New ADHD Stimulant: FDA Decides in 7 Days
If you tracked more than two medications in Medisafe, January 1, 2026 hit without much warning. The free tier got capped at two meds. Full access jumped to $4.99/month (or $39.99/year). And a lot of ADHD adults who relied on it — many managing a stimulant plus something for sleep, anxiety, or blood pressure — suddenly had an unwelcome choice to make.
The frustrating part isn’t the price. It’s the timing. Medisafe had been free for over a decade. The pivot happened with almost no runway, and the ADHD community (already dealing with prescription shortages and access issues) had to scramble.
Here’s the upside. The scramble surfaced two apps that generic pill trackers never matched: Theraview and ADHDose. Both were built specifically for stimulant-medication brains. And both do something no mainstream reminder app has ever done. They show you the pharmacokinetic concentration curve of your medication, hour by hour, so you can see exactly when it’s building, when it’s peaking, and when it’s wearing off.
That’s not a cosmetic feature. It changes how you plan your day.
TL;DR
App Best For Platform Price Theraview Predicting peak/crash timing, no account required iOS (Android coming soon) Free ADHDose Hour-by-hour concentration curves, pattern analysis iOS, Android Free / Pro Pillo Medisafe drop-in replacement, persistent alarms Android only Free MyTherapy Tracking whether your meds are actually working iOS, Android Free Top pick for ADHD adults: Theraview if your main problem is timing and knowing when your medication is active. ADHDose if you want the full data picture and pattern analysis over time.
For Android users who just need a reliable free Medisafe replacement: Pillo.
Skip if: You’re only tracking one or two medications and Medisafe’s free tier still covers you — the free tier is two medications, not zero.
The two-medication cap matters more for ADHD adults than for the general population.
A lot of people on stimulants also take something else. A non-stimulant for coverage gaps. A sleep aid to counteract the insomnia. An antidepressant. Blood pressure meds. Two slots fill up fast. User reports that surfaced in MSE forums after the change describe Medisafe users discovering the cap mid-routine. You go to log a dose. Your medication list is truncated. Fun.
The $4.99/month ($39.99/year) isn’t unreasonable on its own. But the price only holds up if Medisafe is doing something the alternatives don’t. As of 2026, for ADHD-specific use cases, it isn’t.
Standard pill reminder apps (Medisafe included) run on a simple model. You take a pill, you log it, you get a checkmark.
Useful for adherence. Useless for understanding your medication.
ADHD stimulants don’t work like a light switch. A dose of Adderall IR peaks around 1.5 to 3 hours after ingestion, then declines over the next 3 to 4 hours. Extended-release formulas like Adderall XR, Concerta, or Vyvanse have their own absorption and release profiles. The difference between “I’m in peak window” and “I’m 90 minutes past peak” is meaningful. Especially if you’re scheduling cognitively demanding work, or trying not to take a booster at 4pm and end up awake at 2am.
No reminder app has modeled this for consumers. Until now.
Setup time: 10 minutes Rabbit hole risk: Low Abandonment risk: Low Price: Free Platforms: iOS (Android coming soon)
Theraview was built for one specific population. People on ADHD stimulant medication who want to understand their med, not just remember to take it.
The core feature: before you even take a dose, Theraview shows you when it will kick in, when it will peak, and when it will wear off. It supports Adderall IR, Adderall XR, Concerta, Vyvanse, Ritalin, Ritalin LA, Dexedrine Spansules, Focalin IR, and MYDAYIS. You log your dose and timing. The app models what’s happening in your system across the day.
It also pings you when your medication is wearing off. For ADHD adults managing late-afternoon crashes or timing hard conversations, that’s genuinely useful data.
No account required. Theraview stores everything on your device. No login, no cloud sync, no subscription. Install it and go. For ADHD adults who’ve abandoned apps after getting stuck in onboarding (you know the drill: account, verify email, pick a plan, pick a plan again), this removes the barrier entirely.
Reminders for wearing off, not just dosing. Most apps remind you to take the medication. Theraview also tells you when it’s winding down. That matters. The late-afternoon “do I take a booster?” question requires knowing where you are in the curve. Guessing leads to either under-medicating at 3pm or being wired at midnight.
