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This was an interesting read but, as an adult with ADHD, all I get out of this is that medication is even more of a benefit to those with real difficulties copi

by _dibly 6y ago

This was an interesting read but, as an adult with ADHD, all I get out of this is that medication is even more of a benefit to those with real difficulties coping with their ADHD. I've always been one to 'just deal with it' but after a few years of working through school and seeing my younger brothers go through the same thing with medication, I realized that I was essentially just handicapping myself. Now I take medication in the morning before I get to work and it basically lasts me through the work/school day. When I was younger I was perscribed ritalin, and it just made me sleepy so I stopped taking it. Now I take a more modern medication and it works wonders. The negative stigma against medication really harmed me in school, and I wonder how different things would've been for me if I had started taking an effective medication at 16 and not at 25.

zarkov99 6y ago
What medication do you take now? Did you take anything while growing up?
- pen2l 6y ago
  I take concerta, 18mg, and it works wonders. The only small negative is the its life is a little too long... even if I take it at 7am, I find I have difficulty getting to sleep sometimes up till 3am... and then my whole sleep schedule gets shifted and it’s damn difficult to get it back to a proper rhythm. That aside, I _so_ agree with grandparent post about the negative stigma associated with medication for adhd. I’m so angry at society, parents, everyone for having done this to me in my early years — if only I had started earlier instead of in my mid-20s.
  - zarkov99 6y ago
    How early do you think you should have started? And how would one know its the right time?
    - pen2l 6y ago
      That’s a tough one, that’s a really tough one, especially as I’m seeing my 5 year old niece and seeing myself in her... in her inability to remain focused and motivated. It’s tough because even I am sometimes biased against running to medication as sloppy fixes when root causes of ailments and a full safety profile of drugs isn’t 100% clear. But with the information and experience I have, I think if you get tested by a professional psychologist and he okays it, I’d be comfortable with kids as young as 5 getting medicated.
      - zarkov99 6y ago
        Thanks, I have a 11 year old with ADHD and as you say its a tough decision so I am always looking for advice. Take care.
  - Zenbit_UX 6y ago
    Try dexedrine imo, I had what you're describing with XR pills like vyvance and if I ever woke up late I knew I couldn't take the pill without having an all-nighter. 5mg of dexedrine at 8am gets me til 5-6pm and no crash afterwards.
- _dibly 6y ago
  Growing up I was perscribed ritalin, however I stopped taking it within a few months because my middle-school brain was not enjoying the side-effects (mostly drowsiness). Now I'm perscribed Adderall and it works great. It can be annoying because every college student under the sun is taking adderall to cram last minute but it's a different drug when you actually need it to function. For most people Adderall just keeps them awake and hyper-focused so they can do whatever they need to get done, regardless of the hours it takes them. For someone who has ADHD, it really just brings us to what that baseline is for most people. I can focus on my work all day with no medication if I'm doing something that I find personally interesting. However, when I have a week's worth of online coursework and boring bookkeeping to do it's impossible to get more than 5 minutes done without staring out the window, putting something on in the background, and twiddling my thumbs. I can still buckle down and get work done without it, but it's so much more mentally draining to do a week of work without any medication than if I were just to take what the doctor recommends. YMMV obviously, I just wanted to suggest something for people like me who have been 'proudly' living with ADHD un-medicated.
  - burntoutfire 6y ago
    > I can focus on my work all day with no medication if I'm doing something that I find personally interesting. However, when I have a week's worth of online coursework and boring bookkeeping to do it's impossible to get more than 5 minutes done without staring out the window, putting something on in the background, and twiddling my thumbs. I can still buckle down and get work done without it, but it's so much more mentally draining to do a week of work without any medication than if I were just to take what the doctor recommends. How do you know that other people have it harder? My suspicion is that we all suffer in quiet desperation.
    - _dibly 6y ago
      I often wonder what kind of impulse drives someone to think, believe, and then confront others with their insanely regressive opinions. At least today I have a concrete answer. In case you're still confused, there's this thing called the DSM that people use to diagnose/classify mental disorders. It's a pretty big deal.
disiplus 6y ago
what do you take now. im also an adult with adhd, i did take ritalin before but concerta is the only thing available to me right now. i dont think its especially effective to me, but i take only 36mg per day. and its better then not taking anything.
- _dibly 6y ago
  I take 30-MG Adderall XRs, my brothers both take IR before classes since they have more downtime, but I work from home so most days I wake up and work until 4-5PM at my desk. Also worth mentioning that we all take the doctor recommended dosages, I worked my way up from 10MG doses and I absolutely do not recommend self-medicating in any way.
  - treeman79 6y ago
    For me a 10mg dose will last 20-40 hours. If I take at same time each day it “builds up” Made proper dosing Very difficult
  - gremlinsinc 6y ago
    you wouldn't know anything about adhd meds and depression/anxiety? I've had panic attacks this year, I had depression years ago, went to therapy a lot better on that front. Enter: Xoloft followed by Trintellix (1 week in). I dealt w/ them pretty well, I'd go lay down, breathe and maybe take a cat nap, wake up in 30 minutes go back to work feeling like a million dollars. Now, not so much. So, I started xoloft a month ago, it screwed up me libido and made me continually 'want it' but not able to 'deliver' (or it'd take way too long). Switched to Trintellix, still have panic attacks, sex is better, but anxiety doesn't seem affected. Now, I feel I'm actually more depressed though, and just not wanting to get out of bed. Motivation is rough. I'm also taking Vyvanse for ADHD. It doesn't seem to be as effective as it was before adding anxiety meds. Should I just scrap the anxiety meds altogether and just deal with adhd? Anyone else w/ similar experience want to chime in? It's really messing me up, and I've recently lost my main client so I really need to focus and get some income (web dev/laravel), or I'm gonna be homeless (40 w/ wife and 2 kids - so not an option).
