Is ADHD a real disorder?

I'm absolutely not saying you or anyone else's positive experiences aren't real and great! just that experiences like mine also exist but are hopefully in the minority

Oh, I know! I'm sorry that it hasn't been that great for you. :/

there are complicating factors for sure and I def need some more holistic (rolleyes) treatment

this stuff is so hard to talk about I wish we had a better vocabulary for it than what psychiatry gives us

I'm only just noticing how adhd my posts are but oh my god

I'm glad they are helping so many people, I might have done better at school or work in the past if I'd had access to them (or not but who knows)

This thread is an amazing resource, and if people feel comfortable to respond I'd like to know what kind of medication has helped you (or your kids) specifically? I had a very frustrating experience with Ritalin IR because at the time it was the only ADHD drug available where I lived. Haven't tried any other medication but I feel like I really need something.

I started with biphentin which a) was fun, but b) caused major digestive issues for me and caused a massive crash in the afternoons (irritable and snappy). Switched to Vyvanse which was way easier on my system & had a gentler comedown. Stayed at a really low dose for a long time which I thought was fine but wasn’t up for the task really - am now on 40mg AM and a 20mg afternoon booster which seems about perfect.

The biphentin might have worked better had my doc understood about ramping up — he started me at the “average” dose whatever that was instead of starting at a low dose and working up. I think the shock to my system was responsible for 75% of the negative effect. Anyhow, Vyvanse is great for me. Lucky I found my “forever drug” after just two tries.

Yeah I am also on vyvanse. 60mg in the am. I did write my doc about it wearing off around 4 and wondering about a spilt dose like you’re doing.

I haven’t had any negative side effects from Vyvanse though it does kill my appetite. So effectively that it’s used as a treatment for binge eating disorder! I get hungry at night so it’s ok. I do have to remind myself to eat now though.

I tried Ritalin first and it was fine but I didn’t think it was quite effective enough. Had no bad side effects on that either.

I can’t remember what my kid tried, but if I remember right there are two main stimulant based types of medication. There are a lot of different variations: time delays, chewable, length of effectiveness, etc. If one type of stimulant doesn’t work, they try the other kind. If that doesn’t work they’ll try a nonstimulant. Stimulant meds work very well for most people with ADHD, the nonstimulants chance of helping is smaller.

additudemag.com has a lot of good info.

Yes. Both of the drugs I’ve been on are the stimulant type.

i am slightly worried about the effects of stimulants on my 14 yo’s sleep. one of his saving graces is that he sleeps like an absolute champ.

My son, who is 12, gets Focalin (dexmethyphenidate) and Intuniv (guanfacine). Apparently this is a common pairing. Focalin for hyperactivity and Intuniv to help with impulsiveness.

At the time these were prescribed, he was doing things like waking up in the middle of the night and pouring all the laundry detergent onto the floor.

Nowadays things are better but his behavior can still be a rollercoaster - at times, I feel like things are mostly under control and he's sweet and good-natured and cheerful. Other times we just have to understand that he'll be having a hard time with basically everything, and there will be a DEFCON-2-level meltdown over something like wearing socks. Or not wearing socks.

If from time to time we forget a day or miss a dose when something runs out, I do not notice a difference.

I think his biggest issue right now is anxiety, as opposed to ADHD or whatever. Because he is nonverbal, we don't always know exactly what is going on with him. But we do know when he craves reassurance, because he will ask numbingly repetitive questions, to which he already knows the answer.

What is big(gest) water in world?

What is big(gest) bee in world?

Who will pick up Sam after school?

Why is Dad old?

Lather, rinse, repeat, hundreds of times a day. This was cute 10 years ago. Sometimes it's exhausting, but it's the journey we're on.

Was on vyvanse for the longest time until we switched insurance packages and the price went up from $35 to like $185.

So now I take adderall -- Which Is Definitely Not The Same Thing -- until vyv goes generic this summer.

Yeah while everything else involved with mental health care in the UK is an absolute shitshow, all drugs that are covered under the NHS are £9. I actually haven’t had to pay for my meds yet since I’m still going through titration. The cheap meds are a definite positive.

I'm excelling at work in a way I've always known I was capable of but never managed to achieve and it's completely changed my outlook on what I can and want to do.

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 13:29 (yesterday) link

Hey, this is really great to hear, and I very much relate to it! My career completely turned around when I finally found the right med (first couple weren't right for me). I also relate to what you said about realizing all the needless childhood frustration, although for some reason I don't wish I took meds as a child, maybe just because it felt like a decision I really needed to affirmatively make for myself, understanding why I was making it and knowing what the drawbacks were.

