I feel obligated to respond to Laura Ellermeyer’s Tuesday column on “study pills.” While I applaud her for denouncing their use, I feel she took the matter too lightly. I have ADHD and take Concerta (a form of Ritalin) and suffer the side effects she spoke of, but there are worse side effects as well. All the drugs she mentioned can cause chronic headaches (which I suffer from) as well as loss of appetite, heartburn, vomiting. And that’s just the mild symptoms. Worse symptoms include seizures, depression, heart trouble and sudden death, especially in adults with heart defects or previous heart problems. This can all be found on the PubMed Health website. There have been documented cases of children dying from a Ritalin dose their own doctor prescribed.
I was warned when put on my meds that caffeine would reverse the effects of the medication, and it does. Caffeine with ADHD meds results in the exact opposite of calming you down and helping you focus. And it can have that same effect on people who take these medications that do not need them. They will basically give you ADHD if you take them and don’t need them. I understand this is not the case for all people, and some may do fine with these meds even though they are unneeded, but please don’t take the risk. A higher exam grade is not worth the risk of sudden death because of a heart problem you didn’t know you had.
Editor's note: This letter refers to this column.