dx87 6y ago
Yeah, the stigma against the medication, and the people who casually say "omg, I'm like, so ADD" really hurt the people who have actually been diagnosed with it. Depending on where you live, it can be difficult to find a psychiatrist willing to see you for a diagnoses and subsequent prescription because they think that you're a college kid wanting to abuse it or sell it. I had to call 4-5 different offices until I found a psychiatrist that would see me, and you can check the /r/ADHD and see a bunch of stories about people who moved to a different state for work, but nobody will prescribe them their medication in their new state, and now they're struggling at their new job.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  From my perspective, the thing that has hurt the credibility around ADHD diagnoses is the pretty blatant use by affluent parents to get diagnoses so they can get test-time extensions for their kids. ADHD diagnosis is much more strongly correlated with affluence than many other mental illnesses. Eliminating the 504 accommodation would be beneficial in my view.
  - jdavis703 6y ago
    Software engineering gave me the opportunity to go from being in the bottom economic class to the highest. And guess what, when I was a kid and college student I didn’t have the resources to obtain mental health treatment. Now that I’m a software engineer I can afford therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists that help me manage ADHD and bipolar. I’m still the same person. I just have more access now.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      Sure - also the metrics measured in industry are not the same as the metrics measured in school. What you're saying doesn't seem at odds with what I'm saying. I would, however, be interested in seeing a study where they give kids with ADHD adderall and give kids without ADHD adderall and see if the test-score residual is statistically significantly higher for the ADHD group. I have not seen any convincing experimental evidence that amphetamines are uniquely performance enhancing for those diagnosed with ADHD.
treeman79 6y ago
Took adderal for year. Completely life changing. My focus and energy level were on par with a normal persons. Unfortunately it was far too hard on the body. Started stroking out on it. Plus it interacted with almost every Medicane I’ve been prescribed. Tried vyvanse. Only one side effect. The deepest most profound sadness imaginable. Would sit for hours just “sad”. Nothing was bothering me. Worked fine aside from that. Gave it up after a few weeks. Aderral did remove most of the “pain” from boring things. So in that regards it taught me how to manage symptoms better. Focus is still a major problem, and I’m back to older trucks of ear plugs and a dim room. But not as bad as before. Kids have it strong. Wife wants them on meds, but weird reactions run in family so I’m highly reluctant.
- cpuguy83 6y ago
  Having gone through this with my fam, given that you seem to have reactions to every med, have you considered it may be autism or aspurgers? ADHD and autism are often seen together, and reactions to other meds also seems to be fairly common. I just wanted to throw that out there because this realization that it's not just ADHD, not just anxiety, etc has changed our life dramatically... and there are meds that can help with this (on top of some dietary changes). Anyway, good luck!
  - kayodelycaon 6y ago
    Bipolar, schizophrenia, and depression can also cause attention deficient. It is extremely common for children with Bipolar to be misdiagnosed as ADHD. Depression is usually easier to diagnose accurately. Schizophrenia can be hit or miss, depending on severity. In my case (I'm bipolar), psychosis was so much a part of my normal life that I was completely blind to it and my external symptoms weren't severe enough to be recognizable. For just ADHD, There are also other classes of medication that can help. Atomoxetine, bupropion, guanfacine, and clonidine are alternative medications that work differently than first line stimulants.
    - andai 6y ago
      I'm curious if you're willing to share, how psychosis can be a part of a normal life, how you can have it for any length of time without it being recognizable? Did I understand correctly? Is it like, having a very unusual perception of reality, but not so unusual as to interfere with normal functioning? In people I know who have experienced it, it was very debilitating, so I hadn't even considered the possibility of having it for a long time and still being able to function.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> I've always been one to 'just deal with it' but after a few years of working through school and seeing my younger brothers go through the same thing with medication, I realized that I was essentially just handicapping myself. That's not entirely true, though. There is a lot of value in learning good habits to cope with ADHD and developing systems and mental models to improve your ADHD situation. ADHD isn't a purely dopaminergic "chemical imbalance" in the brain that can only be improved with chemical solutions, similar to how depression isn't entirely a chemical imbalance of serotonin. One of the downsides of aggressive ADHD medication treatment is that it can handicap learning of good habits and coping strategies. Some, thought not all, patients quickly learn to rely on the stimulant effect of their medication to get anything done, assuming that medication is the only way to improve. This becomes a problem as the motivating effects of stimulant medication wear off after months or years, leaving only the concentration-enhancing side effects. Internet forums are full of 20-something ADHD patients who think the only way to address their ADHD is ever increasing doses of stimulants, but eventually they hit prescribing limits and increasing side effects. The solution is to approach ADHD as a combined treatment with minimal medication and heavy emphasis on self-discipline and healthy habits. Regarding this study: Don't forget that ADHD medications aren't simply dopamine dispensers. All of the stimulant ADHD medications have significant norepinephrine activity, as well. There are many reasons why pure dopamine agonists aren't effective for ADHD. > I