One tip for you: even with the meds, you will still likely experience periods that are relatively more of a struggle. I find the meds kind of serve as a safety net or a springboard, where I don't really fall all the way into the depths even in the bad times. I also encourage you to use other tools to supplement the medication like making sure you get enough sleep, regular exercise (supposedly the research says 30 mins or more with your HR above 130bpm), and I also find limiting drinking and not smoking weed helps a lot.

But it's so nice to suddenly realize "oh, it's possible to just sit down at my computer and do something, it's possible to just go get the dishes done without procrastinating it, it's possible to just DO stuff without all kinds of barriers, I wasn't lazy all that time after all" etc.

I think his biggest issue right now is anxiety, as opposed to ADHD or whatever.

― pomplamoose and circumstance (Ye Mad Puffin)

i'm gonna be honest i have trouble telling apart the anxiety and the adhd and the autism (i've seen people this year start self-IDing as "AuDHD", autism/adhd). i get overstimulated and can't focus and everything seems like too much and that causes me anxiety, but a lot of other things cause me anxiety too, basically i feel like i'm in a constant state of high-level existential terror/hypervigilance, and it's like a chicken/egg thing, you know? my inability to get things done feels less like "distraction" and more like "all-consuming, paralyzing fear". this week.

the meds are good... i think? sometimes? i've had, they've helped me. in the past. and the fact that i'm not doing good now i don't know if i can blame the meds because there's always, you know, _confounding variables_. and i don't expect the meds to solve all my problems but a lot of the other things people advise sort of assume that i'm able to get out of bed in the morning and that's kind of a stretch.

if i'd had adderall as a child, would that have helped? maybe. it's a little ways down the list, past "parents that weren't abusive", "a culture that understood what autism actually is and was able to treat autistic people with empathy and understanding", "trans rights", etc. confounding variables.

anyway your son has a lot more of all those things than i did, i'm guessing.

Lol I read this thread, went to Instagram, and immediately got served this ad:

https://takestasis.com/pages/stasis?ad_id=23854232224820214&campaign_id=23854232039420214&fbclid=PAAaZobI2q48WjOxG5awoZNaOLNX18UXn3XImCX1_cGYCvjQH8ObG5Xe3y19U_aem_th_AUJAy6TaQFFrN3n7IER3_lRU2lL5wfaTAqvAaTYGQ6ghhTGdx1FdlCnlzRdSh8UlK4FT5c--lUrLtRvNS7Hl1_tP&utm_campaign=Instagram_Reels&utm_content=23854232039420214&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_source=ig&utm_term=23854232145440214

well there's one marketing person who's gen-x

you know i never thought of it this way but i do have a number of friends whose eggs cracked as a result of taking drugs

truth in advertising i guess

Oh, and I forgot, I’m also on 300mg/day bupropion, which has been my main mood stabilizer for 15+ years. The combo of bup and Vyvanse works well for me.

Bumping up to 70mg on the vyvanse

not smoking weed helps a lot . . .

Erm

Really? I feel like smoking helps me!

Whatever works for you. I feel foggy for a few days every time I do it now, edible, smoke, whatever.

I've known people who become much sharper and more focused when they're high. That's definitely not me. I have trouble reading when I'm high. That's probably why I don't do it.

weed increases my muffled internal monologue (one thread!) to a hundred-mile-an-hour crisply tuned maximum volume broadcast, which completely incapacitates me. so probably shouldn't smoke it.

sometimes I like to be incapacitated if I want to watch a film or listen to music without my sober monkey brain ruining it with thoughts. I find hash better than weed and cooking/eating better than smoking when it comes to anxiety the full body high really helps. as long as there's not much movement required that night or most of the next morning

obv if it's not fun don't do it

the weed is too strong now, none of that dodgy soapbar hash we smoked in the 90s, just one toke and I'm done for.

just do it more and it will even out as your tolerance grows at the expense or your memory and productivity

without it I just drink which has similar incapacitating effects but is way less fun and waking up feeling like nicely toasted bagel is far preferable to waking up feeling like a gross thirsty lizard zombie

I haven't seen soapbar stuff since I was 15 and it was probably mostly turpentine, the hash is much nicer these days

without it I just drink which has similar incapacitating effects but is way less fun and waking up feeling like nicely toasted bagel is far preferable to waking up feeling like a gross thirsty lizard zombie

This lol. But for me it really really quiets my internal monologue and quells my anxiety and the foggy feeling in the morning, if present, goes away quickly for me. I'm a morning person though so that might be part of it.

the weed is too strong now, none of that dodgy soapbar hash we smoked in the 90s, just one toke and I'm done for.

― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length)

for real, my GF smoked on Monday and she was high for SIX FUCKING HOURS

this would be fine of any of us could go six hours without a major emotional crisis

though she actually says being high as fuck helped

Seattle speedballs (weed + coffee) while seemingly counterintuitive, works well helping me fight that morning shit, or just pushing it back enough so I can move and get the lights on (so to speak).

lol I didn't know there was a name for that

So I ran out of meds and they were supposed to come yesterday and didn't and nobody is there to receive them today so I have no idea when I'm going to get them and man, is the difference ever noticeable. I couldn't concentrate at all yesterday and I was fidgeting like nuts on the train this morning. :/

I'm really sorry! I hope you can get hold of some as soon as possible. whatever I feel about my meds I know how hard it is to go without them (I don't know that MH professionals necessarily always do with these drugs?) going through withdrawal is never fun but it's particularly frustrating when it's unplanned

it seems to be happening a lot more to me lately due to supply and/or distribution issues (in the UK this is being blamed on brexit which may be a big part of it) but also "automation" gutting services even more than before (the email requests I need to make which used to be read by humans are now clearly done by some AI thing which keeps fucking up by picking out the wrong key words it's infuriating)

(by AI I mean some algorithms being followed either by a program or by people paid poverty wages it's hard to tell)

Yeah luckily I won't get withdrawals I'll just be a little spacey and unfocused until they arrive. I've heard about that too (for example they wanted to add Wellbutrin to my drugs but you can't get it right now here) but this was because DPD rang the wrong damn doorbell. :/

I've never been medicated for ADHD, and going on meds would be tricky because I have some heart stuff that means I can't take stimulants. But I'm currently on a low dose of prednisone for migraine reasons, and it effectively functions as ADHD medication. It's so cool to have something like a normal person's sharpness and ability to do tasks when they're supposed to be done. I only have about a week left, and I'm trying to make the most of it and maybe get some curriculum planning done for next year before I have to go off it.

Hope you get your meds soon ENBB.

I know prednisone can mess with sleep and make you wired so maybe there's something in it that functions similarly to a stimulant? That's interesting!

Still no meds. Now prob Tues at earliest. First delivery where the guy rang the wrong doorbell was a week ago for fuck's sake.

How many doorbells do you have ?!

One but it's an apartment in an attached house so two doors next to one another with 4 bells so kind of confusing but not so much that a delivery person shouldn't be able to figure out which is which. They're labeled.

It's fine - I have tomorrow off but it's frustrating. I realize now how much they help me. One of the biggest changes I noticed is that it basically completely quiets a lot of my constant racing negative thoughts. Those have been back in full force. Also - I can't fucking sit still.

FWIW, I got an apple watch in a prime day deal and I've found it really helpful in managing my distraction so far - I try to just keep the watch (which has cellular) and not the phone handy whenever possible, and it removes that ability to impulsively "check" seven different apps and scroll.

I stopped taking meds for ADHD a long time ago so now my life is an intricate series of alarms and timers, which mostly works? Also, working from home where I can have multiple distractions (TV, dog and cats walking around, kids if theyre home) definitely helps my work concentration. External chaos is apparently my calm place.

Oh man, alarms and timers save my life, even with the meds and the exercise and everything I do to try to mitigate it. I often set multiple for a single work call or kid pickup or whatever - ten minute warning, five minute warning, one minute warning, etc. I should probably also write on my hand "MAKING COFFEE TAKES MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES, DON'T START MAKING COFFEE AFTER THE FIVE MINUTE ALARM, DO IT AFTER THE TEN MINUTE ALARM"

on my cell phone (which is pretty old) you can name your alarms, so why not just make the ten-minute one "coffee"?

how do you remember to set your alarms and timers? i keep forgetting

My local library recently had a seminar about procrastination. I forgot to register for it.

I set alarms but then I just ignore them when they go off.

Meds arrived last week or the week before and the difference is remarkable.

I often set multiple for a single work call or kid pickup or whatever - ten minute warning, five minute warning, one minute warning, etc.

how do you remember to set your alarms and timers? i keep forgetting

― Kate (rushomancy), Thursday, 27 July 2023 14:58 (four days ago) link

Sheer terror after doing stuff like forgetting to pick up my daughter at dance class on time, missing work calls, etc. I always set them right away.

this ^^^