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Obviously this can only be solved with more medication! Remind me to buy extra Pfizer stock. Edit: fair enough. I do realize people who are seriously affected

by jjhbw 9y ago

Obviously this can only be solved with more medication! Remind me to buy extra Pfizer stock. Edit: fair enough. I do realize people who are seriously affected benefit from these medications. I did not mean to trivialize their struggle. However, i do think the sheer number of people currently receiving these relatively heavy medications is alarming. I think overdiagnosis is a serious problem with adhd.

zarkov99 9y ago
I have seen both under and over diagnosis. There are many people in high pressure environments that fake ADD/ADHD to get access to Aderall and other stimulants. But there are also many others, some adults and some children, who could benefit from medication and go through life suffering, some times tragically so, because of un-diagnosed or willingly untreated ADD/ADHD.
- jaclaz 9y ago
  I have seen also a number of mis-diagnosis, the issue is that a number of characteristics of ADHD are common with other forms of psychological or neurological disturbs, and it is easy to put the actual issue under the (IMHO largish) umbrella of ADHD. Of course medications may work if the diagnosis is correct, but medicatons are as well broad-reaching, i.e. I believe they work nonetheless in a number of cases even if the affection is not properly ADHD.
misja111 9y ago
Yes, think about the lost tax revenue because of all those undiagnosed ADHD patients who are working in the creative sector instead of in a proper office job. A decent dose of medication could have given them a so much more fulfilling life ..
- insertnickname 9y ago
  It's not that people with ADHD just have different jobs, it's that any job can be difficult to keep, and even just managing your own life. ADHD is far less trivial than some people make it out to be.
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    Not just jobs, I can't even watch movies or play single-player videogames when I'm not on my medication (both things that I really enjoy doing and they help me unwind) You have no idea the mental anguish from having to rewind a movie that you are watching alone (because other people won't put up with this) for the 3rd time because you still missed an important plot point a few minutes ago. It makes enjoyable things feel like work, and then you don't want to even try. The things that are supposed to help me relax just end up causing frustration. Or even the irony of not being able to fall asleep because I keep getting distracted thinking about stuff that I forgot to do today... Medication and therapy literally saved my life.
    - zarkov99 9y ago
      Have you tried meditation?
      - Klathmon 9y ago
        I've tried a LOT of things, including meditation. It does help when I can get it to, but the biggest helps have been from following a VERY structured consistent schedule that I follow militantly, and some other small lifestyle changes like making sure I eat right and exercise helps quite a lot. But at the end of the day, the medication just helps so much more, and the side effects are manageable, so I'm pretty happy with it. I do take amphetamines and I do worry about possible neurotoxicity issues that it may have, but I'm planning on working with my doctor in 3-ish months to start trying out other medications again (as right now I'm moving and don't want to mess with anything).
        moltar 9y ago
        Do you find carb intake has any effect, positive or negative?
        Klathmon 9y ago
        I haven't noticed anything specific, but I haven't really ever been focused on carbs alone. Most of my dietary issues were simply eating at all (I could easily go an entire day without getting hungry, and the medication only makes this worse), and making sure I was cutting my caffeine intake out (didn't work) or at least making it very consistent (like most stimulants it has a positive effect on the ADHD, but unless it's consistent it can cause more problems than it solves). I'm still working on this, and it's one of the major reasons why I want to talk to my doctor and try different medications again, but I have heard some say that low-carb high-fat diets are beneficial to ADHD, and I know that many agree that having "enough" fat in your diet is crucial. I also really need any extra calories I can get right now, so cutting carbs isn't the best idea until I have a handle on my weight.
vegardx 9y ago
I never understood comments like this. Some people, me included, benefit tremendously from medication. Unless you've been in the same situation I think you should be very careful about crass comments like this. You're talking about peoples quality of life.
- Strom 9y ago
  The problem is that most of these medications have bad side-effects and only suppress the symptoms. It's not that these drugs are inherently evil, but that they are erroneously used way too early and often. The biopsychosocial model [1] is ignored more and more. That is, social and psychological factors are given less and less weight. For example, someone who is working an unfulfilling job in a big city is too easily prescribed some SSRI instead of promoting a career change and heavily increased social interaction to form deeper relationships. The trend even just among biological factors is frightening. Classic example being bad diet. Promoting improved eating habbits and exercise is increasingly looked at as body-shaming. Because this removes personal responsibility. It's easier to tell someone that they just have bad luck with their brain chemistry than to point out that their life choices suck. -- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychosocial_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychosocial_model
  - vegardx 9y ago
    You can't really do anything else than suppress symptoms on a chronic illness. ADHD is a chronic illness. You don't use SSRIs to treat ADHD. Full stop. I'm not sure what your point about SSRIs is, it's used to treat entirely different things. Some of your claims tells me that you're just reiterating the same nonsense that people with absolutely no experience in the field keeps saying. Being diagnosed with ADHD takes years. During these years you are given a number of tools to suppress the symptoms, including dieting, exercise and forming strict routines to live by. The medication helps you to stick to those routines, to help you back when things in $life becomes unpredictable, for reasons outside of your own control. Either one of them alone won't be very helpful, and that is something anyone with ADHD can tell you. Furthermore, most medication used to treat ADHD has a very short half life, and is typically out of your system anywhere between 1-2 hours to 8 hours. People are not medicated at all times, and most people prefer to be medicated as little as possible, because yes, there are side-effects. And nobody diagnosed with it takes them lightly. You know what is easy? To sit on the Internet and make statements that have no ground in science and general practice. And some people do have bad luck with their brain chemistry. I hope you never get a chronic depression or something similar and have to meet your own arguments about life choices in the door way.
zarkov99 9y ago
My young daughter as ADD/ADHD. It is no joke. ADD/ADHD is an executive function deficit, with tremendous negative impact on one's ability to regulate behavior, resist distractions, plan and persist through a plan. You can imagine how devastating that can be as you age and more and more is expected of you in terms of self-management. Deep shame, anxiety and depression as a result are common. Medication helps, sometimes a lot, and the objections against it, to my knowledge, are not rooted in evidence.
- msla 9y ago
  There are people who credit evidence, and people who believe in common sense, and while most of the the "common sense" people can eventually get enough shit kicked out of them by reality to learn to accept evidence, I'm half-convinced there's something deep going on here. Maybe it's cultural, maybe it's even deeper.
MindTwister 9y ago
A close friend of mine has been in and out of the job market for years with various diagnosis, including stress, depression, anxiety, OCD, one doctor even suggested brain damage. She was diagnosed with ADHD and ADD a few years ago, got medication for it which cleared up most of the above symptoms. She has now held a steady job, although at a reduced workload, for a few years.
falcolas 9y ago
> I think overdiagnosis is a serious problem with adhd. Funny, I was just talking to a psychiatrist who lamented that the problem is more about under-diagnosis. In part because of people with attitudes similar to yours who refuse their children or themselves the ability to get a diagnosis which would help improve their lives.
anon649725 9y ago
And then there are people who pay extra money to get modafinil.
dood 9y ago
This article is about the UK, where adult ADHD is very rarely diagnosed, let alone medicated, compared with the US.

