FOCALIN Reviews (DEXMETHYLPHENIDATE HYDROCHLORIDE)Average Rating: 2.9 (33 Ratings)Filter ResultsCompare FOCALIN with similar:
Type: Rx Drug
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Results are sorted by length of time drug was taken longest to shortest. Key to Ratings: 1=LOW (I would not recommend taking this medicine.) Page: 1 2 |
More on FOCALIN: Reviews Summary | Drug Safety Information
| RATING | REASON | SIDE EFFECTS FOR FOCALIN | COMMENTS | SEX | AGE | DURATION/ DOSAGE | DATE ADDED |
| 4 | Adult ADD | Most annoying side effects: stomach discomfort and upset at times, burred vision, fast heart beat, excessive talking, euphoria that compromises good judgement (I'll commit to doing something that I don't want to follow thru on when drug wears off), effectiveness of name brand wears off after a few years. I went to generic, then took a break from drug. Effectiveness came back even on generic after a month break. Insomnia if I took too late in day. | It works just fine, and I can think clearly, stay on task for hours. | F | 54 | 10 years 10 2X day | 3/29/2018 | 3 | ADD | headaches, migranes, anxiety, pounding heart, decreased appetite, weight loss, no libido | This medication helped me somewhat but by the time I stopped taking it I had become very anxious and was getting extremely severe headaches. | M | 15 | 7 years 10 MG 1X day | 1/17/2018 | 5 | ADD | Without Focalin, I probably wouldn't be passing any of my classes. I'be been taking the medication for about 6 years now. I've tested days without it and it absolutely screws up my day. I don't do any work in school and then come home and have issues focusing on homework. My doctor has prescribed me many different medications between Kindergarten and 3rd grade. Focal in was the only thing that worked. | M | 15 | 6 years 10 | 2/29/2016 | 5 | ADHD | slight loss of appetite | My son has tried every ADHD medicine available and this is by far the best. Focalin seems to control his impulses and increases his ability to stay focused and do well in school while still allowing his personality to come through. It has had the least affect on his appetite and sleep patterns. All other medicines we tried since he was 5 include Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta, Vyvanse and Stratterra. They all showed signs of extreme irratability and agitation, and affected his sleep and appettite. Adderal and Ritalin both caused nervous ticks and Strattera caused him to feel like he did not belong. Vyvanse caused him to act irrational emotionally. Extreme mood swings. From a mom who continues to research and stay on top of what is available and how it effects my child this is definitely what I recommend to any parent. | M | 16 | 4 years | 1/9/2010 | 4 | Add | Sleepy at first then "wake up" and good to go. | M | 41 | 3 years 10mg 1x da | 1/16/2014 | 5 | Bipolar NOS | Decreased appetite-- that's about it. I wish I could give this drug ten stars!!! Email me to learn more about it. | A MIRACLE DRUG. Focalin saved my life because my doctor was willing to try something very unconventional for BP. It pulled me out of horrible bipolar mixed states and made me see that life really COULD be worth living again. If you have BP and your mood stabilizer is not enough, see if your doctor will let you add on Focalin. The other stimulants do NOT work for this purpose. | F | 39 | 2 years | 11/4/2008 | 4 | ADD | Mild depression when it wears off, very mild fatigue when it wears off, thirst. I was totally unexpectedly able to stop a 30 year finger-picking habit! | I take an odd combo of 10MG once each morning of Ritalin LA (long acting) and 5 MG of Focalin (Dexmethylph generic actually) 2x per day. For me, Focalin is better for focus and Ritalin is better for energy and willpower. With Focalin alone I am very focused -- and often decide I don't feel like using it. With Ritalin alone I feel great -- and end up working in scattered fashion on a bunch of stuff that does not really matter. The combo is best. I used to just take the 5MG Ritalin/Methylin 4-hour tabs twice daily. These resulted in a nasty 30 minute angry/irritated state about 6 hours after ingestation as they wore off. After kicking my wife's cat once too often for me to be able to live with myself (and fearing I'd do something worse) I switched to Focalin -- which does not give me nearly as much angry irritation when it wears off. | M | 41 | 1 years 5 MG 2X day | 11/17/2010 | 5 | ADULT ADD | Since I began taking this drug, as an adult , I always noticed some sort of anxiety, which is what I described it as... I have always constantly kept a blank writing pad next ti me, because as the effect of the medication began, my mind would began to think about all these other things (in my 'to do list') that I had forgotten..., so I would start a to do list as I am trying to study. I never thought this was a negative effect until now, where I believe I am becoming dependent on the focalin. I read how children pick their nails... I do that,,, I cant sit still, yet again, I can focus. Its a very scary feeling, and I find myself 'self prescribing' higher and higher doses, solely to be able to focus, yet again, i think I am becoming even more an anxiety driven.... Im not sure what to do at this point. My education (higher education) depends on me being able to concentrate on classes and this is truly becoming a problem.... | F | 27 | 18 months 20 3X day | 10/31/2011 | 4 | ADHD | loss of appetite, headache, dry outh | F | 39 | 9 months | 4/24/2008 | 5 | Severe adhd | A little less hungry | This drug has seriously saved my sons life. He is very impulsive and was failing school. He has a high iq and just couldn’t get through the day. This has helped his learning, friendships and he is overall much happier. He is able to go to school and activities full day when he could not before. We are blessed to have found focalin. | M | 7 | 6 months 10 | 7/16/2019 | 2 | AD/HD | My son exhibits OCD-like behavior, nail biting, hyper-focused on finger or toes... sometimes to the point of distracting him worse than if he's not medicated. Loss of appetite is minimal. REBOUND as med wears off can be severe: hyperactivity worse than normal, aggressive, defiant. My son metabolizes this medication in 2-4 hours tops. By the way the rebound is much worse if your