wonder how different things would've been for me if I had started taking an effective medication at 16 and not at 25. In reality, you may have benefited greatly by spending your formative years teaching yourself coping mechanisms and learning good study habits before introducing ADHD medication. Many people take stimulant treatment for years or decades, but the unfortunate reality is that the long-term effectiveness of stimulants isn't exactly a sure thing. Clinical trials and studies rarely run for more than a few months. The studies on long-term patients are mixed, but not encourage for long-term effectiveness of stimulants ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11322742/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11322742/ ). If you only recently started taking stimulants, you might be in somewhat of a "honeymoon phase" where the core effects are still strong. Note that after years of use, people will tend to overestimate the effects of the drug due to the severity of withdrawal symptoms on days off. In short, I'd encourage you to continue addressing your ADHD symptoms with ever-improving self discipline, personal habits, and healthy lifestyle choices. The medication is part of a treatment regimen, but it shouldn't be the entirety of one's treatment regimen.
burtonator 6y ago
I've been on Adderall for 5 years ... I'm 43 right now. It really HAS changed my life. What I've found is that over the long term you're able to perform much much better. By the time I was in my 30s I had developed coping skills which worked for the most part but I would find myself getting demotivated and defocused sometimes on long term priorities and sometimes unable to recommit to them. Adderall totally changed that. I'm able to focus on tasks long term AND even if something bad happens in my life I'm able to keep right on track. It's also helped me stay more positive knowing that projects get completed and there's nothing preventing me from accomplishing what I want to accomplish. There are some downsides though: - Adderall is illegal in most countries so you're not even allowed to travel with it in some places. I didn't really know this at first and I wish they would tell you. Most countries will overlook it but if you're China they could totally use it as an excuse to harass you if they wanted. - It's very addictive. If I forget my meds it's basically impossible to function. - It's VERY hard to get since it's a controlled substance. I'm only able to get it 72 hours ahead of time and if they're out of stock sometimes I have to wait. DO NOT wait until the last minute. Get it as early as possible. - Some people have problems with off brands of XR (extended release) that has a different formulation. There's no standardization on the XR process and I think it's vendor specific.
- dr_dshiv 6y ago
  You know what's totally nuts? Taking Amphetamine daily for years in reasonable doses essentially has no long term negative effects. In that way, similar to coffee. When I think about that, it's kind of mind blowing. For that matter, it is also crazy that we don't start giving children coffee at younger ages to help focus — since there are no known negative effects. It's just a cultural trope that it stunts growth, etc. It took ages before people recognized that there weren't really health downsides to coffee. We are so trained to expect that "every up has a down" — but what if that's just a relic of Calvinism and we are inhibiting our full potential because of misplaced fears?
  - kqr 6y ago
    > You know what's totally nuts? Taking Amphetamine daily for years in reasonable doses essentially has no long term negative effects. In that way, similar to coffee. This is a null hypothesis that hasn't been refuted due to lack of evidence, and not an alternative hypothesis that has been proven by evidence, right? I ask because I've been looking into this before, and from what I remember there was virtually no evidence on long term use in reasonable amounts. (There is evidence on short term use in reasonable amounts, and long term use in unreasonable amounts, though.)
aidenn0 6y ago
Which "more modern" medication are you on, out of curiosity? Ritalin causes side effects for me as soon as I start to hit the therapeutic dose when titrating. Adderall is terrible for me. My youngest daughter is undoubtedly ADHD, and the insurance company requires you to try the first two before they will approve a third...
- topicseed 6y ago
  Not OP, but I believe some people with ADHD seem to be helped with Modafinil (Provigil). It is normally used for severe lethargy and narcolepsy but has been working for ADHD, too.
  - aidenn0 6y ago
    My psychiatrist was disinclined to try that one with me seeing that both Methylphenidate (Ritalin) and Adderal caused sleep issues for me.
    - emptysongglass 6y ago
      You just have to get over the curve of about a week of regular dosage then you can sleep at a normal hour. But it should be the first thing you do in the morning. Modafinil was The Answer for me after trying everything else. I don't know why psychiatrists always insist on a battery of other drugs first, which can cause everything from aggression to obvious personality shifts to mania to damage to the dopaminergic axons of the brain.
      - aidenn0 6y ago
        1. There is a strong slant against off-label uses of drugs in general 2. Insurance companies require extra paperwork for anything other than the 2 or 3 most common drugs. I ended up on Dexmethylphenidate after trying a few others; I rate it as "okay" but still so much better than unmedicated that I paid a few hundred dollars out-of-pocket for it while I was convincing the insurance company to approve it. I ended up on ER, which doesn't work as well because they wouldn't approve 2x 10mg of non ER but would approve 1x 20mg of the ER. sigh
WhiteNoiz3 6y ago
We are trying out various ADHD meds for my son and every one is like a deal with the devil - it helps with some things, but leaves him twice as wired when it wears off, or makes him sleepy or keeps him awake at night. I hope in the future we can get more targetted treatments without so many side effects.
haneefmubarak 6y ago
What's a more modern medicine in this context?
- __blockcipher__ 6y ago
