How long does Adderall stay in your system? This is a surprisingly common question we get asked by our readers.
It seems that a lot of people are concerned that Adderall will still be active in their system by the time they get back to work or school, or that it will still be affecting them when they come to socialize with family. Either that, or a lot of people are worried that Adderall is going to show up in a work-mandated drug test.
These are all serious concerns. While a lot of people benefit in their work from Adderall use, these people will have diagnosable attention deficit disorders. People who are otherwise healthy may think that they benefit from Adderall at work, but this is highly unlikely.
Adderall makes people without attention deficit disorders overly focused on certain tasks; it changes behavior, disrupts normal thought patterns, and ultimately makes people unproductive workers. It also burns you our, leaving you pretty much useless the next day.
Anyone who has taken Adderall to get an assignment done in a single weekend and wound up completing an entirely unrelated project – and getting asked to leave the library for acting strange – knows what I’m talking about!
But we have already covered the risks involved with taking Adderall without prescription in another article.
In this article, we’ll be examining how long Adderall stays in your system.
We’ll really be answering two questions in this article:
- For how long can I feel Adderall after I’ve taken it?
- How long does Adderall stay in your system in detectable amounts?
Let’s jump right into it!
How long does Adderall stay in your system?
As stated above, there are really two different questions you could be asking here:
- For how long do you feel the effects of Adderall?
- How long does it take for Adderall to completely leave your system?
These two questions will obviously have very different answers.
Let’s answer them one by one.
How long do the effects of Adderall last?
Adderall typically starts to work about 30 minutes after you take it. Peak effects kick in after around 90 minutes. The effects of Adderall usually last for around 5 to 7 hours.
Of course, this depends on the type of Adderall being used. Adderall XR, for example, starts working faster than regular Adderall and lasts longer; usually about 8-10 hours.
Most people who use Adderall on a regular basis report that the main benefits of Adderall – the laser-sharp focus and motivation – occur between 2 and 4 hours after taking the drug. Again, this depends on the type of Adderall being used.
How long does it take for Adderall to leave your system completely?
While the effects of Adderall only last about 5-10 hours at most, the drug itself is detectable in your blood for longer, and in your urine for longer still.
Adderall is detectable in urine for 72-96 hours after last use, in blood for up to 46 hours. Adderall is also detectable in saliva for 20-50 hours, and in hair for up to 3 months. How long it takes to leave your system is influenced by weight, dose used, frequency of use, and urine pH.
Can I flush Adderall out of my system?
Since Adderall is detected in blood, urine and saliva for very long periods of time, many of you will be wondering whether you can flush Adderall out of your system.
So can you?
Not really.
While a number of products claim to speed up the amphetamine excretion process, none have ever been proven to be effective for flushing Adderall out of your system.
Foods do not significantly interact with amphetamine in the human body, and as such, there aren’t any special foods you can eat to speed up the elimination process.
Some fruit juices, like cranberry juice or orange juice, will acidify the urine. This may slightly increase Adderall excretion. But it is unlikely to dramatically reduce the amount of time Adderall remains in your system.