Amphetamines for ADHD and Narcolepsy: An Analytical Essay

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This paper is basically about amphetamines. Amphetamine was discovered over 100 years ago. Since then, it has transformed from a drug that was freely available without prescription as a panacea for a broad range of disorders into a highly restricted Controlled Drug with therapeutic applications restricted to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy. It also loses the weight and it releases stress. Most of the people use them just to get rid of stress, of they want to be wide awake during the night. This review describes the relationship between chemical structure and pharmacology of amphetamine and its congeners. Amphetamine’s diverse pharmacological actions translate not only into therapeutic efficacy but also into the production of adverse events and liability for recreational abuse. Accordingly, the balance of benefit/risk is the key challenge for its clinical use. In the 1930s and 40s amphetamine was used in the treatment of asthma, depression, obesity, and narcolepsy. Amphetamine's chemical structure is very similar to the neurotransmitter Adrenaline. By the late 1940s, it had achieved medical and market success as an antidepressant and was quickly gaining such success as a diet medication. In contrast, both careful testing and extensive military experience had left the impression that the drugs’ benefits for attention and cognition were more subjective than real and that any objective benefits were explained mainly by the drug's mood-elevating effects. Because of its patentable status, methamphetamine had been introduced for all the same uses by drug firms competing with the holder of the amphetamine patent. The drugs were being widely used nonmedical and their abuse potential was becoming recognized by medicine, eventually leading to their strict control internationally around 1970.

What is Drug?

A drug is a medicine or other substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduce into the body. Drugs may be illegal (meth, marijuana, and cocaine) and legal (nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol). Psychoactive drugs affect alter a person’s mood, behavior, thinking, and the central nervous system. There are seven different types of drugs: stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens, dissociatives, opioids, inhalants, and cannabis. People use all sort of drugs but it has its own affection and usage.

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Amphetamines

Amphetamine is a synthetic, addictive, mood-altering used as a stimulant and legally as a prescription drug to treat children with ADD and adults with narcolepsy. Amphetamine is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Amphetamine may be habit-forming, and this medicine is a drug of abuse. Amphetamine may cause new or worsening psychosis (unusual thoughts or behavior), especially if you have a history of depression, mental illness, or bipolar disorder. Amphetamine may cause blood circulation problems that can cause numbness, pain, or discoloration in your fingers or toes. Call your doctor right away if you have: signs of heart problems - chest pain, feeling light-headed or short of breath; signs of psychosis - paranoia, aggression, new behavior problems, seeing or hearing things that are not real; signs of circulation problems - unexplained wounds on your fingers or toes.

History of Amphetamines

Lazar Edeleanu the chemist synthesized the drug from a chemical compound that Ma-Huange a plant found in China. Amphetamine was introduced in the 1800s when a Roman chemist synthetically created the drug in 1887. Amphetamines pills were circulated in the United States in 1962. By 1965, amphetamine inhalers were finally alerted to a prescription-only basis and removed from the over-the-counter medication market. Even though amphetamines is use for treatment of ADD & ADHD for other medical purposes if quite limited.

How Amphetamines Works

Amphetamines prompt the brain to initiate a ‘fight or flight response. These changes include: the release of adrenalin and other stress hormones increased heart rate and blood pressure

increased blood flow to the peripheral muscles (such as in the arms and legs).In small doses, amphetamines can banish tiredness and make the user feel alert and refreshed, although this effect is often short-lived. Amphetamines can prompt quite intense withdrawal symptoms, often referred to as a ‘speed crash’. Symptoms can include feeling nauseous, irritable, depressed, and extremely exhausted.

Symptoms of high doses of amphetamines

In high doses, amphetamines can make the user feel extremely nervous, anxious, confused, and irritable. In some people, this state of mind can lead to hostility, aggression, and violence. Unpleasant physical symptoms include heart palpitations, headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, and loss of coordination. Overdose is usually due to taking amphetamines with other drugs, especially depressant drugs such as sleeping pills, alcohol, cannabis, opiates, benzodiazepines, and antidepressants. The consequences of overdose include collapse, seizure, heart failure, stroke, or death. Amphetamine use can also impair judgment and contribute to accidents, such as road accidents.

