i took amphetamine medications for ADD since 4th grade (now about to graduate from UGA)...quit taking adderral last summer during a study abroad program in Austria. that was actually when my acne started to get worse...both of our cases are prob more coincidence than anything

i took amphetamine medications for ADD since 4th grade (now about to graduate from UGA)...quit taking adderral last summer during a study abroad program in Austria. that was actually when my acne started to get worse...both of our cases are prob more coincidence than anything

I'm not sure that they were coincidence.

Clearly being on a stimulant can alter perspiration levels. I personally find that perspiration makes my acne worse.

There's also some research that suggests that coffee can make acne worse, so other stimulants may well do similar things.

my acne got really bad after overdosing on it for a night and staying up for 36hours. broke out really bad..

perspiration also has no effect on my acne, given that you don't try to wipe it off every 30 seconds...just leave it be and let it dry. now, if acne got bad after being on a 36 hour bender, it was prob b/c your immune system was lowered b/c of stress and no REM sleep= a decreased healing time for your whole body, including acne

Hopefully it's just a correlation you've noticed and not a cause becuase i want to go on adderrall or something so i can make the best out of my transfer. I don't however want to pay for it with my skin.

OMG I swear that Adderall made my skin horrible, and I sweated and had really bad BO while on it.

skullcap tea could be used instead of drugs to to treat ADD.

it contains baicalin and other substances that are relaxing to the nervous system and are known to reduce anxiety in humans and rats.

gotu kola may also be helpful.

in addition, these herbs are anti-inflammatory so they help prevent acne.

Adderall if taken in amounts over 30mg for a period of time will cause some people to get acne on their face/arms/back. Not very attractive, can and most likely will scar you. No your daily face wash will not help you lol, you will need to either lower your dosage or space it pretty far apart. Some are uneffected by this though and can take massive amounts and stay clear as day.

 

i was curious about this subject too...i found the above quote on an e-healt forum (all i had to do was type in "adderall acne" into google). So, apparently, the idea that there's a correlation between adderall and acne isnt a new one. I tried looking for more info on what I think was the official adderall site, but couldn't find anything. I think a possible side effect like acne should DEFINATELY be mentioned to possible candidates...i know i would look into other options if this were the case

bump

I am on amphetamine. It didn't do anything to my skin until a few nights ago I OD'd and now I have a huge cyst. I guess the more than 30 mg does worsen acne theory is correct.

i take ritalin and i dont think it made my skin worse... ive never heard of that before.... lame

Moved to General Acne forum.

Pretty much any form of stimulant can mess with your skin. Amphetamine being one of the worst. Why you'd wont to take that shit other then 2 get off your box and stay awake for days is beyond me. The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most corrupt industries in the world 2day. They dont give a fuck about your health, they just want your money. There are plenty of natural remedies that are more effective and have no where near as many side effects. St johns wort being one of them. aderall is basically crystal meth with a few tweaks (no pun intended). Infact crystal meth is used for the so called treament of ADD under the name of Desoxyn. In short dont trust your doctor, hes probably getting back handers from the pharmaceutical industry to push this shit. Sorry for the rant but most pharmaceutical companies are evil money grabbing fuckers with no regard for the health an saftey of there consumers.

I went to see my GP about 2 years ago as i was feeling depressed. All i needed was to speak to someone about my problems ie a therapist. But instead he reached 4 his prescription book and tried to put me on anti depressants. Sure lets just mask your problems with drugs. thats the answer. An in the long term they will probably fuck u up more then u was in the first place. needless to say i changed my GP.

Heres a link to a video called "faces of meth" just 2 show the damage Amphetamine can have on your skin.

o yeah an u might wanna read about Amphetamine psychosis as this makes the problem worse by causing u too obsessively pick at your skin.

[Removed]

drink alot more water when on adderall and you should be fine.

There are lots of prescription medicines that have acne as a side effect. Always just be sure that whatever you are taking is necessary, and if it is, just do your best to treat your acne. Also talk to your doctor about it because there may be other options for you that might be easier on your skin.

