{"id":161058,"date":"2025-06-05T19:53:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T19:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/161058\/"},"modified":"2025-06-05T19:53:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T19:53:14","slug":"my-entire-body-went-numb-and-i-couldnt-walk-after-taking-common-adhd-drug-prescribed-to-millions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/161058\/","title":{"rendered":"My entire body went numb and I couldn’t walk after taking common ADHD drug prescribed to millions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hannah Schweickert never thought a common medication for ADHD<\/a> would leave her numb from her face to her toes, at times unable to walk.<\/p>\n

Schweickert, from Indiana<\/a>, has had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder since she was young. Doctors had prescribed her the popular drug Adderall<\/a>, a stimulant taken by 16million Americans known to improve focus, attention, and impulse control.<\/p>\n

She started on a low dose, standard practice doctors follow to minimize side effects, which can include insomnia, increased heart rate, anxiety, mood swings, and jitteriness.<\/p>\n

When she showed no improvement, doctors increased the dosage, first to 15mg, then to 20mg, 30mg, and, finally, 40mg, her highest dose.<\/p>\n

Schweickert, 25, took a 40mg tablet every day for about two months with little incident.<\/p>\n

But when she went on a family vacation, she began experiencing troubling symptoms she didn\u2019t immediately connect to the prescription stimulant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was scratching my neck and I couldn\u2019t feel anything. My neck had no feeling,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n

That numbness spread from her neck to her fingertips, and a week later, to her cheeks, eventually taking over her whole body.<\/p>\n

\"Hannah <\/p>\n

Hannah Schweickert, a 25-year-old with ADHD, never expected Adderall\u2014a common stimulant used to improve focus\u2014to leave her body numb and her mind in panic<\/p>\n

Back at college one night, alone in her room and unable to feel her bed underneath her, she panicked.<\/p>\n

\u2018I thought I was dying,\u2019 she said, describing a destabilizing panic attack.<\/p>\n

\u2018I immediately shot up, couldn\u2019t breathe, my heart was beating out of my chest.<\/p>\n

\u2018I didn\u2019t know what a panic attack was, but that\u2019s definitely what was happening.\u2019<\/p>\n

Schweickert laid in a state of panic for an hour before a friend was able to get to her. She calmed herself, but it was far from the last panic attack that would strike.<\/p>\n

She said in a TikTok<\/a>: \u2018Then that started happening every day. The worst one probably lasted about two hours.<\/p>\n

‘I couldn\u2019t walk. My friends had to carry me to pee.\u2019<\/p>\n

She went on to say she had gone to the emergency room for her panic attacks, a common response people have to the sense of chest-tightening panic that mimics a heart attack, four times over the next few months, but doctors were stumped.<\/p>\n

Her mom then suggested something that had not occurred to Schweikert previously: stop taking Adderall.<\/p>\n

\"Starting <\/p>\n

Starting on a low dose to avoid typical side effects like anxiety and insomnia, she instead faced an alarming reaction that spread numbness from her toes to her face<\/p>\n

\u2018At this point, I had no feeling in my entire body,\u2019 Schweickert said. \u2018It had been 22 days with no feeling. So all my nerves, something was wrong with them.\u2019<\/p>\n

Doctors would test her ability to feel touch on her arms, head, and legs, and according to them, everything seemed normal. She said they were not concerned and let her leave without any answers.<\/p>\n

So she took it upon herself to figure out what was going on.<\/p>\n

Schweickert stopped taking her Adderall for a week, something doctors do not generally recommend because the withdrawal symptoms can be intense, causing depression, anxiety, headaches, muscle aches, and sleep disruptions.<\/p>\n

But some of her numbness subsided in that time. She continued her research, having seen a study that found rats given Adderall at high doses experienced considerable changes in their brains.<\/p>\n

The 2017 study, published in the journal Neuroscience Letters<\/a>, studied rats given 10mg of amphetamine (a key component of Adderall) and an antidepressant called desipramine, which extends the stimulant’s effects.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The rats\u2019 dopamine levels plummeted and stayed low for seven days after a single dose. In addition to producing feelings of motivation and reward, dopamine can regulate pain and sensory signals.<\/p>\n

But the researchers also found evidence of other neurotoxic effects in rats that could potentially explain Schweickert’s reaction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Adderall <\/p>\n

Adderall is a powerful stimulant that alters levels of neurotransmitters in the brain to improve focus, attention, and impulse control<\/p>\n

The medicine starved the rats’ brain cells of their energy source within an hour, making it impossible for nerve cells to send signals. This could lead to Schweiker’s initial feelings of having a dead limb or tingling.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The medicine then overstimulated their brain cells by flooding the brain with glutamate, a chemical that can be toxic in high amounts. In humans, this could lead to hyperexcited nerves burning out, causing paralysis or numbness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The drug also caused a chemical ‘explosion’ in the brain that wiped out the brain\u2019s natural defenses against antioxidants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In humans, the destruction of the chemical in the brain that acts as a fire extinguisher against harmful substances called free radicals can cause nerve pain and numbness, particularly in the arms and legs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘That’s the only thing that I found on the internet in a study that I was like, actually this could be what’s happening to me,’ she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She said she had never heard of someone having \u2018allergic or neurotoxic effects\u2019 from Adderall, but added, ‘there must be someone in the world who’s also experienced this.’\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The feeling in Schweickert\u2019s body did not return completely, even after six months without taking the medication.<\/p>\n

\u2018[I got] really nervous that my feeling would never return,\u2019 she said. \u2018Now I can say that it has.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"When <\/p>\n

When Schweickert stopped Adderall for a week\u2014against medical advice due to withdrawal risks like depression, fatigue, and headaches\u2014some numbness faded. But it took months for the numbness to subside completely<\/p>\n

Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n

There are few studies that delve into the potential brain-poisoning effects<\/a> of stimulants, including Adderall and Ritalin.<\/p>\n

Maria Ingalla, an Arizona-based nurse practitioner of psychiatry, told DailyMail.com if Schweikert had taken other drugs recreationally, their effects could have compounded Adderall\u2019s tendency to constrict blood vessels, thereby reducing blood flow and causing numbness.<\/p>\n

Ingalla said: \u2018If she tried this med recently after a psychedelic or other drugs, it wouldn’t be an unusual reaction because of additive effects those drugs can have on vasoconstriction and the sensory systems of the brain.\u2019<\/p>\n

Schweickert did not say in the video whether she had been taking any other medication or drug at that time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Figures for the number of children taking Adderall or other ADHD medications are hard to pin down due to differences in prescription databases, changing trends over time (due to the Adderall shortage<\/a> in 2022, for instance), state-by-state variations in reporting, and the rise of telehealth prescriptions.<\/p>\n

But current estimates<\/a> say that around 10 percent of American children, aged two to 17, have been diagnosed with ADHD, and 62 percent of them are being treated with medications, translating to about 4.5 million children.<\/p>\n