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Still about a week later.. I reduced the adderall to only 5mg a day... and still, no signs of my extremely horrendous acne.
My acne has been hell since it resurged after a round of accutane over a year ago. I've had hard, mostly non-inflamed (unless I picked at them) acne with really hard plugs in the center that are extremely deep. They've been all over my face, but exceptionally bad by the sides of my face, near my ears (where a guy would grow his sideburns).
Needless to say, I've been unable to stop myself from picking at them, since they haven't seemed to go away unless I removed the plugs inside. Due to my age (30) and the accutane, my skin has also seemed really "thin" and unable to heal, so the scabs left behind after picking have been really ugly and red.
With the mandelic acid products, it seems as if the acne that has been there is dissappearing, but I really think the culprit has been the Adderall I've been using (with a prescription from my doctor)!
I definitely think there is a link between Adderall and acne. My friend who is a pharmacy student says there is a link too.
I have noticed that when I pull all-nighters for school, I break out more. Yes, I realize that lack of sleep has negative effects on your body, including your skin, but it's not just lack of sleep contributing to the acne. When I have stayed up all night for other reasons (with friends, stuff like that) I don't break out the way I do when I do it for school. This is because I take more Adderall than I'm supposed to when I pull all-nighters for school. Before anyone harps in on me for doing that, I already know it's not a good thing to do. So just save your breath there. I regularly take 50mg a day. 30mg of XR in the morning, and 20mg of regular in the afternoon. I have more of an acne problem than I should at my age (25) anyway, and I wonder if it's partially due to the Adderall, which I have been taking for a few years. I definitely know that there is a correlation between bad, sudden breakouts and increasing the amount of Adderall I take though. The breakout happens extremely quickly...as in overnight. After an upped Adderall dosage all-nighter, I majorly break out by that morning. It happens within less than a day. There HAS to be a relationship between Adderall and acne (at least for me), because that's the only time I break out badly and extremely suddenly.
Hello,
So adderall can cause acne. I have been on concerta (a member of the ritalin family) sense 2004. This year, I switched to vyvance (a member of the adderall family) in the morning with an adderall booster in the afternoon. I have bad skin to start with, but for the past month things have been unusually terrible on my face, especially around my jaw line. I take a large dosage for my weight (75 of vyvanse in the am followed by 20 of adderall in the pm), so I think this could have increased side effects like acne. This past week, with my doctor's okay, I switched back to concerta, and for the past three days my skin has gotten progressively clearer!! Its honestly been really dramatic like ~40% which means like 50 less lesions for me.
Anyways, here's what my doctor said:
Aderall can cause odd skin effects for people, even those who have never had acne before. He has had patients get large cysts on their chests and back and sometimes on the face. He has not had any of these kind of side effects reported from ADD medications that are not amphetamines.
So yeah, it's not coincidence. Ask your doctor who prescribes your adderall to switch your prescription to a non-amphetamine option!
Good luck, and don't listen to those people posting that you need to drink tea/explore natural options. If those things work for you, then the problems in your head and you didn't have add/adhd to start with. I have severe add, and while cutting out gluten and dye (yes it's that severe) have helped, nothing does what modern pharmaceuticals have for me. When I started medication, I was struggling to keep a 3.0 in middle school. Now I'm rocking a 4.0 in college and am in the process of applying to ivy league schools for my Ph.D. in chemical engineering. So yeah.... Just a little editorial
