• If you are allergic to anything, including medicines, dyes, additives, or foods, especially if you have reacted to yellow dye or aspirin.

• If you have any medical conditions such as kidney disease, liver disease (including hepatitis), heart disease, congestive heart failure, diabetes, gout, or infections. These conditions may require that your doctor watch you more closely during your treatment.

• If you have high blood pressure. This drug may raise blood pressure and also block the actions of blood pressure medicines. You may not be able to take this drug. If you do your doctor will likely want to watch you closely during treatment.

• If you have heart disease or hardening of the arteries. You may not be able to take this drug, since it may stress the heart and cause heart attacks or strokes.

• If you have heart rhythm problems, cardiomyopathy, abnormal heart structure, or if there have been sudden, unexpected deaths in your family. This drug can worsen heart problems.

• If you or a relative have movement tics (repeated muscle twitches that are hard to control), verbal tics (repeated sound or words that are hard to control), or Tourette's syndrome. You may not be able to take this drug, because it may worsen these symptoms.

• If you have glaucoma. This drug may worsen the problem.

• If you have an overactive thyroid. This drug can worsen the symptoms.

• If you have taken any antidepressants of the MAO inhibitor type in the past 2 weeks (see drug interactions, below). This drug can cause a serious increase in body temperature and blood pressure.

• If you have trouble with addiction, alcohol, or drug abuse now or have had one in the past. Dextroamphetamine can be habit forming, especially for those who have had problems before.

• If you have had seizures. This drug may make you more likely to have them again.

• If you have anxiety, tension, or agitation. You may not be able to take this drug, since it can make these symptoms worse.

• If you have serious mental illness, especially psychosis, agitation, bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness), or depression. This drug can worsen your symptoms. You should also tell the doctor if any family members have one or more of these illnesses.

• If you are pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or if there is any chance of pregnancy. There may be an increased risk of harm to the fetus if a woman takes this drug during pregnancy. Also, the infant may have withdrawal symptoms after birth.

• If you are breast-feeding. The drug passes into breast milk and may affect the baby.

• About any other prescription or over-the-counter medicines you are taking, including vitamins and herbs. In fact, keeping a written list of each of these medicines (including the doses of each and when you take them) with you in case of emergency may help prevent complications if you get sick.

Dextroamphetamine can increase the effects of tricyclic antidepressants such as amitriptylene, nortriptylene, desiprimine, and doxepin, including their side effects on the heart and circulation.

Dextroamphetamine may block the drowsiness caused by antihistamines, which includes most over-the-counter (non-prescription) sleeping medicines.

Dextroamphetamine can slow the absorption of certain anti-seizure drugs from the stomach, such as phenobarbital, ethosuximide, and phenytoin.

Any medicine that raises blood pressure can affect it more if you are taking dextroamphetamine. Cold, sinus, or allergy medicines containing pseudoephedrine (decongestants) and pain medicines containing caffeine may cause even more of an increase in heart rate and blood pressure, as well as other stimulant effects.

Antacids and stomach alkalizers (like sodium bicarbonate) may speed the absorption of dextroamphetamine from the stomach. Any medicine that makes the urine less acid, such as acetazolamide (Diamox) and some types of diuretics (water pills) slow down the body's effort to get rid of dextroamphetamine Both types of agents may increase the action of dextroamphetamine and worsen its side effects.

Propoxyphene (Darvon) can also increase the effects of dextroamphetamine.

Lithium, haloperidol, and chlorpromazine (used for mental health conditions and sometimes nausea) may block the effects of dextroamphetamine.

Drugs that make the urine more acid make the body get rid of dextroamphetamine faster, which means it may not work as it should.

Anything that makes the stomach more acid can slow down dextroamphetamine absorption, such as guanethidine, reserpine, glutamic acid hydrochloride, and large doses of ascorbic acid (vitamin C). This makes dextroamphetamine work more slowly.

If monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors, such as isocarboxazid (Marplan), phenelzine (Nardil), selegiline (Eldepryl), and tranylcypromine (Parnate), are taken within 2 weeks of taking dextroamphetamine, they can rarely cause a serious reaction with high blood pressure and life-threatening increases in body temperature. These drugs can also slow down the body's attempts to get rid of the dextroamphetamine.

Check with your doctor, nurse, or pharmacist about whether other medicines, vitamins, herbs, and supplements can cause problems with this medicine.

Take this drug exactly as directed by your doctor. If you do not understand the instructions, ask your doctor or nurse to explain them to you.

Keep the medicine in a tightly closed container away from light, heat, and moisture. Keep out of the reach of children, pets, and others. Do not let anyone else to take your medicine. When no longer needed, this drug should be flushed down the toilet or discarded in a safe way so that pets, children, and others cannot get to it.

Call your doctor if you notice abnormal movement, uncontrolled shaking, hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that aren't there), unusual thoughts and behavior, such as hostility, suspiciousness, mania, aggression, or other signs of losing touch with reality.

Dextroamphetamine speeds up the heart and raises the blood pressure, and may rarely cause stroke or heart attack. If you notice chest pain, pounding heart, shortness of breath, severe headache, have trouble speaking or moving, or feel faint, call your doctor right away.

Don't stop taking dextroamphetamine all at once if you have taken it for a long time. Withdrawal symptoms that may occur after prolonged use include extreme tiredness, mental depression, changes in sleep. Talk to your doctor or nurse about reducing the dose gradually.

This is a controlled substance, and may be habit-forming. Take it only as directed by your doctor. Dextroamphetamine may cause psychological dependence (which can lead to addiction). Some signs of psychological dependence are a strong desire to keep taking the medicine, and wanting to take larger doses. Talk with your doctor if you think this has happened to you.

If you are taking dextroamphetamine along with pain medicines for chronic cancer pain, keep in mind that most cancer pain can be controlled. Keep your doctor or nurse informed about how well your pain medicines are working and any side effects you are having. Your cancer team may need to adjust your medicines several times before they find the medicines that work best for you.

If you have chronic (long term) cancer pain, talk with your doctor or nurse about taking your pain medicines on a regular schedule to keep it from worsening. If you wait until the pain is bad, it takes more medicine to get it under control. If pain comes back between doses, talk to your cancer team about changing your medicine or adding an extra one for "breakthrough" pain.

If you think you or someone else may have taken an overdose of dextroamphetamine, get emergency help right away. Symptoms of overdose may include: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cramps, high blood pressure, tremor, fast or irregular heartbeat, hallucinations, confusion, seizures, and eventually low blood pressure and fainting or passing out.

Dextroamphetamine interferes with lab tests for corticosteroids in the blood and steroids in the urine. Before lab work is done, let the doctor know that you are taking this medicine.

• high blood pressure*
• faster heart rate
• restlessness
• trouble sleeping
• mood changes
• headache
• diarrhea

• dry mouth
• loss of appetite
• constipation
• tremor
• withdrawal symptoms if drug stopped suddenly after being taken a long time*

• impotence
• changes in sexual desire
• blurred vison
• abnormal movements*
• shaking or tremors*
• losing touch with reality*
• hallucinations
• shortness of breath*
• chest pain*
• skin welts (hives)
• stroke*
• heart attack*
• sudden death

*See "Precautions" section for more detailed information.