Is ADHD a real disorder?

The negative coheritability between ASD-ADHD seems to indicate that one my bigger hunches about these things may be correct

the first nowell

I am seeking treatment, btw. In fact I have an intake appointment with a psychiatrist this week, so we'll see how that all goes.

Good luck, ps!

I didn't get round to replying because I was trying to make my next post less tl;dr but thank you to everyone who replied to me.

So there is nothing weird about being ADD *and* depressed

Yeah, it seems many people are. When I've mentioned any of this stuff without the ADHD label to doctors/psychologists they've said it's all a symptom of depression but it def seems like cause/effect might also run the other way, and it never goes away even after months or years of mostly steadily OK mood - though it can get worse when I'm anxious or down, so worrying or hopelessness about not thinking straight or stuff not getting done sets up feedback loops.

btw I thought there was known genetic overlap btwn ASD/ADHD, plus sensory processing similarities between the two, but I'm not sure if the "negative coheritability" in that study says otherwise (for that known set of common genetic variations) or if "coheritability" has a more specific meaning than I'm thinking of. I am not good at parsing science-speak or even press release summaries thereof; too bad for a nerd

There was a negative correlation between diagnosis for ASD and ADHD and the genetic markers accompanying each. So subjects that had the markers most strongly correlated to ASD did NOT exhibit symptoms of ADHD, and vice versa.

Someone who does this for a living feel free to correct me.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/mental-health/got-adhd-you-may-live-shorter-life-study-shows-n313011

I've been hit by cars, or nearly hit, a bunch of times. I usually spin this as a "fun" anecdote but I worry about it a lot.

that's why moving somewhere I don't have to drive is one of my life goals

i feel so fucked up about this.

i think in order to continue in my job, i need a robust plan, which at this stage in the game (i.e., i need immediate results) would probably involve medication.

but i don't want to take medication. i hated adderall so much when i was on it. i almost feel it would be worth not having a job that involved high levels of organization and preparation if it meant not having to take adderall.

like, i would give up a lot in order to not take adderall, or other adhd meds (i tried all of them). i like myself when i am not on it, but i find my thinking is jumbled all the time and it's hard for me to follow through with plans. when i took adderall, i would get straight A's and these issues pretty much disappeared (they were traded for other issues.)

I start a low therapeutic dose of Wellbutrin today, which I guess in addition to being useful for symptoms of depression might have a positive effect on my attention issues? here's hoping!

good luck, and good wishes to you Treesh, hope you find your best way forward soon

Good luck!!!

Update: Wellbutrin is pretty swell so far. It was mainly prescribed for my depressive symptoms but it's had a positive effect on attention stuff as well. I've been extremely on top of my work lately and have generally felt a positive boost in motivation, focus, & short term memory. Have managed to keep on top of the 2x day dosage. At times I've felt a little edgy & speedy but nothing bad. Feeling very positive about this so far!

I'm taking welbutrin and vyvanse. Did you try that one treeship? It's meth and it's good.
My motivation is still quite bad because some days i lie in bed after work. Maybe I need to lower my nightly seroquel dose and uh excercise and eat right.

ADD meds (in my case vyvanse), help with many symptoms but my hyperfocus is as robust as ever - I'm terrific at menial labor!

I can associate with Mr. Roboto and I can say for fact that he is notdoing jobs that nobody wants to. Those jobs are being done by Mexican construction workers

I wonder if huge ammounts of coffeee = mild adderall?

No. Nicotine has an observably similar impact on brain function as Ritalin, though (as does cocaine. I can dig up the paper if anyone doubts my rationale for fueling the work day with bumps and drags.)

Yes and no. None of these things are the same. Some of them have similar effects. Talk to your doctor if you think drugs might be right for you. If you feel like you're using caffeine, alcohol or nicotine for self-medicating purposes, also talk to your doctor, because that can have effects.

Well, I've been drinking huge amounts of caffeine for many years now so it would basically be hard to tell at this point what life is like WITHOUT it.

Pretty much from age 16 on - always caffeinated! And then when I worked in a cafe once they taught how to make it even stronger!

Yet it never makes me jittery or have trouble sleeping.

I believe in science to I believe ADHD is real, and its too bad there is not a more cut and dry test for it like a bloodtest or something because it seems like society still sees it like "he's just a bad student" or "she's just a naughty space cadet" or "if he had better parents...." but really its a biological brain difference between adhd and normal kids.

Caffeine exacerbates my ability to be distracted; meds allow me to focus a lot better

i could be totally wrong about this (not a doctor etc) but caffeine has a lower brain toxicity threshold whereas amphetamine requires larger doses for toxicity to occur

all depends on water and food intake. i've had some of the worst times of my life and have done very dangerous rash things while on adderall without having had enough water or food. :\

interesting I thought the adderall was supposed to inhibit impulsive behavior

it can make you unreasonably certain of your own rightness

tbrr people have stopped talking to me irl because of things i've posted here on ilx while i was zooming. :\

I have been reading abotu adhd and i read that that can happen due to impulsivity of adhd - the regretted things blurted out or typed and enter is hit

sp - ideal jobs for ADHD people?

lawyer

I have read that IT world is full of adhd people- must be all the dual core processors? multi taksing?

DJ

I don;t know how anyone with ADHD can work at a job where access to the internet exists and not just spend all day distracted by WEB WORLDWIDE

I've already read everything

http://www.chadd.org/understanding-adhd/for-adults/workplace-issues.aspx

a pretty good read

what are the steps one one takes to determine whether they have ADD/ADHD? just talk to my doctor?

I think any kind of mental health professional can diagnose, but only an actual psychiatrist can prescribe. It may take some shopping around to find someone who's able to provide efficacious extra-medicinal therapy in that arena (my meds doctor is, respectfully, useless in that particular arena).

