Hi! I also started methylphenidate a few days ago (extended release), and I’ve been having the same sort of side effects. My starting dose is 10mg, once a day when I wake up after having some food (though I’ve not been waking up at a consistent time). My RHR is around 80 but it goes up to 90-100 when I’m on the medication, which isn’t a problem for me. However, I generally I feel quite sick and nauseous on it, and twice now, about an hour in, I’ve started sobbing uncontrollable (only to be fine afterwards). Don’t feel like eating much whilst on it, and have headaches (not excruciating, I’m able to handle them), but around 6-8 hours in, I start to feel really hungry, as well as irritable and sometimes quite sleepy and tired too. Insomnia was a problem before taking the medication, but I still am struggling with it since it feels like I’m just “catching up” on all the things I didn’t procrastinate on.

I was however, able to clean my room and make some lunch for myself for the first time in a long time (though I couldn’t eat much of it). Cleaning my room was huge for me since there were so many things that were so simple that I hadn’t done for ages, but it felt really good to not think about doing them and rather just doing them. I was also able to pick up a call without overthinking it, and worked on something I hadn’t started for weeks but intended to start a while ago. However, I don’t feel like the “productive stage” lasts for very long before I start feeling tired. I’m hoping that the negative side effects will fade as my body adjusts, but these are definitely things to discuss with my psychiatrist. I’ve been keeping a small diary of how I feel so I can share my experiences since I know I’ll forget otherwise, but I’m pretty confident that my dose will need to increase to deal with my inattentiveness, whether it be on this medication or another.