But yea, steroids and seizure medicines also can cause acne.

i have mild acne and 2 cups a day of coffee was keeping my face clear, but i tried concerta for my adhd and that started to make me sweat alot and make my acne worse, so dont take that lol, but i just started adderall today and im not noticing anything but goodness, im relaxed and i can focus, so since im relaxed, i dont get stressed out and my acne doesnt get worse, so if you really have add/ adhd take adderall, but if you arent sure go a month and try to focus all you can as hard as you can, if you cant then you probably have add/adhd, but if adderall makes you hyper, then your not supposed to be on it.

i have been taking adderall for the past 6 months for add. i only take 15-20 mg. TOTAL per day, which, as i understand, would typically not be enough to cause horrible acne. for most of my adult years, i have fought acne, then amazingly around october, november 2005 it began to clear; and it cleared COMPLETELY! then my psychiatrist tried putting me on abilify, then seroquel, and i began breaking out again. those meds didn't work for me, anf i was subsequently prescribed adderall. my skin only got worse and has stayed TERRIBLE ever since. the only way my skin is going to clear up is if i go off adderall, but it had really helped me, so i've been reluctant. there really couldn't be another cause, could there?

I have also noticed a correlation between taking adderall and breakouts. I only take it now as needed, but if I start to take it regularly, the texture of my skin totally changes. Tiny little bumps erupt all over my cheeks, and my pores fill up with junk doubletime.

Last time I was on it consistently, my diet was phenomenal, I was exercising, taking fish oil, and my skin was the worst it had ever been. I know there are a lot of other variables to account for, but trust me, there's no doubt in my mind that the adderall was exacerbating my acne. I agree with the posters that attribute this to the increased perspiration and sebum production it causes.

Currently I only take it when I have attention-intensive tasks. Right now, for instance, I'm moving out of my apartment and have a million things do to--important documents sitting around, lots of loose ends to tie up--and it would be so tough for me to manage this without adderall. So I've been taking 10-20 mg a day for the last few days. If it didn't wreak havoc on my face I would probably take it every day, honestly.

I'm generally one to rail against the pharmeceutical industry as well, but if you haven't suffered from not being able to do everyday things it's easy to write off those for whom it makes life manageable. With my skin, it's a trade-off. I'm free of major breakouts lately and am using mandelic and green cream to improve overall texture, but if I stopped taking the adderall, I know it would improve.

I have to add that the Adderall/acne connection is NOT a coincidence.

I joined this message board after doing a google search. It took me this long to realize that my beautiful skin that I work so hard on, was breaking out uncontrollably because of the Adderall I was taking. I took a 25 mg XR every day in college & remember thinking that my extreme breakouts were due to a new cleansing product I was trying, and not even realizing it could be the Adderall. And recently I have been taking it every single day and could NOT control my breakouts. They had never ever looked so bad. I do ALOT for my skin care routine and I am very strict with it- so why was this happening to me?

I have not taken Adderall for exactly 7 days- that is when I made the acne connection & did some google research- and sure enough, my acne has cleared. Remarkable.

Unfortunate though, I have been able to cope with all the other side effects of this miracle drug (moodiness, extreme thirst, loss of appetite, restless nights sometimes, being in a zombie-like state) because it has helped me become the person I want to be, in a lot of ways. Mostly academically- it has enabled me to accomplish more than I could have dreamed of back in my grade school days.

I probably will take Adderall again, but as for now I have gone past the withdrawal phase (lasted about 4 days of depression and fatigue) and my skin has cleared up 100%.

Adderall hasn't seemed to affect my acne either way. It's pretty transparent in all respects for me, though. No jitteriness, speediness, excessive sweating . . . just all calm, chillness, and no crazy, flying thoughts. My blood pressure even dropped down to around 110/60, over a 12 point drop on both ends.

I don't sweat, feel nervous, jittery, speedy ect either. It just makes me able to get through an attention intensive study session, class, or project.....