  I would guess Vyvanse, it’s dextroamphetamine bound to a lysine molecule. Your liver must cleave the lysine before the d-amp is released giving a smooth release, taking ~3.5 hours till you hit max blood concentration. Fun fact: Methamphetamine naturally takes 3-3.5 hours to hit peak so Vyvanse has a more “meth-like” concentration curve as opposed to raw d-amp (or adderal which is 75% d-amp 25% l-amp) which hits way sooner. As an aside, Meth is very misunderstood and is in many ways a more ideal ADHD drug than normal amphetamine; and indeed it can be prescribed under the brand name Desoxyn. Methamphetamine when taken in low-moderate oral doses is completey safe and less jittery than amphetamine, but if abused (say, smoking 100mg d-meth) it becomes far more neurotoxic. Understanding enantiomers (left-handed vs right-handed molecules in this case) is really important. For amp / methamp, the d enantiomer is 3-4x more powerful by weight yet is more cerebral as opposed to causing peripheral (body) stimulation. So d is almost always superior, although with adderall it has been found that the 75/25 d/l formula synergizes and has a bit longer half life
BolexNOLA 6y ago
Man are you me? After college I finally got diagnosed again after being off medication for 8 or so years. Grew up first doing Ritalin->adderall->concerta->no meds. I realized how needlessly difficult I made college for myself.
jFriedensreich 6y ago
Could you let us know what more modern medication you are using? I have serious problems with Ritalin side effects but am not aware of any alternatives besides adderall, vyvanse or riatlin like products.
aantix 6y ago
Curious if you've ever done a hair follicle mineral test to check for mineral deficiencies? We've been working through the book, "Finally Focused", to help our son. Magnesium supplementation is recommendation #1, Iron supplementation (if deficient as demonstrated by the test) and then the over-the-counter, lithium orotate. We haven't gotten further than chapter 3, yet.
- costcopizza 6y ago
  I like this idea. Do you have a source for a company that will do this? Or does it require a doctors office visit?
  - aantix 6y ago
    This is the one we ordered. We haven’t administered it yet. https://arltma.com/hairanalysis/ https://arltma.com/hairanalysis/ The lab doesn’t sell directly so you have to order it through a wellness center.
Izkata 6y ago
> When I was younger I was perscribed ritalin, and it just made me sleepy so I stopped taking it. Now I take a more modern medication and it works wonders. I don't have ADHD, but I'm curious what the modern one is. Back in middle school, around 2001, I did a report on ADD and ADHD, and 3 of the medications that existed for it: Ritalin, Cylert, and I'm not certain of the third but from the other comments Adderall sounds like it could be it (though I think it started with a "D", is there one that does?). The only thing I remember from it is the conclusion that if I got diagnosed and needed medication, I'd refuse Ritalin, and that Cylert seemed like the best of the three.
- emptysongglass 6y ago
  The more modern medication for me was modafinil but I had to beg for it. My psychiatrist made me go through the stringer of usual suspects before she allowed me moda: first adderall, then ritalin, then straterra (this one actually gave me acute psychopathy and constantly leak semen). All three caused profound personality shifts. Moda doesn't touch my affect and it's wonderful.
  - sizzle 6y ago
    How would you describe modanafil vs dexedrine?
    - emptysongglass 6y ago
      Like being "baseline" vs being wired. Dexedrine was the first thing I was put on and I was on it for half a year. Cycling off it on the weekends was agonizing: exhaustion like I'd never felt before, depression, sleeping for 12 hours at a time. Modafinil makes me feel like myself but a more productive version. The big issue with me has always been starting a task and modafinil makes a scary task a lot more approachable. My thoughts are more ordered, I can see the bigger architecture of a thing, verbal fluency is improved. I cycle off it Saturdays and Sundays and that works just fine for me.
- stallmanite 6y ago
  The substance starting with a D was probably Dextroamphetamine. It’s the old standard and has been around forever. It’s basically Adderall with just the R isomer rather than a mixture of Levo & Dextro isomers.
anonybadger 6y ago
Curious - what’s the more modern medication that you take! Thanks.
cgb223 6y ago
As someone with ADHD I was once prescribed the lowest dose of adderall (5 mg?) and I found it was so much like being high it genuinely scared me I was working from home and the second it kicked in I started getting literal chills down my spine. I ended up messaging a bunch of people on Facebook I haven’t talked to in years but felt a sudden affinity and empathy for. I got distracted by a part of my apartment that I hadn’t cleaned in a while and missed a meeting because I ended up cleaning the whole place, including weird things like dusting the sides of books. When I finally got to coding, it was like I was in the matrix. Hyper focused (and fwiw getting a lot done) but in a weird euphoric high feeling way. I guess what I’m asking is is that how everyone feels the first time they take it? And how long does it take to just feel normal on it, but like able to focus? I want to try it again, because I need help focusing and know I can do better, but I’m genuinely afraid of the person I was on that stuff.
- steve_adams_86 6y ago
  Very similar experience with Dexedrine here, but that wore off after a week or so. I would indiscriminately DO things, like a ride in lawn mower ghost riding into an overgrown field with a full tank of gas. Was I productive? In a sense. Was I effective? Not as much. I use it occasionally still but with no euphoric, overwhelming empathy or boundless energy to mow the metaphorical fields. It helps me push through brain fog when things just need to be done. I haven’t managed to get past the tooth grinding. I barely feel that I’m on it now, but every single time... I grind my teeth. Even if I feel perfectly relaxed otherwise.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  I had some initial freakout when some bad patterns started reemerging. It took time to learn how to accept & adapt to the changed mindset. I eventually learned to redirect myself - which Adderall enabled me to do. The first step was qualifying my own good and bad behaviors. It took time to deepen the reward association with beneficial behaviors. That helped me redirect away from counterproductive behaviors - not just revived behaviors but also the persistent ones. Making progress on those was huge. During this process, the messy, euphoric edges smoothed themselves out. I never had to address it directly. About 6 months in I came to the conclusion that I really would have benefited from a therapeutic guide, someone who was familiar with this specific experience. I'm not sure there is anyone like that out there.
paufernandez 6y ago
What do you take now? My kid is still doing mostly fine 'just dealing with it' (10yo) but I want to be ready.

