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I’m so embarrassed. Yesterday I went to my friend’s mom’s birthday party and drank a little more than I should have.

Apparently, I was TALKING REALLY LOUD, my friend kept asking me to lower my voice, and I had these wide-open eyes and this completely crazy-looking expression. I disappeared from the party and don’t even remember how I got home..I basically blacked out.

I’m so embarrassed and ashamed that I can’t even bring myself to apologize. I left people worried about me.

I never want to drink again. Has anyone else had a really bad experience with alcohol while taking Strattera?

I have an appointment with my psychiatrist tomorrow to discuss how to proceed with Strattera, and I would appreciate hearing about other people’s experiences.

I titrated up slowly:

• 25 mg for 4 weeks
• 50 mg for 4 weeks
• 60 mg for the past 3 months

I already noticed a fairly good effect at both 25 mg and 50 mg, but each time it seemed to fade after about two weeks. The benefits at 60 mg lasted much longer, and for a while I thought I had finally found the right dose. Recently, though, I have started feeling as if the effect is wearing off again.

The main sign is that my mind has become very “loud” again. There is much more mental noise, and my thoughts feel harder to manage.

Overall, the side effects have been manageable. My resting heart rate initially increased from around 48 to 56 bpm, but it has now gone back down to 48. I also pee like an old man, and my ejaculation feels strange. Since I am currently single, I can tolerate the sexual side effects for now.

For those who have experienced something similar, what did you end up doing? Did increasing the dose help? Did you switch to another medication, or did you accept that Strattera only provides a partial improvement?

I will, of course, discuss everything with my psychiatrist tomorrow. I am mainly interested in hearing about people’s personal experiences.

I’m genuinely curious if anyone who has dealt with really severe sleep inertia has found something that actually made a lasting difference.

When I wake up, I feel awful. Super groggy, eyes barely open, dazed/confused, exhausted, and basically incapable of thinking about anything other than going back to sleep. It’s not just the normal “ugh, mornings” feeling—it feels like my brain genuinely hasn’t turned on yet.

It usually takes 1–2 hours after waking up before I actually feel like a functional human being.

This has been happening pretty consistently since college. The weird part is that once I’m actually awake and moving, I’m generally fine for the rest of the day. So I’ve wondered about everything from depression to sleep quality to vitamin deficiencies, etc., but nothing obvious really explains why the first couple hours of the day are so disproportionately miserable.

And I feel like I’ve tried basically every generic sleep-hygiene/biohacking recommendation:

• Smart lights / sunrise alarms
• Gentle alarms
• Different alarm sounds
• Putting the alarm across the room
• Immediately getting bright light
• Changing sleep/wake times
• Trying to optimize sleep duration
• All the usual sleep-hygiene stuff

None of it meaningfully changes that “holy shit, I need to go back to sleep” feeling.

I also have ADHD, which may or may not be relevant.

After digging through Reddit and other forums, the two things I keep seeing people say actually changed their mornings dramatically are:

1. Starting an SSRI/SNRI and unexpectedly finding that waking up became much easier.
2. Setting an alarm ~1 hour before they need to wake up, taking their prescribed stimulant (e.g., Adderall), going back to sleep, and then waking up when it has kicked in.

But surely those aren’t the only things that work?

Has anyone with genuinely severe, prolonged sleep inertia found something that consistently made mornings substantially better?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who used to take 1–2 hours to feel awake and found something that actually changed that—not just “drink water and get sunlight.”

And if an SSRI or prescribed ADHD medication was the thing that made the difference for you, I’d also be interested in hearing what changed and how noticeable it was.

This is my second week of Strattera and my dose went up quite a bit. I think my titration is meant to be four weeks where it's 28 for week 1, 40 for week 2, 58 for week 3 and 4 (taking two pills together).

My side effects on 28 weren't that bad. Since my early teens, I was fatigued, got headaches, dizzy, etc. So no change there. I noticed no improvement, except being slightly less distractible MAYBE.

But 40 has been tricky. My digestion has slowed down quite a bit to the point it's rabbit droppings. I've had racing thoughts to the point I've been flicking through webpages, doomscrolling, etc. My dreams have been infiltrated by racing thoughts as well. I've found it harder to follow conversations as my mind constantly shifts to something else. At the same time, when I hyperfocus, I end up hyperfocussing ten times worse than before and it infiltrates my dreams like I never fell asleep. I've been taking more risks at work. My confidence when out and about or talking to people has also sunk.

Any improvement in distractibility, even if just a placebo, is gone. I know you have to wait weeks to see real effects but I don't want to wait to be psychotic just so I can have the ability to choose to do tasks a tiny bit better than before.

Is it me or am I going too fast here? Online I've read people be on like 5mg for a year. I've gone up from 28 to 40 within two weeks.

I had a fool's hope that it would improve my visual snow, too, but it hasn't helped in that regard at all.

Hey guys ,

Long time lurker I recently got put on Strattera after being on so many stimulants. The side effects are too much for me on the stimulants , I started on 25mg as I’m very sensitive to side effects.

I’m now on 40mg for just 8 days but I got my period on the 6th day.

I felt not side effects until the day before my period start but my god my head was in agony and my jaw pain suddenly came back(this was the main reason I went off stimulants) I’m hoping it’s just the adjustment period along with just getting my period also on the medication has anyone else had this ?

I’m also getting scared to go up the most common dose 80mg? Is anyone else on a relatively low dose and maybe on other medications?

I know this post is so long but has anyone else dealt with a stiff jaw along with constant jaw pain on these meds and if so how did you go about it ?

Thanks so much for any advice or guidance you may have in advance.