dose is too low, but I'm afraid to bump him up because he's already OCD over his fingers enough as it is. | I had him on Focalin XR prior to trying the immediate release. I'm happier with the way the XR worked. It had less of a rebound, less OCD/Hyper-focus response and lasted up to 6 hours. He seemed less zombie-like and more outgoing as well. It did interfere with his sleep more and definitely impacted his appetite and cause him to not gain weight. | M | 6 | 6 months 10mg 1X day | 3/1/2011 | 4 | ADD | I experienced intense muscle pain the first couple of weeks, but that eventually went away. I also had nausea (especially in the morning) and just recently began experiencing swelling in my feet at night. | F | 38 | 4 months 10 MG 2X day | 7/26/2020 | 5 | ADHD | Mild headache | This drug has been very effective for my son. He was having severe attention problems at school which showed on his report card in his grades and his conduct scores. Since taking this drug, he has brought N's up to S's and some N's up to E's. His teacher sees a remarkable improvement. He still eats very well - almost better than before. He complains of a headache occasionally but that could also be from his allergies. | M | 7 | 3 months | 5/6/2009 | 3 | Adhd | F | 65 | 2 months 10 mg 3X day | 10/29/2021 | 1 | ADHD | Instability. Unpredictable mood swings and occasionally even panic attacks. | Initially, Focalin, broken into 5mg doses worked okay when I couldn't get an Adderall prescription filled, but after about a month- Every time I took it I would get hyperanxiety. Once to the point of auditory hallucinations. I tried one last time earlier today and had a panic attack. Would not recommend this drug to anyone as it has way too unstable a range of effects, both psychologically and physically. I'll be looking into a different medication option, and for reference, I did not experience theses negative effects from adderall. | M | 24 | 2 months 10mg 2X day | 7/14/2012 | 3 | ADHD | Son was very emotional on this. Started showing OCD behaviors, such as fingernail picking and toenail picking and picking between toes, everyday it got progressively worse. Extreme fear of insects started with this too. Stopped it 3 days ago and so far the OCD symptoms have stopped as well. | Focalin was the 2nd med we tried for my 5 year old son after Adderall, which made him very irritable. Less irritability on Focalin and much more affection from him, but there were very clear side effects from this. The OCD behavior such as picking his fingernails and his toes were quite concerning. This progressively got worse every day. Even his teacher mentioned it to me. The last day he was on it, he was freaking out about a fly in our van. He was compltely panicked over it, screaming, just like if I were to have 10 big spiders crawling on me, that's how he was acting over this fly that was flying around in our van. He has NEVER behaved that way about a bug before. We stopped the Focalin that day and are starting the Daytrana patch today. It's been 3 days and I haven't seen him picking his fingernails or toenails since stopping the Focalin. I believe this drug brings out OCD tendencies in people. I've never seen anything like this in my son before and I haven't seen it in the 3 days since he stopped taking it. | M | 5 | 1 months 10 mg 1X day | 3/30/2010 | 1 | ADD | This is by far the WORST drug I have ever taken in my life. Everytime I took Focalin I had these HORRIBLE jitters and I couldn't stop yawning uncontrollably. I was also very thirsty and had to drink several glasses of water all day long. I had episodes where I would get very VERY angry and aggressive and felt like I could go on a shooting spree or kill myself. I could feel blood rushing through my body and and I would get so hot to the point where you could see my hands would be very red in color. I would also get very moody (as if I were bipolar) and anxious and have awful panic attacks. I was on a normal dose for my weight. This is a dangerous drug. Don't take it -- AVOID FOCALIN. It's HORRIBLE! | I will never take it again. It is a dangerous drug and should be banned. | M | 22 | 1 months | 3/13/2009 | 1 | ADD | Very, very anxious! Jittery, short of breath, very rapid heartbeat, fatigued when wears off and headache/stiff neck. Bad idea! | F | 35 | 1 months 30 | 6/16/2016 | 1 | ADHD | The medicine worked to keep my son calm and he did focus better and finished schoolwork. However, he started recently about a week ago to have abnormal side effects. First, he had trouble sleeping. Then, he became deathly afraid of his grandmas kitten, would scream about how scared he was and needed to lock self in closet/another room. Then he became deathly afraid again later this week and had like a panic attack/paranoia about a fly that was in our kitchen. Never was afraid of flies in the past but now he couldn't handle it all of a sudden. Needed to take him outside for a walk and to calm down. Saw a neighbors dog and wanted to pet it and he did a good job. So not sure why he could pet dog and be friendly with that vs panic attacks about fly | We are going to stop medication immediately and try another medication. He seems like himself so far after one day of not taking it | M | 8 | 1 months 15mg XR 1X day | 7/5/2020 | 2 | ADHD | Makes my daughter very irritable, crabby and emotional. Mood swings and many meltdowns. It also makes her very anxious. Spitting because she thinks bugs are in her mouth, worried about germs etc. It also killed her appetite and she won't drink much either. | It seemed to help the first week or so (minus the spitting) but not longer has much effect. I don't want to increase the dose for rear that it will make her mood and OCD behaviors worse. | F | 5 | 3 weeks 5 mg 1X day | 5/13/2012 |
FOCALIN (DEXMETHYLPHENIDATE HYDROCHLORIDE): This medication is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - ADHD. It works by changing the amounts of certain natural substances in the brain. Dexmethylphenidate belongs to a class of drugs known as stimulants. It can help increase your ability to pay attention, stay focused on an activity, and control behavior problems. It may also help you to organize your tasks and improve listening skills. FDA Approval Date: 2001-11-13 (Sources: U.S. Centers for Medicare Services, FDA)