by _dibly 6y ago

zarkov99 6y ago

What medication do you take now? Did you take anything while growing up?

pen2l 6y ago
I take concerta, 18mg, and it works wonders. The only small negative is the its life is a little too long... even if I take it at 7am, I find I have difficulty getting to sleep sometimes up till 3am... and then my whole sleep schedule gets shifted and it’s damn difficult to get it back to a proper rhythm. That aside, I _so_ agree with grandparent post about the negative stigma associated with medication for adhd. I’m so angry at society, parents, everyone for having done this to me in my early years — if only I had started earlier instead of in my mid-20s.
- zarkov99 6y ago
  How early do you think you should have started? And how would one know its the right time?
  - pen2l 6y ago
    That’s a tough one, that’s a really tough one, especially as I’m seeing my 5 year old niece and seeing myself in her... in her inability to remain focused and motivated. It’s tough because even I am sometimes biased against running to medication as sloppy fixes when root causes of ailments and a full safety profile of drugs isn’t 100% clear. But with the information and experience I have, I think if you get tested by a professional psychologist and he okays it, I’d be comfortable with kids as young as 5 getting medicated.
    - zarkov99 6y ago
      Thanks, I have a 11 year old with ADHD and as you say its a tough decision so I am always looking for advice. Take care.
- Zenbit_UX 6y ago
  Try dexedrine imo, I had what you're describing with XR pills like vyvance and if I ever woke up late I knew I couldn't take the pill without having an all-nighter. 5mg of dexedrine at 8am gets me til 5-6pm and no crash afterwards.
_dibly 6y ago
Growing up I was perscribed ritalin, however I stopped taking it within a few months because my middle-school brain was not enjoying the side-effects (mostly drowsiness). Now I'm perscribed Adderall and it works great. It can be annoying because every college student under the sun is taking adderall to cram last minute but it's a different drug when you actually need it to function. For most people Adderall just keeps them awake and hyper-focused so they can do whatever they need to get done, regardless of the hours it takes them. For someone who has ADHD, it really just brings us to what that baseline is for most people. I can focus on my work all day with no medication if I'm doing something that I find personally interesting. However, when I have a week's worth of online coursework and boring bookkeeping to do it's impossible to get more than 5 minutes done without staring out the window, putting something on in the background, and twiddling my thumbs. I can still buckle down and get work done without it, but it's so much more mentally draining to do a week of work without any medication than if I were just to take what the doctor recommends. YMMV obviously, I just wanted to suggest something for people like me who have been 'proudly' living with ADHD un-medicated.
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  > I can focus on my work all day with no medication if I'm doing something that I find personally interesting. However, when I have a week's worth of online coursework and boring bookkeeping to do it's impossible to get more than 5 minutes done without staring out the window, putting something on in the background, and twiddling my thumbs. I can still buckle down and get work done without it, but it's so much more mentally draining to do a week of work without any medication than if I were just to take what the doctor recommends. How do you know that other people have it harder? My suspicion is that we all suffer in quiet desperation.
  - _dibly 6y ago
    I often wonder what kind of impulse drives someone to think, believe, and then confront others with their insanely regressive opinions. At least today I have a concrete answer. In case you're still confused, there's this thing called the DSM that people use to diagnose/classify mental disorders. It's a pretty big deal.

disiplus 6y ago

what do you take now. im also an adult with adhd, i did take ritalin before but concerta is the only thing available to me right now. i dont think its especially effective to me, but i take only 36mg per day. and its better then not taking anything.

_dibly 6y ago
I take 30-MG Adderall XRs, my brothers both take IR before classes since they have more downtime, but I work from home so most days I wake up and work until 4-5PM at my desk. Also worth mentioning that we all take the doctor recommended dosages, I worked my way up from 10MG doses and I absolutely do not recommend self-medicating in any way.
- treeman79 6y ago
  For me a 10mg dose will last 20-40 hours. If I take at same time each day it “builds up” Made proper dosing Very difficult
- gremlinsinc 6y ago
  you wouldn't know anything about adhd meds and depression/anxiety? I've had panic attacks this year, I had depression years ago, went to therapy a lot better on that front. Enter: Xoloft followed by Trintellix (1 week in). I dealt w/ them pretty well, I'd go lay down, breathe and maybe take a cat nap, wake up in 30 minutes go back to work feeling like a million dollars. Now, not so much. So, I started xoloft a month ago, it screwed up me libido and made me continually 'want it' but not able to 'deliver' (or it'd take way too long). Switched to Trintellix, still have panic attacks, sex is better, but anxiety doesn't seem affected. Now, I feel I'm actually more depressed though, and just not wanting to get out of bed. Motivation is rough. I'm also taking Vyvanse for ADHD. It doesn't seem to be as effective as it was before adding anxiety meds. Should I just scrap the anxiety meds altogether and just deal with adhd? Anyone else w/ similar experience want to chime in? It's really messing me up, and I've recently lost my main client so I really need to focus and get some income (web dev/laravel), or I'm gonna be homeless (40 w/ wife and 2 kids - so not an option).

