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What Causes Increased Heart Rate When On Psychostimulant Drugs?

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Posted on Fri, 2 May 2014
Question: My son is 21 years old and was diagnosed with adhd when he was about 4. He's been on various medications since then. One doctor (about 8 years ago) had further heart tests (EKG) done on him because of his increased resting heart rate. His resting heart rate runs about 95 to 100. He attributed this to the medication. But my concern now is if this will be detrimental to his health down the road. All medications for his diagnosis are stimulants, so what if anything should we do at this point?
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Answered by Dr. Pavan Kumar Gupta (2 hours later)
Brief answer....given below Detailed answer... Hello, Thanks for the query. ADDERALL is a psychostimulant drug used for ADHD and narcolepsy. There are definitely many doubts and concerns which have been raised about it regarding longterm use but in therapeutic and medical doses,it is found to be well tolerated and effective.Since this drug is also abused for recreation purpose,side effects become much more pronounced in such cases. Longterm side effects are many and they include cardiovascular side effects like increased heart rate,hypertension,hypotension etc.Other side effects are acne and sexual side effects like erectile dysfunction and prolonged erections,blurred vision,anxiety etc. However US FDA has approved its longterm use in medical and therapeutic doses.Recent studies by US FDA find no association between serious cardiovascular events like myocardial infarction and strokes and medical use of ADDERALL. Your son may carry on using this drug but make sure to keep monitoring his cardiovascular status from time to time so as to keep a track of it. I hope it helps,however you may revert to me for any further query. Best of luck Thanks
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
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Dr. Pavan Kumar Gupta

General & Family Physician

Practicing since :1978

Answered : 6704 Questions

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What Causes Increased Heart Rate When On Psychostimulant Drugs?

Brief answer....given below Detailed answer... Hello, Thanks for the query. ADDERALL is a psychostimulant drug used for ADHD and narcolepsy. There are definitely many doubts and concerns which have been raised about it regarding longterm use but in therapeutic and medical doses,it is found to be well tolerated and effective.Since this drug is also abused for recreation purpose,side effects become much more pronounced in such cases. Longterm side effects are many and they include cardiovascular side effects like increased heart rate,hypertension,hypotension etc.Other side effects are acne and sexual side effects like erectile dysfunction and prolonged erections,blurred vision,anxiety etc. However US FDA has approved its longterm use in medical and therapeutic doses.Recent studies by US FDA find no association between serious cardiovascular events like myocardial infarction and strokes and medical use of ADDERALL. Your son may carry on using this drug but make sure to keep monitoring his cardiovascular status from time to time so as to keep a track of it. I hope it helps,however you may revert to me for any further query. Best of luck Thanks