Parent mode. You can track a child’s doses alongside your own without separate accounts. Solid design choice for ADHD parents running multiple prescriptions in one household.
The stimulant list is actually thorough. If your medication is on the list (and for most people it will be), the timing predictions come from published pharmacokinetic data, not guesswork.
Stimulants only. Theraview doesn’t track non-stimulant ADHD meds (Strattera, Qelbree, Intuniv) or anything outside the ADHD category. It won’t manage your entire medication list. Just the stimulant piece.
No mood or symptom diary. You can see the curve. You can’t easily correlate it with “how I actually felt.” MyTherapy handles that part.
Best for: ADHD adults on stimulant medication who want to understand their active window and stop guessing when they’re past peak. Free, no account, low setup cost. The go-to pick for most people reading this.
Setup time: 15 minutes Rabbit hole risk: Medium Abandonment risk: Low–Medium Price: Free / Pro tier available Platforms: iOS, Android
ADHDose does what the brief description doesn’t quite capture. It takes the same pharmacokinetic math used in clinical drug research, applies it to your specific prescription (calibrated to your dose and timing), and renders it as an hour-by-hour concentration curve across your day.
That curve shows you four things: medication building (below effective threshold), active window (above therapeutic threshold), declining (still active but past peak), and post-dose wash-out. The timing shifts based on your actual dose, the specific medication, and when you took it.
Where ADHDose goes further than Theraview: pattern analysis over time. Log your doses over weeks, and the app correlates timing with sleep patterns, daily experience logs, and effectiveness ratings. That’s not just reminder functionality. It’s data that helps you and your prescriber make better calls about timing and dosing.
All data stays on device. No account required for the free tier.
The concentration curve is the feature. For anyone who’s ever wondered “why can’t I focus right now, did my meds already wear off?” this answers the question with actual data instead of guessing. The neuroscience of why stimulant timing matters is worth understanding separately. ADHDose makes it actionable.
Pattern data accumulates without much effort. Log your doses, drop in a brief daily effectiveness note, and after a few weeks the patterns show up. If your prescriber asks “how’s the medication working?” and your answer is always “I think… okay?”, this gives you something concrete to bring to the appointment.
Covers more ADHD medications than most. Supports UK and US formulations (Elvanse/Vyvanse, Concerta XL, Ritalin) plus the Adderall family. Useful on either side of the Atlantic.
There’s a learning curve. ADHDose is more capable than Theraview. That depth comes with more decisions upfront. Medium rabbit hole risk isn’t just a warning label. You could spend 40 minutes configuring things before logging a single dose. If simplicity is the priority, start with Theraview.
The Pro tier unlocks advanced analysis features (interactive dose timeline, sleep window predictor, 28-day calendar, Clinician PDF export) at £3.99/month or £29.99/year. The free tier with the concentration curve works without subscribing, which is the part that matters.
Best for: ADHD adults who want more than reminders. People actively trying to optimize dose timing, prepping data for prescriber appointments, or building a longitudinal picture of how their medication is actually working. More setup, more payoff.
Setup time: 5 minutes Rabbit hole risk: Low Abandonment risk: Low Price: Free, no premium tier Platforms: Android only
Pillo was built as a direct Medisafe alternative, and it shows. Unlimited medications, totally free, no subscription. It exists specifically because Medisafe went paid and a lot of Android users needed somewhere to land.
The standout feature is alarm behavior. Pillo’s alarms don’t stop until you acknowledge them. Not a soft notification that fades in 30 seconds. A persistent alarm, with snooze, that keeps going until you respond. For ADHD adults with a long track record of swiping away notifications and then completely forgetting, this is the right design.
It also handles refill tracking (stock monitoring and low-stock alerts) and drug interaction checking. That puts it ahead of most free alternatives on raw functionality.
The catch is the platform. Pillo is Android only. There’s no iOS version and no confirmed timeline for one. If you’re on iPhone, this isn’t your option. Go with Theraview or MyTherapy instead.