dx87 6y ago

Yeah, the stigma against the medication, and the people who casually say "omg, I'm like, so ADD" really hurt the people who have actually been diagnosed with it. Depending on where you live, it can be difficult to find a psychiatrist willing to see you for a diagnoses and subsequent prescription because they think that you're a college kid wanting to abuse it or sell it. I had to call 4-5 different offices until I found a psychiatrist that would see me, and you can check the /r/ADHD and see a bunch of stories about people who moved to a different state for work, but nobody will prescribe them their medication in their new state, and now they're struggling at their new job.

whimsicalism 6y ago
From my perspective, the thing that has hurt the credibility around ADHD diagnoses is the pretty blatant use by affluent parents to get diagnoses so they can get test-time extensions for their kids. ADHD diagnosis is much more strongly correlated with affluence than many other mental illnesses. Eliminating the 504 accommodation would be beneficial in my view.
- jdavis703 6y ago
  Software engineering gave me the opportunity to go from being in the bottom economic class to the highest. And guess what, when I was a kid and college student I didn’t have the resources to obtain mental health treatment. Now that I’m a software engineer I can afford therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists that help me manage ADHD and bipolar. I’m still the same person. I just have more access now.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    Sure - also the metrics measured in industry are not the same as the metrics measured in school. What you're saying doesn't seem at odds with what I'm saying. I would, however, be interested in seeing a study where they give kids with ADHD adderall and give kids without ADHD adderall and see if the test-score residual is statistically significantly higher for the ADHD group. I have not seen any convincing experimental evidence that amphetamines are uniquely performance enhancing for those diagnosed with ADHD.

treeman79 6y ago

Took adderal for year. Completely life changing. My focus and energy level were on par with a normal persons. Unfortunately it was far too hard on the body. Started stroking out on it. Plus it interacted with almost every Medicane I’ve been prescribed. Tried vyvanse. Only one side effect. The deepest most profound sadness imaginable. Would sit for hours just “sad”. Nothing was bothering me. Worked fine aside from that. Gave it up after a few weeks. Aderral did remove most of the “pain” from boring things. So in that regards it taught me how to manage symptoms better. Focus is still a major problem, and I’m back to older trucks of ear plugs and a dim room. But not as bad as before. Kids have it strong. Wife wants them on meds, but weird reactions run in family so I’m highly reluctant.

cpuguy83 6y ago
Having gone through this with my fam, given that you seem to have reactions to every med, have you considered it may be autism or aspurgers? ADHD and autism are often seen together, and reactions to other meds also seems to be fairly common. I just wanted to throw that out there because this realization that it's not just ADHD, not just anxiety, etc has changed our life dramatically... and there are meds that can help with this (on top of some dietary changes). Anyway, good luck!
- kayodelycaon 6y ago
  Bipolar, schizophrenia, and depression can also cause attention deficient. It is extremely common for children with Bipolar to be misdiagnosed as ADHD. Depression is usually easier to diagnose accurately. Schizophrenia can be hit or miss, depending on severity. In my case (I'm bipolar), psychosis was so much a part of my normal life that I was completely blind to it and my external symptoms weren't severe enough to be recognizable. For just ADHD, There are also other classes of medication that can help. Atomoxetine, bupropion, guanfacine, and clonidine are alternative medications that work differently than first line stimulants.
  - andai 6y ago
    I'm curious if you're willing to share, how psychosis can be a part of a normal life, how you can have it for any length of time without it being recognizable? Did I understand correctly? Is it like, having a very unusual perception of reality, but not so unusual as to interfere with normal functioning? In people I know who have experienced it, it was very debilitating, so I hadn't even considered the possibility of having it for a long time and still being able to function.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

> I've always been one to 'just deal with it' but after a few years of working through school and seeing my younger brothers go through the same thing with medication, I realized that I was essentially just handicapping myself. That's not entirely true, though. There is a lot of value in learning good habits to cope with ADHD and developing systems and mental models to improve your ADHD situation. ADHD isn't a purely dopaminergic "chemical imbalance" in the brain that can only be improved with chemical solutions, similar to how depression isn't entirely a chemical imbalance of serotonin. One of the downsides of aggressive ADHD medication treatment is that it can handicap learning of good habits and coping strategies. Some, thought not all, patients quickly learn to rely on the stimulant effect of their medication to get anything done, assuming that medication is the only way to improve. This becomes a problem as the motivating effects of stimulant medication wear off after months or years, leaving only the concentration-enhancing side effects. Internet forums are full of 20-something ADHD patients who think the only way to address their ADHD is ever increasing doses of stimulants, but eventually they hit prescribing limits and increasing side effects. The solution is to approach ADHD as a combined treatment with minimal medication and heavy emphasis on self-discipline and healthy habits. Regarding this study: Don't forget that ADHD medications aren't simply dopamine dispensers. All of the stimulant ADHD medications have significant norepinephrine activity, as well. There are many reasons why pure dopamine agonists aren't effective for ADHD. > I wonder how different things would've been for me if I had started taking an effective medication at 16 and not at 25. In reality, you may have benefited greatly by spending your formative years teaching yourself coping mechanisms and learning good study habits before introducing ADHD medication. Many people take stimulant treatment for years or decades, but the unfortunate reality is that the long-term effectiveness of stimulants isn't exactly a sure thing. Clinical trials and studies rarely run for more than a few months. The studies on long-term patients are mixed, but not encourage for long-term effectiveness of stimulants ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11322742/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11322742/ ). If you only recently started taking stimulants, you might be in somewhat of a "honeymoon phase" where the core effects are still strong. Note that after years of use, people will tend to overestimate the effects of the drug due to the severity of withdrawal symptoms on days off. In short, I'd encourage you to continue addressing your ADHD symptoms with ever-improving self discipline, personal habits, and healthy lifestyle choices. The medication is part of a treatment regimen, but it shouldn't be the entirety of one's treatment regimen.