Contraindications

Those with ‘heart problems should not take amphetamines, because be at the risk of sudden death of amphetamines. Also, drug abusive or addiction should not use amphetamines. There are so many contraindications for amphetamines. It moderates high blood pressure or severe hypertension. A tendency to become agitated and it always guides to the person to that point thinking of committing suicide.

Side effects from Amphetamine

By taking amphetamines, it will give you anxiety, and bladder pain bloody or cloudy urine. It will always make you cry, feel unreal, nervousness and you are able to react quickly or overreact emotionally. Feeling / usual sense of well-being, lower back/ side pain and depression mentally. It gives you your mood changes and sense if detachment from yourself or your body. Amphetamine can affect growth in children.

Medical Usage of Amphetamines

Amphetamine is a powerful stimulator of the central nervous system. It is highly addictive with a history of abuse but also used to treat some medical conditions. Amphetamine speed, or sulfate, is also used for non-medical and recreational purposes. Today amphetamines are used by a lot of people for different reasons. They use them to help people with narcolepsy, control obesity, and release stress (depression).

Narcolepsy is a condition characterized by an extreme tendency to fall asleep whenever in relaxing surroundings or so call “sleep attacks.” When a person in with condition, strong emotions can trigger a sudden loss of cataplexy or muscle tone, which causes a person to collapse and possibly fall down. It also involves frequent and unexpected bouts of sleep. Amphetamines derivatives have been used in the past years to treat narcolepsy. Concerns over there side effects, however, amphetamine are increasingly being replaced by a medication that promotes wakefulness.

Depression is a mental condition characterized by feelings of severe despondency and dejection, typically also with the feeling of inadequacy of energy and guilt, often accompanied by lack of energy and disturbance of appetite and sleep. In the 1930s, the obsessive-compulsive disorder was used to be treated by amphetamine. However, it was replaced by the newly available antidepressants, amid concern about its adverse effects during the 1950s and the 1960s. People who also experience fatigue and apathy used amphetamines standard as antidepressants to treat some types of depression.

Obesity is the condition of being grossly fat or overweight. In the 1930s, with appetite-suppressing capabilities, amphetamines were first used to treat obesity. Addiction will affect most of them if they cannot control it, but abuse caused them to fall out of the favor pf the purpose. Depression and psychosis on withdrawal caused doctors to stop prescribing amphetamines for weight loss. Using amphetamines and their derivatives to help reduce obesity, medical professionals do not recommend. In 2015, they prescribe the amphetamines for people that are obese and those who cannot lose weights anymore. Instead of cutting their body parts, the doctors were allowed for only six months to let the patience drink the amphetamines. It was just for six months to improve the diet and loss some weight.

In conclusion, Amphetamines are psychostimulant drugs that abnormally speed up the functions of the brain and body. It is illegal to make or sell amphetamines and to possess or use them unless under medical supervision. Long-term amphetamine misuse can damage the brain and the cardiovascular system and may lead to psychosis, malnutrition, and erratic behavior.

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Amphetamines for ADHD and Narcolepsy: An Analytical Essay. (2022, September 27). Edubirdie. Retrieved December 22, 2024, from https://edubirdie.com/examples/analytical-essay-on-use-of-amphetamines-in-case-of-attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-and-narcolepsy/
“Amphetamines for ADHD and Narcolepsy: An Analytical Essay.” Edubirdie, 27 Sept. 2022, edubirdie.com/examples/analytical-essay-on-use-of-amphetamines-in-case-of-attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-and-narcolepsy/
Amphetamines for ADHD and Narcolepsy: An Analytical Essay. [online]. Available at: <https://edubirdie.com/examples/analytical-essay-on-use-of-amphetamines-in-case-of-attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-and-narcolepsy/> [Accessed 22 Dec. 2024].
Amphetamines for ADHD and Narcolepsy: An Analytical Essay [Internet]. Edubirdie. 2022 Sept 27 [cited 2024 Dec 22]. Available from: https://edubirdie.com/examples/analytical-essay-on-use-of-amphetamines-in-case-of-attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-and-narcolepsy/
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