by jjhbw 9y ago

zarkov99 9y ago

I have seen both under and over diagnosis. There are many people in high pressure environments that fake ADD/ADHD to get access to Aderall and other stimulants. But there are also many others, some adults and some children, who could benefit from medication and go through life suffering, some times tragically so, because of un-diagnosed or willingly untreated ADD/ADHD.

jaclaz 9y ago
I have seen also a number of mis-diagnosis, the issue is that a number of characteristics of ADHD are common with other forms of psychological or neurological disturbs, and it is easy to put the actual issue under the (IMHO largish) umbrella of ADHD. Of course medications may work if the diagnosis is correct, but medicatons are as well broad-reaching, i.e. I believe they work nonetheless in a number of cases even if the affection is not properly ADHD.

misja111 9y ago

Yes, think about the lost tax revenue because of all those undiagnosed ADHD patients who are working in the creative sector instead of in a proper office job. A decent dose of medication could have given them a so much more fulfilling life ..

insertnickname 9y ago
It's not that people with ADHD just have different jobs, it's that any job can be difficult to keep, and even just managing your own life. ADHD is far less trivial than some people make it out to be.
- Klathmon 9y ago
  Not just jobs, I can't even watch movies or play single-player videogames when I'm not on my medication (both things that I really enjoy doing and they help me unwind) You have no idea the mental anguish from having to rewind a movie that you are watching alone (because other people won't put up with this) for the 3rd time because you still missed an important plot point a few minutes ago. It makes enjoyable things feel like work, and then you don't want to even try. The things that are supposed to help me relax just end up causing frustration. Or even the irony of not being able to fall asleep because I keep getting distracted thinking about stuff that I forgot to do today... Medication and therapy literally saved my life.
  - zarkov99 9y ago
    Have you tried meditation?
    - Klathmon 9y ago
      I've tried a LOT of things, including meditation. It does help when I can get it to, but the biggest helps have been from following a VERY structured consistent schedule that I follow militantly, and some other small lifestyle changes like making sure I eat right and exercise helps quite a lot. But at the end of the day, the medication just helps so much more, and the side effects are manageable, so I'm pretty happy with it. I do take amphetamines and I do worry about possible neurotoxicity issues that it may have, but I'm planning on working with my doctor in 3-ish months to start trying out other medications again (as right now I'm moving and don't want to mess with anything).
      - moltar 9y ago
        Do you find carb intake has any effect, positive or negative?
        Klathmon 9y ago
        I haven't noticed anything specific, but I haven't really ever been focused on carbs alone. Most of my dietary issues were simply eating at all (I could easily go an entire day without getting hungry, and the medication only makes this worse), and making sure I was cutting my caffeine intake out (didn't work) or at least making it very consistent (like most stimulants it has a positive effect on the ADHD, but unless it's consistent it can cause more problems than it solves). I'm still working on this, and it's one of the major reasons why I want to talk to my doctor and try different medications again, but I have heard some say that low-carb high-fat diets are beneficial to ADHD, and I know that many agree that having "enough" fat in your diet is crucial. I also really need any extra calories I can get right now, so cutting carbs isn't the best idea until I have a handle on my weight.

