Question:
My daughter is going to have surgery can she still take Ritalin?

   — DeAnna L. (posted on July 22, 2005)

July 22, 2005
You need to talk to her Psychiatrist they will help you figure it out that is what they are paid to do. Ritalin by the way is a weight negative drug as it slows the appetite down. So no real worries about gaining weight on it.
   — steeltoedwmn

July 22, 2005
If she has been using Ritalin regularly for a while and it has worked well for her then there is no problem with it PO. I speak from experience. I have a serious daytime sleep disorder (just short of narcolepsy) that I take both Ritalin and Provigil (a narcolepsy drug)for. I use the ritalin to supplement the Provigil to keep me awake throughout the day. What I have found is that I eventually needed up up my dose slightly, due to the malabsorption. I also found this with my depression medication, Celexa. I normally take the provigil in the morning and used to take 5mg of ritalin at lunch and dinner. Now I take 10mg. While it is double the dosage, it really isnt' very much as 5mg is pretty much a nothing dose, especially considering the severity of my problem. <p>She should stay on the regimine she is on, assuming the doc agrees, and then see how it goes. If she does end up with any malabsorption issues then she will need to work with her presribing doc to sort through it. It will be important to not just overreact and assume she is malabsorbing if she starts to have problems. A person goes through many emotional changes after surgery and there will be times she will likely be stressed or depressed. This is very common. It's important to sort through what is what. I am a strong believer in counseling before and after WLS. There is just so much to deal with, that having that extra support mechanism is a good thing. If your daughter is younger (teens to early 20's) she may well have been ostracized due to her weight through high school and college and suddenly people will be looking at her differently. While this can be great it can also play major games in ones head. Catching any problems early is important to making the best possible progress in her journey. I wish your daughter well and I'm glad you are behind her and supporting her. I'm 44 and cannot even imagine what my life would have been like had I not been severely overweight most of it. I was not unhappy with my life and quite successful in my chosen profession, but there sure were a lot of things I used my weight to hide behind and not deal with. I lost approx 200 lbs when I was 34 and let me tell you it messed me up good. I did it for all the right reasons, to live. I had always assumed I would not live to 40 and one day I decided I just might want to. However, along the way the expectations of meeting a man and getting married surfaced but it never came to fruition. The bottom line is I was sending signals of stay away and they did. I spent from 1995 till now in counseling. It helped me come to terms with certain things in my life. Not everything I chose to correct, but I had least dealt with it. This time around losing the weight I had my depression under excellent control and the only expectations I had was literally to live. I had reached 442 lbs and things were not going in the right direction. So my journey has been a far better one. I'm 2-1/2 yrs PO and surprisingly I did find Mr. right and got married at 43. Never thought that was going to happen. The bottom line is I needed to go through everything I did in order to come to the decision of WLS and then to take a risk and put myself out there. It turned out to be a wise risk. <p>Sorry I went on so long. I hope something I wrote helps you and your daughter. Blessings, Chris D.
   — zoedogcbr

July 23, 2005
As long as it is not an extended release (like Concerta) she should be fine. I take Adderall 10mg 3x a day and it lasts 4 hours at a time on me. As for asking the doctor - sure - go ahead. But the problem is that I found they generally have no clue when dealing with gastric bypass. I had to explain to my doc why I couldn't take Concerta or the Adderall XR, so it depends on their experience with patients who have had gastric bypass. I will say though that I didn't take my meds while I was off work healing up after surgery. Dina
   — Dinka Doo

July 23, 2005
As long as it is not an extended release (like Concerta) she should be fine. I take Adderall 10mg 3x a day and it lasts 4 hours at a time on me. As for asking the doctor - sure - go ahead. But the problem is that I found they generally have no clue when dealing with gastric bypass. I had to explain to my doc why I couldn't take Concerta or the Adderall XR, so it depends on their experience with patients who have had gastric bypass. I will say though that I didn't take my meds while I was off work healing up after surgery. Dina
   — Dinka Doo