embarrassed. I know it isn't me and my husband just tells me how much he loves me (the saint) anyways. I still don't like putting my family through this.

Other than chaining myself to the radiator I don't know what to do. Straterra has given me my good nights sleep back and calmed my racing mind. Those things are awesome so which would my family rather have Me all adhd or once a month psycho woman?

My daughter started on 18mg for 3 weeks, then the Dr. upped the dosage to 25mg. She has been on 25 for 5 days now, and she is experiencing unbelievable mood swings and temper tantrums. She even tells me she doesn't want to get angry, she just can't help herself.

I have a call in to our Dr., and am thankful to have been able to read these other accounts. I think the meds may be causing her behavior Well I am glad I am not the only one experiencing these horrible mood swings! The other day, I completely snapped at my boss at work.

This type of behavior is not normal for me. I am a 26 year old female and have been on Strattera for about 2 months. I have had no problems (other than nausea) and then suddenly, I began experiencing frustration and irritability.

I am not sure that dealing with these emotional outbursts is worth the positives of the medication. Any suggestions on minimizing the emotional outbursts of Strattera other than caffeine?Thanks.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.