Nicorette for non-smoking person with attention deficit etc

Post Reply New Topic

Okay, I'm doing my short term fixation rounds again so I have some more questions to fill the gaps in between my all pervasive procrastination.

Has anyone tried, and observed their differences, nicorette or other alternative nicotine delivery systems, to aid symptoms of.

MAjor procrastination
Feelings of depression, but perhaps just mental compulsive thinking/analysis paralysis....
no direction
no motivation
never any good at school due to the classic like attention deficits of easy distractibility "ooh, a butterfly" " ooh a noise" "ooh, a cloud" etc etc
social anxieties
speaking anxieties
scared to show emotions
not wanting to get involved in nitty gritty emotional conflicts (except for anger perhaps)
Basically, all screwed up!! !! !!

blahlbh blahblahblabhlahblahblhalbhalhblahblhablahblahblahbalbhblhablhblahbalbhalbhlahblah

and all of that crap!! !! !! !! !! !!

I've already had a good quality official adhd consultation which points to asd.......I'm thinking pdd-nos.

It does not help me though, because I'm a procrastinator and also being socially delicate, I avoid, erm practically everything.......
Could be dysthymia somewhere in there as well..............but I was like this as a young child, age 3+ without any good cause to make me nervous of society..
In fact, I was probably less nervous of society when I was younger, than now..
what a tard!

Would this be a self medicating thing or under medical supervision. My initial reaction is that nicotine is one nasty drug and it should be avoided at all cost.

Self-medicating experiment and your comments are noted.

I've got much worse drugs in mind......so I'm harvesting data.
For the record, I don't smoke, drunk or take drugs.

Nicotine is highly addictive and really stresses you heart. Seems risky to me.

I drink caffeine, smoke cigars and drink as self medication/tasty goodness. I find that nothing gets me out of a mental rut better than the ritual of making coffee or even better a nice singla malt scotch and a cigar.

i take 1mg of nicotine gum six times a day (2mg pieces divided) under medical supervision. i do not remember the details of my doctor's explanation of why it is not necessarily addictive the way i use it... one part is that it is not a pleasure-seeking activity. the doses are taken consistently at predetermined intervals. i have experimented with the dose, but never spontaneously feel like taking more. addiction seems to depend in part on the rate of absorption; slowly through the buccol mucosa v. rapidly through the alveoli. the amount i use does not seem to be enough to do any harm, anyway. it is not difficult to stop taking it, but i suffer a significant decrease in my ability to interface with the outside world without it.

Do you think it's possible that some people have an addictable trait, which means they can get hooked?

Thanks for your infos'

I'm a non-smoker who tried Nicorette with a friend 15 years ago. I got hooked. All it did was ruin my teeth, raise my blood pressure, and cause heart palpitations. I switched to lozenges eventually. I stopped it cold turkey two years ago. I felt much better within days.

I doubt it would be a good idea because of how easy it is to get addicted. Now, that's not just because of the withdrawal symptoms; there's also the problem of tolerance. If you build up a tolerance to something--and as I said, with nicotine it's very easy--your body goes back down to baseline, only with the substance present. When the substance is absent, your body destabilizes in the opposite direction. (A mild version of this would be the way some people can't wake up until they've had their morning coffee.) So after a while, when you built up the tolerance, you would no longer be getting any positive effect; and to make things worse you'd be physically addicted. The psychostimulants usually used for ADHD are used precisely because they are not very physically addictive, and tolerance is a much less common problem.

You should get on anti-anxiety meds, or nootropics or some anti-stress supplements.
Fish oil works to manage my focus issues.

If you want to self-medicate, there are better options available.

I mostly stick to caffeine, although I am really kind of tired of it.

Plenty of feedback so far...

I did smoke at one time and it made me feel awful. The nicotine didn't help me much. Luckily, I cannot get addicted to it. I quit smoking cold turkey and never craved cigarettes.

i have tried nearly every psychotropic prescription drug available in the u.s. and nothing has helped me in the way that nicotine does (except for piracetam (not available by prescription in the u.s.), in a complementary way). you (not you) decide whether your condition is serious enough, and whether you have properly exhausted more conventional options. while i agree that it is probably not a good idea for most people, i am dismayed at the thought that others like me suffer needlessly because it never occurs to them to try it... those who use it inappropriately will suffer too, of course. nicotine has a narrow therapeutic index compared to other drugs; the difference between an effective dose and a toxic dose is small. i have stopped several times to re-establish my baseline, to be sure that this is necessary. nicotine has some effects that are not subject to tolerance, it is the mild pleasurable feeling that goes away. i do not use it for pleasure. if you pursue that feeling by modifying the dose, i think you will suffer.

I've started using Nicabate lozenges (4mg cut into quarters --> 1 quarter ~ 1 mg), to stay awake and alert.

I drink coffee in the morning, but I find that the tolerance builds up very fast, and 1 cup of coffee no longer makes me as clear-headed as in the past.

I limit myself to no more than 3 mg of Nicotine a day, and I don't eat more than 1 mg (a quarter of a lozenge) every 2 hours. Usually I end up eating my Nicabate in the afternoon to stop me from having post-prandial somnolence (sleepy/fatigued after eating lunch especially).

I was completely surprised by how effective the Nicotine was at keeping me awake and reasonably alert. Usually I'd fall asleep or space out in the afternoon, but I recall one lecture which I felt more interested in while Nicotine was in my bloodstream, but when I look at the lecture now it seemed a bit boring. I don't have access to Ritalin or amphetamines, so this is probably the closest legal alternative for me in mildly increasing Dopamine levels.

If nicotine can increase alertness, clear-headedness and focus to this degree, I shudder to imagine how strong Ritalin and amphetamines would be in terms of psychoactive and systemic effects. I remember when I accidentally ate 2 mg (half a lozenge) in one go and my pulse (after half an hour) increased to about 110 beats/minute when I was sitting!! !

Thankfully my regular blood-pressure is in the normal range, although if I see a GP next time, I'll ask him to measure my blood-pressure for extra confirmation.

I'm aware that the half-life of Nicotine is very short, around 2-3 hours IIRC, but I also use that to my advantage, in that I don't use any Nicabate on the weekend to minimize my tolerance. If I had any withdrawal symptoms on the weekend, it would've indicated the start of an addiction, and I'd just stay off Nicabate for an extra week or so to make it go back to 0.

If you literally mean you ate it, no wonder it had a bigger effect, as the absorption rate would have been totally changed lol.

I found that when chewing gum, which did very little for me, it was easy to stay chewing but that was the wrong method as it was all leaking into the stomach via saliva juices and given an incorrect response.

Oh well, I've not touched it since and I'm the same as my symptoms describe and too apathetic to deal with it lol.

I'd like to report that it had very little effect on me and I did not feel any need for it, nor did I have cravings.