What Ritalin really does to you: I took the ADHD drug for years but these were the terrifying and hidden side-effects that made me ditch the tablets. So many are taking them without realising the risks
It was the summer of 2014, I was deep into A-level revision and my mornings all began the same way.
After breakfast, I would take two small, white pills. By the time I had showered, my heart would be beating so fast it felt like it was going to burst out of my chest.
But I’d ignore this and sit at my desk, where I’d often stay for four or five hours at a time, not even getting up to go to the toilet or eat.
The pills were Ritalin, a stimulant ADHD medication I had been prescribed two years previously.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is characterised by an inability to concentrate or stay still for extended periods.
Previously it was considered a rare condition. However, there are now 750,000 children and 1.5million adults diagnosed with ADHD in the UK.
As a result, there are a record number of patients taking ADHD medicines, according to Oxford University research published in January.
Prescriptions for these tablets – which increase heart rate and blood pressure – have risen across all age groups, including in older adults and children as young as three.
But in recent years various studies have called into question the safety of these medicines.
Last week, the charity Cardiac Risk In The Young warned that ADHD patients are at risk of deadly heart complications. The charity argued that all NHS patients placed on the tablets should be screened for heart defects – that affect one in 300 people – first.
Ethan Ennals in 2012… I took Ritalin for two years as a teenager, he writes. The tablets left me anxious and anti-social
The warning comes a year after the death of 28-year-old Jacob Wooderson, who passed away after taking another ADHD drug called Elvanse.
The finance worker suffered sudden arrhythmic death syndrome – when a young and seemingly healthy person dies of cardiac arrest – shortly after his dose was increased.
At the time, coroner Sarah Bourke called on the Government to launch an inquiry into the tablet’s safety, which is ‘increasingly being prescribed in the NHS’. However, no such inquiry was ever commenced.
So why was I on the pills?
As a child I’d been quiet and well-behaved. However, at 14 things changed drastically when my parents’ divorce threw home life into chaos.
I would skip school, argue with teachers and disrupt lessons. When I could be convinced to sit still, my mind wandered and I’d spend more time doodling than doing any work.
Six months before my GCSEs, I was on course to fail them all. In desperation, my parents took me to see a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with ADHD and prescribed Ritalin.
The idea was to take them every day, but I quickly found that was impossible. When I took them at school, my concentration on tasks would improve, but I also found it challenging to talk or write essays. It was as though the pills dulled my creativity.
Ethan says his experience led him to believe that many people currently taking ADHD tablets should not be on them
They also made me anxious and anti-social, and took away my appetite. I’m far from alone in this experience.
A US study, which asked children on stimulants how the pills made them feel, found they regularly described the drugs making them feel ‘numb’ or ‘sad’.
Some described how, while on stimulants, they ‘don’t smile’ or ‘feel like myself’. There are also physical consequences.
Another US study found that children on stimulants were, on average, 1.5in (4cm) shorter than their peers who also had ADHD but were not taking the drugs.
Instead of taking them every day, I ended up taking a more tactical approach: using them as a revision tool.
Previously, revising for exams was so boring that I couldn’t manage it. But on Ritalin it became the most fascinating and important task in the world, and I managed to gain decent grades in my exams.
At A-levels, being able to pick my subjects meant I’d begun to enjoy school – particularly English. However, feeling the pressure to get the grades I needed for my university of choice, Edinburgh, I turned again to Ritalin.
These revision days passed in a haze, where I was unable to talk or eat very much at all. However, the tactic paid off. I got top marks and gained a university place.
That was the last time I took Ritalin. It had helped me but I hated the way it made me feel. The experience also made me realise that it was within my own abilities to sit down and revise. So I decided to go drug-free at university.
My experience has led me to believe that many people currently taking the tablets should not be on them.
A record number of Britons are now on the daily pills, which were once offered only to a small number of children but are increasingly being given to adults.
The number of women on ADHD medication has risen 20-fold in the past 15 years, while the number of men has risen 15-fold.
I worry about the mental impact that these tablets must be having on thousands of Britons. I felt like a shadow of myself while taking them as a teenager – and I only used them for a few years.
The fact that there are now countless children and adults taking them every day for years – even decades – is terrifying. And that’s before we even consider the risk of deadly heart defects.
Unsurprisingly, there are a growing number of experts questioning whether it is right that so many people are now on these tablets.
Chief among them is Professor Joanna Moncrieff, a psychiatrist at University College London, who argues that ADHD medicine can also raise the risk of other serious health conditions including psychosis and Parkinson’s.
Prof Moncrieff argues that patients would be happier and healthier off the drugs. My experience has led me to the same conclusion.
More than a decade on, I often forget that I was once labelled with ADHD. I work long hours and find my job incredibly engaging.
While I’m thankful that the drugs helped get me through exams, I firmly believe my behaviour problems were a temporary issue triggered by what was going on at home.
And, eventually, I simply outgrew that behaviour. And I firmly believe that many people currently living with an apparent ‘lifelong’ ADHD diagnosis would find that they too could move on from it – if they come off the drugs.
