What titration is and why tracking it makes a difference
Titration is the process of finding the right dose of ADHD medication for you. It starts with a low dose and increases gradually over weeks or months, with your prescriber reviewing how you are responding at each stage. The goal is to find the dose that gives adequate effect with manageable side effects.
The problem is that titration decisions are usually made on memory. You turn up to an appointment weeks after a dose change and try to describe how it has been. Memory under ADHD conditions is unreliable at the best of times, and it is particularly poor for gradual changes over time. You might remember the worst day or the best day, but not the pattern across all of them.
Systematic logging changes this. A record of focus quality, sleep, side effects, and dose timing across each titration stage gives your prescriber real data to work from, and gives you the confidence to report accurately rather than guessing.
What to track at each titration stage
You do not need to track everything. The most useful data points during titration are the ones that change meaningfully between dose levels and are relevant to the prescriber's decisions.
Dose and timing
Record the dose amount and what time you took it each day. This sounds obvious but it is easy to be inconsistent, and inconsistency in timing is itself a signal. If your dose time is drifting later on weekdays, your prescriber needs to know that when interpreting your symptom data.
Focus and concentration
Rate how well you could direct your attention through the day. This does not need to be precise: a simple scale of how easily you could start tasks, stay on them, and shift between them gives a useful signal. Note when focus felt strongest and when it dropped off, as this maps to the concentration curve.
Sleep onset and quality
Record when you went to bed, roughly how long it took to fall asleep, and how you felt on waking. Sleep is one of the first things affected by dose increases, especially with amphetamine-based medications like Elvanse or Vyvanse. A consistent pattern of later sleep onset after a dose increase is a clear signal worth reporting.
Side effects and their timing
Note any side effects and when they occurred relative to when you dosed. Appetite suppression in the morning, irritability in the late afternoon, headaches after the peak: the timing matters as much as the symptom itself. A side effect that occurs consistently at a specific point in the concentration curve is more actionable than a general note that things have been difficult.
How long the effect seemed to last
At what point in the day did you notice focus beginning to fade? This is particularly useful for identifying whether a dose is underpowering in the afternoon. Extended-release medications vary in how long they work in practice, and this varies between individuals. Noting when the wear-off felt noticeable gives your prescriber evidence for considering timing or dose adjustments.
You do not need to track every data point from day one. Starting with dose timing, a focus rating, and a sleep note is enough to build a useful picture. Add more detail as you get used to the habit.
How ADHDose supports titration
ADHDose is built around the information that matters most during titration. When you set up the app with your medication, dose, and timing, it calculates the pharmacokinetic concentration curve for your specific prescription. This shows what your medication is expected to do throughout the day: when it is building, when it reaches peak, when it starts fading, and when levels drop below the wind-down threshold for sleep.
When your prescriber increases your dose, you update it in ADHDose and a new curve is calculated automatically. You can see immediately how the new dose is expected to behave differently from the previous one before you have even taken it. This helps you know what to look for when logging your response.
Dose Timeline
The Dose Timeline is a live chart of your medication's concentration through the day, calculated from your specific medication, dose, and timing. During titration it shows you where you are in your medication cycle at any point, and makes it easier to notice when a focus rating or side effect correlates with a particular part of the curve.
Daily Journal
The Daily Journal captures focus, sleep, energy, and side notes each day, mapped against the concentration curve. After a week on a new dose, you have a layered picture of how that dose is actually performing. After a month, the pattern is clear enough to describe accurately to your prescriber.
Pattern Insights
After 14 days of logging, Pattern Insights begins identifying correlations between dose timing, sleep quality, and daily performance. During titration, this can surface connections that are not obvious from day-to-day experience: that later dosing is consistently associated with worse sleep, for example, or that focus ratings are systematically lower on days with less sleep.
What to bring to your titration appointments
Titration appointments are short. Your prescriber needs to make decisions quickly based on whatever you can tell them. The more precisely you can describe what has changed, the better the decision will be.
ADHDose includes Appointment Prep, which compiles your last 28 days of data into a Clinician Summary. This shows your dose history and any changes to it, your daily journal entries across that period, the concentration curves for each dose, and the patterns that ADHDose has identified in your data. You can export it as a PDF to send ahead of the appointment, or open the read-aloud mode to step through it during the consultation.
A note on what this is not: ADHDose generates a data summary, not a clinical report. It does not recommend dose changes and does not replace the prescriber's judgement. It gives them better raw material to work from.
The key things your prescriber typically wants to know at a titration review: whether focus is adequate through the day, whether sleep has been affected, whether side effects are present and when they occur, and whether there are days that are significantly better or worse than the average. Having this documented removes the guesswork from both sides of the conversation.
Common questions about titration tracking
Track your titration from day one
Dose Timeline, Daily Journal, Pattern Insights, and Appointment Prep. Free for core features. All data stays on your device.
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