Effexor or Adderall?Any advice or personal experience?

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Eh...4 times a day is probably way more often than you need no matter how many MGs you take at a time, especially if you want to sleep at night. A single dose of AdderallXR will probably keep you going for...hmmm.....6 to 8 hours? Basically, the time release works like this. The capsule is filled with little balls. There are two types of little balls in there, half of them release immediately, and the other half release in approximately 4 hours. I find that they release for me after 3, but maybe it's because I have a super-acidic stomach. So that means that a single dose is good for roughly 6 to 8 hours. Two doses a day makes sense, but four? Unless she was saying take two pills then take another two.

You guys do know that college students take Adderall to help with their studying right?

I was on put on Effexor XR right after being diagnosed bipolar. It worked well, not only as an antidepressant but also as a mood stabilizer of sorts. I was in a manic/mixed state, and it was still there with the meds too, but the "edge" went away, and the swings levelled out somewhat compared to how they used to be. I did have a few small side effects, like cottonmouth, extremely dilated pupils (more so than is usual for me), and a general odd feeling - like everything was different, though I couldn't tell how, and there was this very slight tension inside. (But nothing like Prozac which gave me constant stretching and something close to cramps, and the tension was bad indeed). I also tended to space out more. I didn't want to get off it, but had to, because my mother was very strongly opposed to my taking meds and there was constant trouble.

Wellbutrin has a metabolite that is a noradrenaline reuptake
inhibitor and I think it is where most the anti-depressant
effects of wellbutrin come from.

I used wellbutrin and funny you should mention how your taking the effexor to prevent crying. I had the opposite effect
on wellbutrin. I never cry and it had me crying my eyes out.
I really did not like how I felt on wellbutrin. My point being
I'm not sold on you increasing the dose of effexor. I like the idea of you using the lowwest effective dose of a med anyway.

Yeah keep us informed how the Adderall is going. My one pet
peave aaginst adderall is its a mix of 3 parts dextroampetamine and 1 part levoamphetamine. Some
un-needed side effects are going to come from the levo isomer. It has 1/3 the strenght of the dextro isomer at CNS
stimulation. But the levo is a potent SNS stimulant. That SNS
action is useless for the treatment of ADHD (or pretty much
every condition in the world but nasal decongestion). So ideally if Adderall seems like it works for you might consider migrating to dextroamphetamine (dexedrine).

I had the eye thing and was only on Effexor for 2 months before going into hospital when they took it off me.

I've taken both before.

I was always told there is no treatment for autism but there are treatments for comorbid conditions.

I stopped taking both because Adderall made me irritable and agitated my anxiety levels. It's supposed to calm ADD people, I thought, and so I convinced my doctor that I was not ADD by presenting him with this.

Effexor made me drowsy and... I don't mean to spook you... but I've felt different ever since I took Effexor. My politics changed. My outlook on life changed. I felt uncomfortably nonjudgmental while on a mix of Effexor, Paxil and Depacote. Even after abandoning it, I've felt remarkably more detached. It may be somewhat a hormonal change but I've gone from being anxious and meltdown prone to being anxious and apathetic.

My experience with meds was really horrific. Paxil GAVE me a major panic attack. It took about two years but finally I found a help group online and I found out my reaction was shared by others (apathy, lethargy, sleepiness, ears ringing, whooshing, zaps, etc.). I weaned off of it sloooooooowly and have never felt better.

At first, after stopping Paxil, I believed it was the debbil and no one should take it. The thing is, I still believe it is way overprescribed and far too often off label.

But now I realize it does help some people--but I think we have to be very very careful what we agree to take, and research it before letting it affect our brains.