vegardx 9y ago

I never understood comments like this. Some people, me included, benefit tremendously from medication. Unless you've been in the same situation I think you should be very careful about crass comments like this. You're talking about peoples quality of life.

Strom 9y ago
The problem is that most of these medications have bad side-effects and only suppress the symptoms. It's not that these drugs are inherently evil, but that they are erroneously used way too early and often. The biopsychosocial model [1] is ignored more and more. That is, social and psychological factors are given less and less weight. For example, someone who is working an unfulfilling job in a big city is too easily prescribed some SSRI instead of promoting a career change and heavily increased social interaction to form deeper relationships. The trend even just among biological factors is frightening. Classic example being bad diet. Promoting improved eating habbits and exercise is increasingly looked at as body-shaming. Because this removes personal responsibility. It's easier to tell someone that they just have bad luck with their brain chemistry than to point out that their life choices suck. -- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychosocial_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychosocial_model
- vegardx 9y ago
  You can't really do anything else than suppress symptoms on a chronic illness. ADHD is a chronic illness. You don't use SSRIs to treat ADHD. Full stop. I'm not sure what your point about SSRIs is, it's used to treat entirely different things. Some of your claims tells me that you're just reiterating the same nonsense that people with absolutely no experience in the field keeps saying. Being diagnosed with ADHD takes years. During these years you are given a number of tools to suppress the symptoms, including dieting, exercise and forming strict routines to live by. The medication helps you to stick to those routines, to help you back when things in $life becomes unpredictable, for reasons outside of your own control. Either one of them alone won't be very helpful, and that is something anyone with ADHD can tell you. Furthermore, most medication used to treat ADHD has a very short half life, and is typically out of your system anywhere between 1-2 hours to 8 hours. People are not medicated at all times, and most people prefer to be medicated as little as possible, because yes, there are side-effects. And nobody diagnosed with it takes them lightly. You know what is easy? To sit on the Internet and make statements that have no ground in science and general practice. And some people do have bad luck with their brain chemistry. I hope you never get a chronic depression or something similar and have to meet your own arguments about life choices in the door way.

zarkov99 9y ago

My young daughter as ADD/ADHD. It is no joke. ADD/ADHD is an executive function deficit, with tremendous negative impact on one's ability to regulate behavior, resist distractions, plan and persist through a plan. You can imagine how devastating that can be as you age and more and more is expected of you in terms of self-management. Deep shame, anxiety and depression as a result are common. Medication helps, sometimes a lot, and the objections against it, to my knowledge, are not rooted in evidence.

msla 9y ago
There are people who credit evidence, and people who believe in common sense, and while most of the the "common sense" people can eventually get enough shit kicked out of them by reality to learn to accept evidence, I'm half-convinced there's something deep going on here. Maybe it's cultural, maybe it's even deeper.

MindTwister 9y ago

A close friend of mine has been in and out of the job market for years with various diagnosis, including stress, depression, anxiety, OCD, one doctor even suggested brain damage. She was diagnosed with ADHD and ADD a few years ago, got medication for it which cleared up most of the above symptoms. She has now held a steady job, although at a reduced workload, for a few years.

falcolas 9y ago

> I think overdiagnosis is a serious problem with adhd. Funny, I was just talking to a psychiatrist who lamented that the problem is more about under-diagnosis. In part because of people with attitudes similar to yours who refuse their children or themselves the ability to get a diagnosis which would help improve their lives.

anon649725 9y ago

And then there are people who pay extra money to get modafinil.

dood 9y ago

This article is about the UK, where adult ADHD is very rarely diagnosed, let alone medicated, compared with the US.