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Comment by freeflight | Hacker News Reader

> The brand one slow releases very evenly while the generic just slams me with the calm, focused joy followed by a significant emotional low for hours.

Prolonged-release of an orally drug taken in pill form is a "special feature", it's the difference between regular Adderall and Adderall XR.

There are patented techniques involved to make it work like that, generica manufacturers probably don't have access to those/leave it out to save manufacturing costs.

You can try taking the generica in smaller dosages, to compensate for their lack of prolonged-release, as the symptoms you describe sound like you are overdosing by taking too much in too short of a time.

Concerta doesn't need such manual dosage management, as it also has prolonged-release just like Adderall XR.

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Generic substitutes for extended release medicines are extended release also. The problem is the extended release mechanisms are judged equivalent when they are not.

How often do you casually dispense medical advice to strangers? Especially without qualifying yourself as a SME expert (or non-expert), or at the very least providing reference sources or other supporting documentation?

Edit: @djmips: Are you familiar with the differences between medical and non-medical advice? The potential repercussions of you following my potentially bad advice on programming are vastly different from the possible fallout from encouraging someone to mess with their medication dosing. The responsible thing to do is refrain, because some people are on a very specific regimen for good reasons. In a medical context, sharing one's own experience (and qualifying it as such) is often appreciated, however this is not how I would characterize the structure of the parent comment.

I hope this helps, I only wish the best for you and others.

Edit 2: @freeflight: Thanks for following up.

I see you are dispensing advice. I'd like to see your advice dispensing certification please.

> How often do you casually dispense medical advice to strangers?

Semi-regularly, as I work in palliative healthcare.

I'm just not sure why that would be relevant to "medical advice" like "If you experience too intense sympthoms, try lowering the dose" and explaining the differences between instant and prolonged-release drugs?

Some might consider that common sense, which shouldn't need to be pointed out.

But life is hectic and complicated, leading to a lot of overthinking, sometimes we just need a reminder of the simpler and straight forward solutions.

It’s the internet: let’s stop with all the fourth-degree second guessing of hypothetical dimwits which are extreme edge cases when they exist at all, but are mostly the figments of imagination. Most often, this comes across as very hollow and disingenuous virtue signaling.

Let’s set our expectations higher. The admonishing rhetorical questions are a waste of time to post and quite boring to read. You seem to be aware of the risks of strangers dispensing advice on the internet, despite stated qualifications (which may be imaginary or real). Assume most of humanity is aware of this as well.

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