burtonator 6y ago

I've been on Adderall for 5 years ... I'm 43 right now. It really HAS changed my life. What I've found is that over the long term you're able to perform much much better. By the time I was in my 30s I had developed coping skills which worked for the most part but I would find myself getting demotivated and defocused sometimes on long term priorities and sometimes unable to recommit to them. Adderall totally changed that. I'm able to focus on tasks long term AND even if something bad happens in my life I'm able to keep right on track. It's also helped me stay more positive knowing that projects get completed and there's nothing preventing me from accomplishing what I want to accomplish. There are some downsides though: - Adderall is illegal in most countries so you're not even allowed to travel with it in some places. I didn't really know this at first and I wish they would tell you. Most countries will overlook it but if you're China they could totally use it as an excuse to harass you if they wanted. - It's very addictive. If I forget my meds it's basically impossible to function. - It's VERY hard to get since it's a controlled substance. I'm only able to get it 72 hours ahead of time and if they're out of stock sometimes I have to wait. DO NOT wait until the last minute. Get it as early as possible. - Some people have problems with off brands of XR (extended release) that has a different formulation. There's no standardization on the XR process and I think it's vendor specific.

dr_dshiv 6y ago
You know what's totally nuts? Taking Amphetamine daily for years in reasonable doses essentially has no long term negative effects. In that way, similar to coffee. When I think about that, it's kind of mind blowing. For that matter, it is also crazy that we don't start giving children coffee at younger ages to help focus — since there are no known negative effects. It's just a cultural trope that it stunts growth, etc. It took ages before people recognized that there weren't really health downsides to coffee. We are so trained to expect that "every up has a down" — but what if that's just a relic of Calvinism and we are inhibiting our full potential because of misplaced fears?
- kqr 6y ago
  > You know what's totally nuts? Taking Amphetamine daily for years in reasonable doses essentially has no long term negative effects. In that way, similar to coffee. This is a null hypothesis that hasn't been refuted due to lack of evidence, and not an alternative hypothesis that has been proven by evidence, right? I ask because I've been looking into this before, and from what I remember there was virtually no evidence on long term use in reasonable amounts. (There is evidence on short term use in reasonable amounts, and long term use in unreasonable amounts, though.)

aidenn0 6y ago

Which "more modern" medication are you on, out of curiosity? Ritalin causes side effects for me as soon as I start to hit the therapeutic dose when titrating. Adderall is terrible for me. My youngest daughter is undoubtedly ADHD, and the insurance company requires you to try the first two before they will approve a third...

topicseed 6y ago
Not OP, but I believe some people with ADHD seem to be helped with Modafinil (Provigil). It is normally used for severe lethargy and narcolepsy but has been working for ADHD, too.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  My psychiatrist was disinclined to try that one with me seeing that both Methylphenidate (Ritalin) and Adderal caused sleep issues for me.
  - emptysongglass 6y ago
    You just have to get over the curve of about a week of regular dosage then you can sleep at a normal hour. But it should be the first thing you do in the morning. Modafinil was The Answer for me after trying everything else. I don't know why psychiatrists always insist on a battery of other drugs first, which can cause everything from aggression to obvious personality shifts to mania to damage to the dopaminergic axons of the brain.
    - aidenn0 6y ago
      1. There is a strong slant against off-label uses of drugs in general 2. Insurance companies require extra paperwork for anything other than the 2 or 3 most common drugs. I ended up on Dexmethylphenidate after trying a few others; I rate it as "okay" but still so much better than unmedicated that I paid a few hundred dollars out-of-pocket for it while I was convincing the insurance company to approve it. I ended up on ER, which doesn't work as well because they wouldn't approve 2x 10mg of non ER but would approve 1x 20mg of the ER. sigh

WhiteNoiz3 6y ago

We are trying out various ADHD meds for my son and every one is like a deal with the devil - it helps with some things, but leaves him twice as wired when it wears off, or makes him sleepy or keeps him awake at night. I hope in the future we can get more targetted treatments without so many side effects.

haneefmubarak 6y ago

What's a more modern medicine in this context?

__blockcipher__ 6y ago
I would guess Vyvanse, it’s dextroamphetamine bound to a lysine molecule. Your liver must cleave the lysine before the d-amp is released giving a smooth release, taking ~3.5 hours till you hit max blood concentration. Fun fact: Methamphetamine naturally takes 3-3.5 hours to hit peak so Vyvanse has a more “meth-like” concentration curve as opposed to raw d-amp (or adderal which is 75% d-amp 25% l-amp) which hits way sooner. As an aside, Meth is very misunderstood and is in many ways a more ideal ADHD drug than normal amphetamine; and indeed it can be prescribed under the brand name Desoxyn. Methamphetamine when taken in low-moderate oral doses is completey safe and less jittery than amphetamine, but if abused (say, smoking 100mg d-meth) it becomes far more neurotoxic. Understanding enantiomers (left-handed vs right-handed molecules in this case) is really important. For amp / methamp, the d enantiomer is 3-4x more powerful by weight yet is more cerebral as opposed to causing peripheral (body) stimulation. So d is almost always superior, although with adderall it has been found that the 75/25 d/l formula synergizes and has a bit longer half life