I never take it during the summer on vacation or weekends, and never have had any withdrawal symptoms

that said, every semester my skin breaks out, I have been attributing it this semester to retin a inital breakout, last semester (last year) I chalked it up to stress and too much coffee...

it might be adderall! I never ever thought about that, and I just came to this part of the board to find a sunscreen that won't break me out!

I hope this is not the case, or it will be zits or no grad school

For starters, to those of you complaining about how people don't need amphetamines, and how the pharmaceuticals industry is evil: you need to get a life. You aren't doctors, and it seems you have nothing better to do than try to dissuade people from taking medication they NEED. So what if some of us are taking it and it's overprescribed? It's none of your business!!!

I take Adderall for narcolepsy. If I don't take it, I won't get out of bed for about 48 hours at a time.

I've tried everything else, and nothing else wakes me up.

Adderall does wreak havoc on my skin. I like to say it turns it into paper. It is so dry and flaky that I can scratch a small area that itches and cause unintentional bleeding. I'm not sure what the reason is behind it, I really think "acne" or at least some sort of severe rashing should be listed under the rarer side effects. I'm not a doctor, but it seems to me that scabs aren't forming in a correct way, like they lack protein or something. I don't know.

Skin problems = Adderall....sometimes they go hand in hand.

I started on Adderall about 7 months ago. I think it gave me acne. Pre-Adderall I had like, occasionally period zits, nothing big at all. Then a week or two into taking it my skin started getting bad and stayed bad until I started the regimen in January. My skin's pretty good now, but I don't know what it would look like if I went off the regimen...

I think it's a combination of Adderall just putting a lot of weird crap in your body AND the fact that it dehydrates you and makes you not eat right (since you're rarely hungry and when you DO eat, it's probably something random and not nutritious). Plus on Adderall, for some reason, I completely lose my thirst so I don't drink enough on TOP of it already being a diuretic. So yeah, if you're on Adderall I'd recommend:

1. Going on the regimen, of course.

2. Bringing around a big water bottle and just drinking from it all day. Force yourself to drink at the very least two full Nalgenes a day (doesn't sound like that much but on Adderall that's a lot, at least for me)

3. Take a multivitamin

I'm glad I'm not the only one who experienced "amphetamine face". I asked my doc about it and he said acne wasn't a listed side effect (GEE then it must all be in my head!). Adderall's kind of a f***ed up drug I think, it just wires you and puts weird amphetamines in your body and and your kidneys are like "wtf are these toxins, why are you doing this to us?". I want to go off it but man, that appetite suppression/alertness is reeeeal nice.

I don't mean to bump an ancient thread, but this one is interesting:

I had an extremely bad flu two weeks ago, and had been taking 20mg Adderall xr every day until that time. Since I desire sleep and need to take decongestants when I'm sick, I usually don't take Adderall when I'm ill. My skin was as smooth as a baby's butt after a few days. At first I attributed it to the high fever I had (killing off bacteria), the sleep I was getting, or the mandelic acid product I had started using *pls note that it has been extremely helpful*, but now I wonder if the Adderall has been a major culprit in my bad skin as of late.

I haven't taken my Adderall much at all since I've recovered from the flu.

I hadn't even considered it to be a possibility until I was looking up habitual skin picking on google, and saw pictures of "meth faces". Apparently, methamphetamines cause extremely bad acne and skin picking in addicts. Since Adderall is obviously an amphetamine, I wonder if my skin (which has always been acne prone) was aggrivated by the medication. While I was ill, I also had no desire to pick, although a fever of 102F rarely makes one interested in much of anything.

I've had extremely tough acne-- I even went through a round of Accutane a year and a half ago which was only effective for a few weeks after I had completed it. My skin has been dry with lots of tough, hard comedones that never go away. Since I've been using the mandelic acid products, they've been healing much more quickly, but since decreasing the Adderall my skin is (weirdly) clear with no new zits.

*Knocks on wood*