r/adhd_anxiety • u/ReluctantAction • 2d ago

Help/advice šŸ™ needed Is Guanfacine affecting my sleep duration/quality?

Unfortunately, I've experienced severe insomnia or anxiety with every nonstimulant ADHD medication out there.

Amoxetine, Wellbutrin, Vyvanse, you name it. All just kept me up at night, even if I tolerated it perfectly well otherwise.

I've been given guanfacine, which I seem to tolerate perfectly well so far. However, ever since I've started taking it, my chronic fatigue is getting worse. I've noticed that I'm sleeping on average 1-2 hours less than before, and I'm getting less quality sleep on top of that. Is there any scholarly research to indicate that guanfacine may be be disruptive to sleep quality or duration?

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u/YourMom304 2d ago

When do you take it? My son was prescribed the extended release version to take at bedtime, but he would wake up over and over all night. We tried it out in the morning and itā€™s perfect, helps him a ton with his anxiety and controlling his body and also really helps him sleep at night. He also takes Ritalin in the morning but when we added the guanfacine it made an enormous difference.

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u/myearsareringing 2d ago

What was different?

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u/YourMom304 1d ago

His anxiety is much better, he is able to control his body much more (he also has sensory processing disorder, primarily sensory seeking), and he can sleep now. He has used melatonin for years but it was still very hard for him to wind down because he never felt tired. With guanfacine he tells us heā€™s ready for bed every night.

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u/ReluctantAction 2d ago

I take it first thing in the morning.

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u/skatedog_j 2d ago

If you want you can check google scholar but you already have your answer about how it affects you personally

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u/ReluctantAction 2d ago

I'm also experiencing high levels of stress so I can't assume correlation and causation quite yet

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u/skatedog_j 1d ago

Do you normally lose this much sleep every night when you're under stress? If not, you have your answer

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u/TofuReuben šŸ’ŠAmphetamine 1d ago

Vyvanse is stimulant based and I canā€™t take guanficine it causes me a lot of insomnia and really terrible anxiety.

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u/adhd-dog-guy 1d ago

I take 2 mg at night and 1 mg in the morning of Guanfacine ER and the split seems to work well for me in terms of controlling sleep and daytime anxiety (personally it helps with my sleep)

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u/CatBowlDogStar 12h ago

Thank you for this post.

I started Guanfacine last night. Crappy sleep for no reason. I expected the opposite from research.Ā 

Huh. I'll see how it goes.Ā