BolexNOLA 6y ago

Man are you me? After college I finally got diagnosed again after being off medication for 8 or so years. Grew up first doing Ritalin->adderall->concerta->no meds. I realized how needlessly difficult I made college for myself.

jFriedensreich 6y ago

Could you let us know what more modern medication you are using? I have serious problems with Ritalin side effects but am not aware of any alternatives besides adderall, vyvanse or riatlin like products.

aantix 6y ago

Curious if you've ever done a hair follicle mineral test to check for mineral deficiencies? We've been working through the book, "Finally Focused", to help our son. Magnesium supplementation is recommendation #1, Iron supplementation (if deficient as demonstrated by the test) and then the over-the-counter, lithium orotate. We haven't gotten further than chapter 3, yet.

costcopizza 6y ago
I like this idea. Do you have a source for a company that will do this? Or does it require a doctors office visit?
- aantix 6y ago
  This is the one we ordered. We haven’t administered it yet. https://arltma.com/hairanalysis/ https://arltma.com/hairanalysis/ The lab doesn’t sell directly so you have to order it through a wellness center.

Izkata 6y ago

> When I was younger I was perscribed ritalin, and it just made me sleepy so I stopped taking it. Now I take a more modern medication and it works wonders. I don't have ADHD, but I'm curious what the modern one is. Back in middle school, around 2001, I did a report on ADD and ADHD, and 3 of the medications that existed for it: Ritalin, Cylert, and I'm not certain of the third but from the other comments Adderall sounds like it could be it (though I think it started with a "D", is there one that does?). The only thing I remember from it is the conclusion that if I got diagnosed and needed medication, I'd refuse Ritalin, and that Cylert seemed like the best of the three.

emptysongglass 6y ago
The more modern medication for me was modafinil but I had to beg for it. My psychiatrist made me go through the stringer of usual suspects before she allowed me moda: first adderall, then ritalin, then straterra (this one actually gave me acute psychopathy and constantly leak semen). All three caused profound personality shifts. Moda doesn't touch my affect and it's wonderful.
- sizzle 6y ago
  How would you describe modanafil vs dexedrine?
  - emptysongglass 6y ago
    Like being "baseline" vs being wired. Dexedrine was the first thing I was put on and I was on it for half a year. Cycling off it on the weekends was agonizing: exhaustion like I'd never felt before, depression, sleeping for 12 hours at a time. Modafinil makes me feel like myself but a more productive version. The big issue with me has always been starting a task and modafinil makes a scary task a lot more approachable. My thoughts are more ordered, I can see the bigger architecture of a thing, verbal fluency is improved. I cycle off it Saturdays and Sundays and that works just fine for me.
stallmanite 6y ago
The substance starting with a D was probably Dextroamphetamine. It’s the old standard and has been around forever. It’s basically Adderall with just the R isomer rather than a mixture of Levo & Dextro isomers.

anonybadger 6y ago

Curious - what’s the more modern medication that you take! Thanks.

cgb223 6y ago

As someone with ADHD I was once prescribed the lowest dose of adderall (5 mg?) and I found it was so much like being high it genuinely scared me I was working from home and the second it kicked in I started getting literal chills down my spine. I ended up messaging a bunch of people on Facebook I haven’t talked to in years but felt a sudden affinity and empathy for. I got distracted by a part of my apartment that I hadn’t cleaned in a while and missed a meeting because I ended up cleaning the whole place, including weird things like dusting the sides of books. When I finally got to coding, it was like I was in the matrix. Hyper focused (and fwiw getting a lot done) but in a weird euphoric high feeling way. I guess what I’m asking is is that how everyone feels the first time they take it? And how long does it take to just feel normal on it, but like able to focus? I want to try it again, because I need help focusing and know I can do better, but I’m genuinely afraid of the person I was on that stuff.

steve_adams_86 6y ago
Very similar experience with Dexedrine here, but that wore off after a week or so. I would indiscriminately DO things, like a ride in lawn mower ghost riding into an overgrown field with a full tank of gas. Was I productive? In a sense. Was I effective? Not as much. I use it occasionally still but with no euphoric, overwhelming empathy or boundless energy to mow the metaphorical fields. It helps me push through brain fog when things just need to be done. I haven’t managed to get past the tooth grinding. I barely feel that I’m on it now, but every single time... I grind my teeth. Even if I feel perfectly relaxed otherwise.
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
I had some initial freakout when some bad patterns started reemerging. It took time to learn how to accept & adapt to the changed mindset. I eventually learned to redirect myself - which Adderall enabled me to do. The first step was qualifying my own good and bad behaviors. It took time to deepen the reward association with beneficial behaviors. That helped me redirect away from counterproductive behaviors - not just revived behaviors but also the persistent ones. Making progress on those was huge. During this process, the messy, euphoric edges smoothed themselves out. I never had to address it directly. About 6 months in I came to the conclusion that I really would have benefited from a therapeutic guide, someone who was familiar with this specific experience. I'm not sure there is anyone like that out there.

paufernandez 6y ago

What do you take now? My kid is still doing mostly fine 'just dealing with it' (10yo) but I want to be ready.