You're diagnosed based on your self-reported symptoms and the degree to which they negatively affect your life over the long term... there are some tests too but since there's no single bio mechanism for ADHD, it's a bit of a subjective decision no matter what.

In my case, after self-reporting I took a cognitive assessment, and was determined to have ADD based on having lower scores in some tasks compared to others.

i just started therapy again on monday and one of the things we are going to look into is whether i have add/adhd. i strongly suspect i do, it has taken a long time to figure this out but when i reflect back on how i've managed (or failed to manage) different tasks, obligations, and goals there are pretty clear patterns that have been present since i was a kid. so i am happy that i am finally going to look into this and determine what would help me.

what have you found to be helpful? do you take medications? do they help? are they harmful?

Best of luck, marcos. ADD diagnosis was the most revelatory thing ever for me and gave me a starting point for tackling any number of issues I'd previously seen as disparate and unrelated.

I am on Ritalin, I've personally found it to be stunningly helpful, and I've suffered nothing more serious than occasional dry mouth from having taken it.

A protip I discovered for myself: upload a white noise mp3 onto your music player of choice and utilize it anytime you feel your attention is compromised by auditory distractions.

thanks old lunch and good to hear about your positive experience w/ ritalin!

One bonus with the Rit is that it's technically 'use as needed'. I maintain a regular regimen but you can go on and off it without having to worry about side effects. Which is a consideration that has always made me wary of antidepressants.

I work in an open plan office, which is...a strain at the best of times, but I can safely assert that it would be an unmanageable situation for me without medication.

My son was diagnosed with ADHD by a developmental pediatrician at age, um, three? Three is way early, but it made sense at the time.

This is on top of his existing genetic intellectual disability (https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/gene/KDM5C#conditions) He's in constant motion, very impulsive, hampered from learning by short attention span. He's almost seven now: nonverbal, epileptic, with sleep apnea and general developmental delays.

For a while we thought treating the ADHD would help the other areas (chill him out, give him ways to catch up developmentally). His week or so on Adderall was a screaming, destructive nightmare, so we took him off that.

Currently he has Clonidine for ADHD and Trileptal for seizures. Both need to be given at bedtime (they just put him to sleep otherwise), and we are seeing very positive results. Better behavior, more reading and writing, getting closer to toilet-training. When in noisy situations we've started giving him earplugs to reduce the overstimulation; that seems to be helping.

Some of the impulsiveness is diminishing - last week he drank from an open cup without spilling on purpose. He's getting through the school day without potty accidents (but hasn't transferred that to home yet). In my world that constitutes progress.

check yr email marcos

I was diagnosed with ADD (or ADHD inattentive-type ) when I was a teen. Put me on Ritalin, which didn't make much of a difference because I wasn't actually trying to DO ANYTHING back then. I didn't care about doing good in school, so even if I was on the right kind of medicine, I wasn't applying myself toward anything. Stopped taking Ritalin after a year or two and just went about my life to mixed results.

I recently came across all this old paperwork where the psychiatrist was discussing my diagnosis and it hit me with stunning clarity - this is a huge part of why my life is still so ramshackle as I'm approaching 40. Now that I can see the connections between this diagnosis and my behavior and the things that are going on inside my brain, I really want to get back into treatment for it. I'm currently using all my medical money to pay for braces for my kid though. Some day.

Regarding ritalin though, I'm scared to try it. I also have a huge insomnia problem and I'm worried a stimulant could make that go badly.

most ritalin variants don't last super long in your lboodstream, the type they usually start you on is like... 4 hours? when i started on it i took one to wake up and another around lunch to get me thru the day. no sleeping problems, if anyting the "down" made sleeping easier. search my name on this thread for more of my thoughts on it, all of it stands except for holy fuck i am so much fatter and older than i was then (that was 2007?!)

seems to be basically impossible to get a diagnosis in the uk unless your an upper-middle class naughty child

I sent more specifics in my email marcos, but one thing I will say I have found really useful is that, since ADD is often triggered by anxiety, try to identify the source of the anxiety. Sometimes it is a specific thing you need to get done that you are apprehensive about doing, and when you do that thing, it unblocks you and makes it easier to concentrate on other things.

check yr email marcos

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Wednesday, April 4, 2018 2:58 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thank you!

ymp <3

ADD and anxiety and depression are most definitely comorbid ime, and it can be difficult at times to determine which is triggering which. I know from my own experience that the frustration of trying to overcome the ADD symptoms (or dwelling on the extent to which I'm failing to do so) can often trigger the other two.

I take 10mg of Ritalin twice a day and it doesn't affect my sleep at all. They're my 'getting stuff done at work' and 'getting stuff done after work' doses, and the latter has plenty of time to fade away before bedtime.

Cool. Good info.

I started seeing a psychiatrist for clinical depression years ago and tried several different anti-depressants to no avail, stopped drinking and drugs altogether and suffered until one day in desperation, I took one of my son's Vyvanse and suddenly everything changed. My wife noticed a change within hours. I was finally paying attention to her. I think my ADHD manifested itself as depression because whenever I wasn't engaged in something that held my interest, my thoughts would turn to how terrible everything was. I've been on vyvanse and Lexapro for around 5 years since. my psychiatrist wasn't aware of a connection between depression & ADHD at the time, but was of the mindset that whatever works to combat depression is worthwhile. And since both my father and son were diagnosed as ADHD, it made sense that I would have it too.

ymp that does sound like progress. part of the impetus for questioning whether i have adhd has been the work we're doing w/ my two sons - the older one w/ autism and the younger one, if not autism, then prob ADHD or at least some autism traits. thinking about some of their challenges, the genetic overlap, and considering okay yea that might make sense when i think about my life too