Best for: Android users who need a Medisafe replacement with unlimited medications, zero cost, and an alarm that won’t let you ignore it. Straightforward setup, no learning curve.
Setup time: 10 minutes Rabbit hole risk: Low Abandonment risk: Low Price: Free, no subscription required Platforms: iOS, Android
MyTherapy has been free since launch and stays free. No paywall, no freemium tier, no conversion funnel. For cross-platform users (or anyone who needs a simple free option on iOS), that’s the headline.
What MyTherapy adds beyond basic reminders: a symptom and mood diary that lives alongside your medication log. Track how you’re feeling on any given day, note side effects, flag patterns over time. The app generates a report you can share directly with a prescriber. That’s the part most ADHD medication trackers skip entirely.
If you’re adjusting doses, switching medications, or trying to communicate effectiveness to a prescriber, that reporting function fills a real gap. Most of us are not great at remember-then-summarize. MyTherapy removes that step.
The tradeoff: it’s not ADHD-specific. It doesn’t know your stimulant’s pharmacokinetic profile. It doesn’t model peaks or crashes. It’s a medication adherence and health diary app that happens to work well for ADHD adults. Not an app built for the stimulant experience specifically.
Best for: iOS users who need a free Medisafe replacement, cross-platform households managing multiple people’s medications, or anyone who wants to track how their medication is working over time. Not just whether they took it.
A quick decision framework for ADHD adults:
- I need to understand when my stimulant is active and wearing off → Theraview (iOS, free, no account)
- I want data and patterns over time to optimize dose timing → ADHDose (iOS/Android, free tier available)
- I need a direct Medisafe replacement on Android, unlimited meds, zero cost → Pillo (Android, free)
- I’m on iOS and just need free, reliable, cross-platform medication tracking → MyTherapy (iOS/Android, free)
- I want to share a medication report with my prescriber → MyTherapy (generates shareable health reports)
The pharmacokinetic apps (Theraview and ADHDose) and the general reminder apps (Pillo, MyTherapy) aren’t competing for the same job. They do different things. Using Theraview alongside MyTherapy isn’t overkill. It’s actually a reasonable setup if you want both timing intelligence and symptom tracking.
What doesn’t work: downloading all four, customizing each one, getting overwhelmed, and using none of them. Pick one that matches your biggest current problem. Run it for three weeks. See if the problem shrinks. Habit trackers work the same way. Complexity before consistency is how systems get abandoned.
There’s a version of this where the answer is yes. If Medisafe’s reminder system specifically worked for you (the voice reminders, the medication-on-hand tracking, the caregiver connectivity) and the two-medication cap cuts you off from functionality you actually used, $39.99/year is an argument worth making.
But for most ADHD adults who used Medisafe as a basic reminder app, the free alternatives above are at minimum equivalent. And in the case of Theraview and ADHDose, they offer something Medisafe never did.
The stimulant timing insight alone (knowing you’re 90 minutes from peak, scheduling the hard meeting accordingly) is worth more than a notification that says “time to take your Adderall.” That’s information Medisafe, at any price, doesn’t give you.
Medisafe’s paywall created a problem. The timing, for once, worked out. Two ADHD-specific apps that actually understand stimulant pharmacology had already been building what generic reminder apps couldn’t offer.
Theraview is the top pick for most people. Free, no account required, iOS only (Android coming soon). It maps your active window before you take the first dose — peak timing and fade included. That’s useful information every day.
ADHDose is the pick if you want the deeper data layer: concentration curves, pattern analysis, effectiveness logging. The tool for actually optimizing timing over time.
Pillo is the Android pick: unlimited medications, zero cost, alarms that won’t let you ignore them.
MyTherapy handles everyone else. iOS users, cross-platform households, and anyone whose main goal is tracking adherence and communicating with a prescriber.
None of these apps fix the ADHD tendency to forget medications exist. That’s what the alarms are for. What Theraview and ADHDose add (and what no pill tracker has offered before) is the context to make better decisions about your medication. Not just log that you took it.
Medisafe reminder: if you’re still inside the two-medication free tier and it’s working, no action required. Don’t fix what isn’t broken.